In February this year and earlier in November 2002, I’ve maintained in this publication that the world would be a much better place and meat eaters would hardly die of withdrawal symptoms if the carnivores of the developed world just ate 10% less of their fellow mammals.
“If the world reduced its consumption of meat by a mere 10%, world hunger, topsoil depletion, rainforest destruction, the fouling of the planet with animal waste and pesticides would be greatly reduced and vast amounts of energy saved. Carbon emissions would tumble and untold millions of lives would be saved from premature deaths from heart disease, cancer, and a host of other degenerative conditions.”
I’m delighted to report that with Earth Day upon us, no less an authority than Britain’s most celebrated medical journal of record “The Lancet”, has come to the same conculsion.
“For the world’s high-income population, green-house gas emissions from meat eating warrant the same scrutiny as do those from driving and flying”, say the authors of the study, comprising researchers from Britain, Australia and Chile.
They go on to say that with global meat and milk production being on course to double by mid-centruy, the methane and nitrous oxide (that includes flatulence and gases from manure) is going to be just mega hot and putrid. Livestock already occupy a third of the world’s land surface. Agricultural greenhouse gases account for about 22% of all emissions. The study says that all it would take to stabilize agricultural emissions would be a 10% reduction in global meat consumption. There would also be other benefits, they say, such as lower rates of heart disease, colo-rectal cancer, obesity and the preservation of habitat for all kinds of species.
As the world’s farmers begin to run short of land for crop expansion the increasing demand for meat extends intensive agriculture into the tropical rain forests of South America, Africa and Asia. Rich people eating more top of the chain fish isn’t going to help as demand for swordfish, tuna, shrimp and salmon outstrips supply, stretches resources and depletes natural stocks in the ocean, already at crisis levels.
Utimately, says the report, people need to eat less of these foods. Is that so hard for the gluttonous West? As long ago as 1928 a Republican President promised all Americans a chicken in the pot. Time for a new American president to take some of the meat back off the table. Reclaiming national land, leased at peppercorn rents to free-loading cattle barons, would be a great place to start.
More on Dengue.....
The severity of the continuing dengue epidemic got a lot of mail in response to my article on the subject (BA). I reprint here one from BA’s own Ibu Kat, which sheds some further light.
Thanks for the story on dengue. Terrorism and climate change aside, I’ve always said it’ll be the insects that nail us in the end. I almost died of cerebral malaria in Africa many years ago, so have been anxious about the many mozzies that inhabit my riverside space here in Ubud. Nothing seems to faze them. Neem works for about a day. Live Liligundi has no effect, where do you get cakes of it? (see note below).
Several friends have had dengue here, all in the Pengosekan area. Interesting about BIMH also. I’ve had day surgery at Prima Medika and it was perfectly fine. Dr Djakra the oncologist is wonderful.
I was talking to John Fawcet the other day and he suggests that when people are facing medical treatment abroad, they should consider Perth as an option. It’s cheaper than Singapore and probably offers better care. My experience with Singapore is that the rate of missed and misdiagnosis is unacceptably high.
Note: Liligundi cakes at Jl. Danau Buyan banjar area in Sanur. Tel: 287 079, 288 346.
Some readers complained of anti-social developers leaving empty properties badly overgrown, with stagnant pools and infested with mosquitoes. I empathise big time. The property next to ours in Sanur is one such. Managed for the developer by Kantor Kita, a business services company, after 2 month’s of asking KK’s owner still steadfastly refuses to communicate let alone cut and spray, or even divulge the name of her client so we can go ask them ourselves. For a company making a pretty penny from overseas investors such recalcitrance betrays a remarkable lack of commercial acumen. It is also plain anti-social.... people die from dengue.
Don’t waste time on people like this, go straight to your village council and ask them to contact the laggard party. The last thing Balinese authorities want is for people overseas about to invest here to think they’re going to build their dream home and expire....and most will take action.
Tycoon Couple Ousted from Batujimbar
What is going on behind the walls of Bali’s premier and dowager residential estate? Apart from a sedate but welcome sense of renewal and incremental professionalisation, ParacelsusAsia learns that one of the more recent owners or leasors from Singapore has been ousted, losing their property to a local party.
It appears, by way of a notice (see photo) that the property I have known as the Bryce house, which was bought or leased by B.S. and Christina Ong in recent years, following a brief tussle between respective security squads, has been taken over by a Mr Paul Handoko, who is believed to have just bought the property from the original owner despite whatever existing arrangement with the Ongs there may be.
A notice to this effect has been posted at the entrance and the Ong’s are reported to be spitting mad at being summarily ousted and bested in this fashion. Just goes to show that being extremely rich and smart, or just your hard-nosed biznizz perzon as Ms Ong is said to be, doesn’t mean you can ignore the small print and matters of due diligence when it comes to property in our magical Isle.
A further interesting coda to the story comes from a usually well-informed local source who, on hearing the news, ahaaaahed and said, he wasn’t certain, but he seemed to remember the same party had fronted up on some rather similar “repossession” in the not-so distant past.
