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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.
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?
Thorium can help.
How did you get to be so shit at trolling?
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
You're outer category delusional.
The projected sea level rise is up to about a meter by the year 2100. Not in the form of a sudden tidal wave arriving next tuesday, but a few milimeters per decade.
Think of the world 100 years ago. Think how different agriculture was then, how different cities were. A century is a very long time on the scale of a human life and culture.
Let's adapt to a potentially global and humankind-annihiliating catastrophy once the methane under ice in Siberia starts to melt and gets released to the atmosphere. It's already bubbling out, you can see it with your eyes.
Earth will go on, some life possibly will also go on but humans are facing the business end of a shotgun at the moment.
(...)
You're harming your cause with such extreme and patently ridiculous alarmism. Did you know that up to the start of the Pleistocene, there were no permanent ice caps on either pole? Was the earth in the Pliocene an uninhabitable wasteland? We are living in the Holocene interglacial stage of an ice age today. Today's climate isn't the norm, it isn't the only climate in which life is possible. In fact, every species alive today, except for perhaps a handful of human domesticated crops, already existed during the last ice age, and lived through the transition. Before you bring up the standard response about the rate of climate change being completely unique in the history of the earth, this too is false. The transition from the last glacial to the Holocene interglacial was just as sudden. Vast subarctic tundras, built up over a period of 100,000 years (the duration of the last glaciation) thawed and became exposed (in fact, some of it is still frozen deep under the surface in central Europe!).
The environment is facing a number of terrible human induced crises - primarily habitat loss, over-fishing, and pollution. Yes, many species will disappear by the end of the century, even if the climate stops changing today, even if the climate goes back to the way it was before the industrial revolution. If you live long enough, you will find that a slight increase in temperature will have been a minor influence compared to these things.
The projected sea level rise is up to about a meter by the year 2100. Not in the form of a sudden tidal wave arriving next tuesday, but a few milimeters per decade.
1m = 1000mm. Assuming that by "a few" you mean 5mm per decade that's only 50mm/century.
To get a 1m rise we are looking at 100mm/decade, or 10mm/year. It doesn't sound like a lot but the cost of dealing with it is going to be huge.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
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.
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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.
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.