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Norway's Army Battles Global Warming By Going Vegetarian
cold fjord writes "It looks like no more spam, spam, spam for Norway's warriors... at least on Mondays. The Daily Caller reports, 'Norway's military is taking drastic steps to ramp up its war against global warming. The Scandinavian country announced its soldiers would be put on a vegetarian diet once a week to reduce the military's carbon footprint. "Meatless Monday's" has already been introduced at one of Norway's main military bases and will soon be rolled out to others, including overseas bases. It is estimated that the new vegetarian diet will cut meat consumption by 150 tons per year. "It's a step to protect our climate," military spokesman Eystein Kvarving told AFP. "The idea is to serve food that's respectful of the environment." ... The United Nations says that livestock farming is responsible for 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Cutting meat consumption, environmentalists argue, would help stem global warming and improve the environment." — The Manchester Journal reports, "The meatless Monday campaign launched in 2003 as a global non-profit initiative in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University to promote personal and environmental health by reducing meat consumption.'"
If Norway was really going to make a dent in Global Warming, they would stop pumping up oil.
I wonder what the impact would be if everyone in the world would have a meatless monday. Of course, in some regions in the world not that much meat is eaten already now, but I expect that the total would be a significant difference.
Sweden annexed Norway without fighting after shelling Norwegian formations with cans of corned beef.
The impact on global climate would be NOTHING MEASURABLE whatsoever. Several years ago I read China is about to launch 700+ coal power stations by 2020. Sure, China will decommission other stations in that period, but the overall trend is obvious. Even if the whole Norway, not just the army, stops eating anything and even stops breathing to reduce the so called carbon footprint, the impact would be ... nothing. China alone will more than compensate :)
almost everyone apart from the poorest in countries where its common to be a vegetarian anyways?
I'm in thailand. pretty much everyone eats meat. sure, it might be just chicken livers bbq'd and bought from a street stall but I'd count that as meat.
of course if they adjust rest of the days so that the average meat protein for week/month/year stays the same it will not make any difference whatsoever to anything.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Lets just switch to nuclear power and be done with it. After all, it's the only realistic way to become a Type I civilization...
Yes, because there are zero downsides to nuclear power... Compared to fossil fuel it is sort of clean, to be sure, but the byproducts have to be managed for decades or more and if something does go wrong it tends to go wrong rather badly. So yes, it may be not quite as obviously horrible as fossil fuel.
Personally, I would rather current research focus more on solar, wind, tidal, geothermal -- rather than to continue to rely nuclear power.
Oh, and while they make a show of "green research" it's probably not such a great good idea to rely on the current suppliers of oil, gas, coal, etc. to actually do this. For instance, imagine my complete lack of surprise that they would much prefer hydrogen-fueled cars over battery-powered. There may actually be valid arguments for this, but from their point of view it is just too convenient that they already own all infrastructure for distribution and supply of gas/liquids to vehicles whereas they typically have no stake in the electrity grid.
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
Vegetarianism is a great threat to the environment precisely because it is more efficient at providing food. The argument is a bit counter-intuitive, but bear with me.
Being more efficient, it allows to feed more people with the same land. Alternatively, one could feed the same number of people with less land.
The problem is that in whole human history, any increase in efficiency has not been used to reduce the human footprint, but simply to increase the number of people until any advantage created by the increased efficiency is lost. A larger number of people don't just need the same land as before, but, they also need more water, more metals, cause more emissions and generally consume a lot more. Therefore, the final effect, just for the increase of people, will be a worsening of environmental conditions.
This is exactly what has happened quite recently. The book "The population bomb" is often derided for inaccurately predicting mass starvation.
This wasn't so much because the calculations were wrong but, rather, because a massive increase in efficiency of food production, the so called Green Revolution.
The Green Revolution would have allowed the same number of people to live with a much smaller footprint but, guess what happened ?
The population grew instead to match the new capability and the environment is in more in trouble than ever. Plus we now have a much bigger population to maintain, with ever growing expectations.
This is applies to any increase in efficiency, not just food and vegetarianism. When you are urged to save more water, food or energy, whatever is saved never goes to a better environment (it might, temporarily, until the population grows to match the new limit), it just goes to grow more people and make matter worse.
So, please, waste more, it is very damaging to the environment, but the alternative is far worse.
Personally, I would rather current research focus more on solar, wind, tidal, geothermal -- rather than to continue to rely nuclear power.
The problem with all of those is that there are a limited number of locales where they can work well, and all of them except for geothermal are transient. That means power storage, which means batteries, which means toxic chemical waste. It may or may not be as dangerous on a per-volume basis as nuclear waste (someone more knowledgeable than me would have to answer that), but there would certainly be a hell of a lot more of it.
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
How will the troops live without lutefisk?
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
You may want to try reading this year :)
You must have missed it but China recently made an announcement about not building any more coal fired power stations. That's a very major change and completely pulls the rug out from under your argument - so what may have been a good point in July just makes no sense at all now.
Decrease of 150 tons of meat. Global production of meat 180 million tons. 150/180,000,000 - 0.00005%. Decrease in greenhouse gasses: 0.00005*.18 =0.000009%. Get a million of those together and you would have something.
Off the top of my head I can't think of a whole lot of options for locally-produced protein in Norway. If you eliminate the animal proteins, what's left? How much carbon is Norway saving if they have to ship more nuts and beans in from overseas, particularly if the alternative is wild-caught fish?
Nitpick: power storage does not necessarily mean batteries. Flywheels can also store energy (especially with magnetic bearings and using carbon fiber in a vacuum - eg, a 600 kg flywheel, with a diameter of 50cm, turning at 30,000 rpm, can store 92 MJ - 26 kWh - of energy.) So can pumped storage (pump water up a hill, run it down again when you need the energy.) Or you could use a large thermal mass (eg: solar thermal: the sun heats a substance of some sort, which in turn boils water to generate steam, which is used to drive the generator - the substance can be designed in such a way as to store enough heat to last through the night.)
Whether these are practical or not is another question entirely, and not one I'm going to try to answer here with five minutes' research.
Also: not all batteries necessarily generate toxic waste. A lead acid battery (for example) can be almost completely recycled at the end of its useful life - the only component that can't be recycled is the paper separators wrapped around the lead plates (the fibers are reduced in size so much by the acid, they can't be reused.) Of course, there's the minor issue of getting everybody to get off their backsides and actually recycle the batteries, but in an industrial setting, this shouldn't be too hard...
Thorium can help.
Just use the radiation equivalent of the Drake equation, fill it full of made up numbers, and calculate how many are going to die.
of responsibility
They need to formulate graphene into a device for ultradense storage of hydrogen. Then they could use their hydro-electric to separate the hydrogen from the carbon, make graphene gas (hydrogen gas) tanks from the carbon, put the hydrogen in it an sell 'em pre-filled to owners of Toyota fuel cell cars. That would help cut down on the feelings of responsibility for global warming.
Completely messed up that reply, was meant for a completely different guy. Why can't I delete or edit anything here????
Well fuck it, nothing can be done. We might as well give up and prepare to die as there is no cumulative effect when combating global warming. Goodbye cruel world...
Or you could stop complaining and adapt to a slightly warmer world.
How did you get to be so shit at trolling?
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
This has nothing to do with global warming. Its an excuse to change diet of people who can't object to something less natural than eating meat or fish.
I predict a revolt amongst the ranks
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
This is getting ridiculous.
Lets just switch to nuclear power and be done with it.
After all, it's the only realistic way to become a Type I civilization...
Yeah, that would be the reasonable solution for the US. Norway already gets 98% of their electricity from hydroelectric power plants, they can't really do anything more to make their electricity production have less impact on greenhouse gas emissions.
What they can do is to switch to more electric vehicles and the richer Norwegians have already started to do that switch as a status symbol. Apart from that there isn't much more they can do except stop eating meat and reduce oil exports.
I guess they could fart less but that will have a greater impact on the local smell than the environment.
there's another way and currently the biggest way to store energy: artificial lakes.
problem with them? same people who are hardliners against coal are hardliners against them.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Any solution to global warming, or any movement to combat an issue affecting humanity should involve the following three countries...China, India and USA...these are the three biggest countries as far as population goes and can have the most impact - right now or in immediate future.
What Norway or other smaller Scandinavian countries propose and follows is commendable...but its nothing more than good PR.
As far as vegetarian / vegan goes, India is more or less "Shuddh Shakahari" - Hindi/Sanskrit for "Pure Vegetarian".
Tat Tvam Asi
I think "religious choice" is a bit strong. it would be more correct to say that it is part of the furniture for adherents to some religions. I know plenty of people who are not religious and also don't like to eat meat. There is anyway a great military tradition of avoiding meat; Roman Legionaries for example were pretty hardcore guys but hated meat and if they were forced to eat it through circumstances (run out of other things to eat) then unrest and perhaps even near-mutinies were not uncommon.
"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace." V.Stone, Microsoft Corporation
Frag the mess sergeant.
"Whenever the cause of the people is entrusted to professors, it is lost." ~ V.I. Lenin
Compared to the average coal mine accidents not so much Aberfan killed 116 children and 28 adults in 66 and in china hundreds die every year in mining accidents (and thats not counting those miners who will die early from silicosois)
Seriously, what is the basis for this idea?
AFIAK, live stock are not fed coal or petrol. So any carbon that they emit must come from the CO2 that was stored in te plants that they eat during there lifetime. So how does that add to global warming? If the plant material was not eaten by the live stock, it would have been eaten by other animals (like humans) or would have rotted away.
Humans can't directly digest most plant material so we have to burn fuel to cook it, thus producing CO2. Also raw plant material has less calories/kg then most meats, we would have to transport more to feed all people in the world. If other animals animals ate the plants I don't see why the would not produce the same amount of gasses compared to live stock. If it was rotting away, some of the material would eventually become coal, but most of it would enter the atmosphere as methane.
So how am I wrong here?
Pumped storage is expensive and requires flooding areas whose inhabitants/users might object to ie flooding a glen in Scotland to provide power for the English might not go down to well
When i were in conscription (5 years ago in the kings guard) they served fish every tuesday. I have just recently began eating fish again, and i am still curious to what they did to that fish to make it taste so awful that i completely stopped eating fish.
you got any idea how many stomach staplings they are doing in india per dat? they got plenty of rich people who can afford to eat and who eat meat too.
the problem is that the only sport they care about nobody gives a fuck about...
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I'm sorry, but not really sure what your point is. Clearly I'm not saying fossil fuel winning is safe. You cite good examples of its dangers. I also remember some suboptimal outcome for BP in the Gulf of Mexico.
But I was arguing that nuclear energy has potential risks which are huge relative to things like tidal/hydro, solar and wind. For example,
The battle to contain the contamination and avert a greater catastrophe ultimately involved over 500,000 workers and cost an estimated 18 billion rubles.[2] The official Soviet casualty count of 31 deaths has been disputed, and long-term effects such as cancers and deformities are still being accounted for.
source
There was also a little mishap in Japan which made the news.
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
Lunches for a week
Monday: Chicken day
Tuesday: Pork or Chicken day
Wednesday: Soup day, usually with meat
Thursday: Pork or Chicken day
Friday: Fish day
Saturday: Veal day
Sunday: Pork day
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
How much outrage would there be if this were reversed, and perhaps for health reasons, the Norwegian Army would force vegetarians/vegans to eat meat once a week?
And nobody is pretending there is a good reason like health concerns behind this move. They're saving some money feeding their soldiers cheaper foods, while others have no such requirements.
Let's see all the politicians strictly holding themselves to Meatless Mondays first. Then we'll talk.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Translation: DO NOT WANT!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
So how am I wrong here?
I will give it a shot...
It is not really a question of you being right or wrong, it is more an issue of you just seeing the 'surface', and not the underneath workings.
'On the surface', you are correct in all of your statements/arguments, but 'on the surface' you are not accounting for the 'underneath workings' of how livestock are feed for market, and the greenhouse contributions caused indirectly from that process.
It takes considerable energy to plant, grow, harvest, process, and transport the 'plants' (think high protein 'plants' like grains (here in the USA, primarily corn) to the feed lots where thousands of animals are confined and force fed.
Do a little research on feedlots, and you will start seeing a bigger picture.
If the food animals were free roaming, and just eating what's naturally growing, you would be correct, but that's not the case.
There are a lot of other factors involved, but this should be enough to get you started.
I apologize for not explaining better, but best I could do this early in the day. :-)
I hope this clears up your question.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
But the population isn't really increasing in the western world where we have all the food we can eat. By your reasoning western populations should be increasing a lot.
The population is increasing alarmingly in the UK. It has risen 20% in my lifetime, with vast areas of countryside built over in thet time A further 17% increase officially predicted in the next 25 years.
The number of people will stop increasing when also poor countries have enough food and good health care so that parents are confident that the children they get will reach adulthood.
Wishful thinking. It is culturally ingrained in many of those societies that the number of children you have is a status symbol, a virility statement. Osama bin Laden's father had 56 children and it wasn't because he was worried about health care.
Which means a starter meal needs to be carried, and one that digests quicly enough to allow you to eat the rest of the meal.
So, they can eat a chocolate bar before they eat their hamburger.
Norway doesn't exactly have a very busy military, so I guess they can get away with turning their troops into skinny little weaklings. They'll be issued MacBook Airs next.
Livestock are fed crops that are grown using fertilisers that are made from oil. The fertiliser needs to be extracted, processed and transported. Livestock need large amounts of land to grow the crops they eat, and this is a large part of why the rainforests and wetlands around the globe are being destroyed contributing further to increased CO2 and methane emissions, and reducing carbon capture in soils. When the livestock eat the crops they turn a large proportion into methane which is a worse greenhouse gas than CO2. It is an order of magnitude more efficient just to grow crops and feed them to people instead of wasting 90% by passing it through animals first.
Korma: Good
How many vegetarians have you seen with the muscle mass to be an effective soldier? I've plenty of vegetarian friends, and they all look like twigs.
It was me.
Nice anecdote, but there are also plenty of successful vegetarian athletes.
That is the WORST day to enforce this on. The only thing that prevents me from aborting the Monday morning mission is Bacon.
In a pinch, a fried Spam sandwich will do. No meat at all on Mondays? They are trying to start World War 3!
No, Christianity does NOT have similar rules for non-Christians. Some who have claimed to follow Christianity may have, but they have to make it up. (creative excuses for discrimination seems all too common for most humans through history.)
Ghettos started as segregation of Jews, in places they were not treated well, in other gettos they were treated VERY well, encouraged to settle, and left alone to practice Judaism without restraint.
Distance from my home and work: 16 miles
Distance from my home and nearest gas station: 3.5 miles
Distance from my home to nearest grocery store: 10 miles
No public transit available. Round trip to grocery store would cost ~$40 in a taxi if one was available at that time.
I live closer to work than some people. My commute is shorter in time due to less congestion on the roads I have to drive on.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Flying drones and driving round in humvees doesn't take a huge amount of muscle. Plus, use your favourite search engine to find 'Olympic athlete vegetarians'. There are world champions in fields as diverse as cycling, sprinting, marathon, tennis and wrestling. Your friends probably just care enough about becoming muscle bound.
Korma: Good
Why not just put on a dress and swish around for a bit?
Is there an energy use study that factors out transportation energy usage? You blew by this difference pretty easily but it must have a huge impact.
I come here for the love
A fun aside: When I was growing up in Poland during the communist era, 98% of the population identified themselves as Catholic and subsequently didn't eat meat on Fridays. The communist regime saw the Catholic Church as its enemy, it ordered all public institutions with cafeterias to serve meat on Fridays and have Meatless Mondays.
Mass transit = twice as slow, when only one vehicle is involved. If you have to transfer to a second mass transit vehicle, figure the trip will take three times as long. Who has this kind of time to waste?
Biking is great, assuming (1) distance is doable, (2) you have a safe place for your bike, (3) you are provided with shower facilities. But if you are provided all of these, you are in a microscopic minority. And how do you carry stuff on a bike? Like other adults?
I lean more toward smaller vehicles, and electric ones...
I come here for the love
it is just too convenient that they already own all infrastructure for distribution and supply of gas/liquids to vehicles
Well fuck, they'd (who was this again? you didn't specify) rather use already proven technologies instead of sinking billions into new battery technologies that won't even have the energy density anyway, than they would like to build then world economy to suit your mood. The heartless bastards.
Well fuck, they'd (who was this again? you didn't specify) rather use already proven technologies instead of sinking billions into new battery technologies that won't even have the energy density anyway
Actually, I did specify, though perhaps a bit too casually; the current suppliers of oil, gas, coal, etc.
Also, if you think there have been no significant improvements to "proven technologies" in recent years then, respectfully, you have not been paying attention.
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
Ah the little mishap where no one died caused by a tsunami that killed >15k People
Vegetarians? Is Norway truly that mentally unstable? I guess they are trying to kill off their army .... such a stupid country.
Wish it were Sunday
That's my fun day
My burger-on-a-bun day
It's just another Meatless Monday.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
Ah the little mishap where no one died caused by a tsunami that killed >15k People
Wait, are you declaring nuclear energy is safe by comparing, in terms of casualties, with a natural disaster of biblical proportion?
That said, the fallout (ha) of the reactor damage is still posing rather serious challenges, in case you hadn't noticed.
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
China has already solved that problem. You just forcibly relocate from their ancestral homes, to stacked concrete ice-cube trays in smog choked cities. If they refuse, you shoot them.
Good for you, I can't (edit).
I never doubted Indians have enough to eat to get fat, not sure what your point is. Also, I just relayed a comment from an Indian friend, I know nothing about the country.
Let me guess - who didn't grow up vegetarian and who put a lot of effort into eating the right things. According to a medical lecture somewhere under [URL] you get vital nutrients like amino acids much more easily and without doing all that research into your food when you also eat meat. URL: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0JRvRB-VkJ3yeSEdXpe9ew
http://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/questions/animal-or-vegetable-the-truth-about-protein and the one downside they note about meat, cholesterol and saturated fats, there was just recently an article where some leading figures in medicine debunked the whole thing. Or it was part of the controversy about the change in the recommendation for statins in the US, one of them. and by the way, quoting any individual study on pubmed is a sign that either you don't know what you are talking about, or you are deliberately misleading. and also, nobody doubts that (as an adult! children excepted) you can eat a healthy vegan (even!) diet. But you have to do a lot of research that when eating meat too you don't have to do to have all the nutrients.
It'll be pink uniforms next, followed by moisturiser rations and manbags. I hope they employ manicurists too.
The tanks will be replaced by Smart Cars and Nissan Figaros.
Having said that, it might make them more fierce in combat, especially if the enemy has better rations e.g. Halal kebabs with chili sauce.
Stick Men
Relatively speaking yes all power generation has a cost even the allegely "green" ones
...is that Norway has an army!
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
I mean that the vegetarianism itself is the religion. I would very much doubt that this is a policy dreamed up by someone who eats meat.
I wasn't suggesting mandatory vegetarianism, just more command emphasis on a varied diet.
I got to see military fattification in person from the 1981 to 2007.
What changed? The national diet. We used to be able to maintain a reasonably thin force with near-zero PT. Diet changes trashed that idea.
If you don't want hamplanet troops today, there are two mutually supporting ways to get a fit force.
Those are better diet, because diet can easily nullify exercise, and effective PT with careful emphasis on cardio and strength training while avoiding very expensive personnel injuries.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Because massive farming of uni-crops is environmentally friendly, or are all Norway's veggies taken from small, diverse, strictly organic farms?
And meanwhile, military vehicles are hardly known for the fuel and combustion efficiency.
Whatever. Wonder what the real reason is?
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.