Vegans vs. Vegetarians: What kind of diet is best for the environment?

This not only confirms that neo-cons are evil, they are also stupid. Lets take your claim that environmentalists don't want developing countries to increase their population while we enjoyed the benefits of population growth. China and India each have upwards of 1.2 billion people. The US, which has a larger land area, has 300 million. Do we think that India and China has too many people? Yes, and countries with such large populations will never be able to rise to the standard of living we enjoy here unless they curb runaway population growth. And pardon us if we want a couple of hundred tigers and pandas to co-exist along with billions of humans. If we believe the earth is not worth living in if some of the magnificient fauna on the verge of extinction dies out. Kurtzman thing by saving a few cows, he is doing the world a favor. The world would be much better off if people like you became extinct.

Jewcy has the world's highest concentration of neocon, vegetarians, since apparently we are all neocons, and Jewcy (staff and readership) has such a high concentration of vegetarians. But I will have to ask Paul Wolfowitz and David Frum about other neocon vegetarians the next time we have our neocon, Zionist, get togethers.  Paul can enjoy a rare steak, while the blood drips down the sides of his mouth, and I can look on aghast as I enjoy my pan seared tofu. Either way, we can at least talk about the best way to ruin the world.

Really, if you think someone is an asshole, at least have the gumption to call them an asshole and not wantonly throw around the term neocon. I mean, really that is what you mean when you use the term neocon, no?

The points that Joey is making above, about personal choice and politics vs. the trappings and failings of movements is utterly valid and entirely historically true. And this is not some sort of knee jerk, anti-establishment type reaction, though I will admit to generally having misgivings about the philosophical purity once something becomes a "movement."  So that the decision, say, of certain abolitionists to boycott using slave produced goods (coffee, tea, sugar, etc...) probably did a lot more to damange the slave system than 100 John Browns ever could have done. Ok, that's a bit of a tangent, I realize, but still at heart the same idea being proposed above. The Westernized environmental movement has often attempted to impose itself upon developing nations, in the process ignoring more pressing needs (say like malaria or AIDS relief or general economic development).

Mr. Sprintzen asks why environmentalists don't care about AIDS. I ask you, why should we? Millions of dollars are raised around the world for AIDS research, prevention and drugs. The US Govt. pledged millions of our tax dollars to the fight. In contrast, how many dollars are donated towards wildlife preservation? Humans are very eager to come to the aid of their fellow men, but are indifferent to the plight of the millions of animal species facing extinction. How many dollars have your donated towards polar bear preservation?

Kurtzman puffs up with pride at having saved a few of the millions of cows bred around the world, but ridicules environmentalists for caring about the few gorillas left in the world.He wants DDT to "save" Africans from malaria, but how does he propose to feed the teeming humanity saved from death by malaria? Of course, raze the forests that harbor the gorillas. Every neo-con that promotes the use of DDT should be forced to spray the pesticide around their childrens rooms. Let's see how they like their beloved ones being exposed to the health "benefits" of the poison. Neo-cons propagate the lie that DDT stopped the rise of malaria in the US. Years before DDT was banned in the US, malaria had been eradicated by draining open swamps and wetlands.

Neo-cons love to demonize environmentalists, but forget to thank them for the clean air they are breathing today, unlike the wheezing residents of Guangzhou and Delhi.

Of course, faced with concrete arguments, "vegetarians" like Kurtzman who advocates war with Iran and Iraq and revels in the deaths of millions of darker-skinned Arabs, resort to absurd non-sequitors. You don't have blood on your plate, but you sure have blood on your hands! You guys are all despicable.

Wow, I really wish there was a way I could direct people to that site via my CV.

Anon. Are we to believe that environmentalists are above reproach? Beyond criticism? In some ways this illustrates my precise point with the danger of ideas becoming establishments; those very institutions exist merely to propogate their own existence. As such, they do believe themselves unable to be criticized or even go through a process of self-analysis which clearly your crazed rant above points towards. Is it really not possible to care about saving apes AND providing AIDS relief?? Really? Really???

PS, Hadassah innovated the raising of swamps in Jerusalem in the early 1900s as a way to rid the area of malaria...Another evil Zionist plot to be sure.
PPS -- You do realize that Iranians are not Arabs, no?

Mr Sprintzen: "Are we to believe that environmentalists are above reproach? Beyond criticism?"

I could ask the same question. Are vegetarians/vegans above reproach? Judging from the self-congratulatory, smirking tone of the Jewcy vegetarians, that's the impression one would get.

 And why would environmentalists involve themselves in the fight against AIDS? That's not their job description, that's the province of public health workers. I am sure that there are lots of environmentalists who also care about AIDS relief, but why should that be their main concern. There are no Live Aid concerts for wildlife, like there are for famine and AIDS victims. I don't see anyone going around with green ribbons pinned to their lapels.

 As for your asinine comment about Hadassah innovating the draining of swamps (I see you removed your original "suck it" comment), what are you trying to imply? BTW, the Romans used the draining of swamps to combat malaria long before the Ashkenazi Jews settled in Jerusalem. So I want to know, why don't you think that the spraying of DDT was good enough for the Ashkenazi Jewish settlers in Israel? It's okay to push a deadly poison on dark-skinned Africans, but not on your Jewish kin. I love the hypocrisy here.

 BTW, I didn't say that Iranians were Arabs, but if you want to nitpick, who am I to deny you. I mean, how much time did it take Kurtzman to put up that snarky veggiecon site. Snark, snark, snark. Better than thinking of legitimate arguments to support his sliming of the environmentalist movement.

The veggiecon site has been up for months, actually. It took about 20 minutes one dreamy Thursday evening months ago when I wanted to play with Google Apps to see how it worked. Today I just I added two images to it to incorporate insights yielded in this comment thread. I really do need to get a pic of Trotsky up there, though, Adam is right about that.

As for sliming the environmentalist movement, it's really not hard to do given all the raw material they've provided and their absolute failure to learn from any of their catastrophic failures. You actually managed to repeat the very same debunked canards I mentioned above, e.g. by referring to the "teeming humanity" with which we would be cursed if malaria were eradicated in sub-Saharan Africa. Thanks, Malthus! Welcome to the 21st century, all kinds of new shit has been written and your ideas are now worthless! Read up! (start with demographic transition theory)

And thank you for informing me that malaria was eradicated solely through diminishment of the anopheles habitat, and with no recourse to pesticides. That's extraordinary, especially when you consider that this information has somehow eluded historians, epidemiologists, and infectious disease specialists around the world. This will revolutionize the literature.

Anyway, you're right, what do environmentalists need to worry about plagues in the developing world. They have avian eggshell density to worry about, who cares how many bodies they crawl over while addressing this.

Anon.,
First off, yes I did delete the suck it comment, but mostly because I realized it didn't read in the facetious way that I meant it. I wish I could express tone of voice through a little .wav file or something. But then again, why am I really debating decorum with someone who stated above that you thought the world would be better off should Joey perish. I mean sheesh, humans are mammals too.
Yes, clearly we are saying that we want to chemically poison Africans, really any reasonable person would read that based on the perspectives above. Where, where does the anger always come from? And hiding behind the anonymous pseudonym...tsk tsk.
Like all movements, ultimately, the legacy of environmentalism is a mixed bag (as, of course as you mention above the same mixed bag applies to vegetarianism and veganism...note, there is a reason that I think that PETA is fairly intellectually bankrupt). I am all for long term solutions to serious problems, of which of course the environment is one. But compared to the HIV rate in Africa...yeah, I do think that there are a pecking order to these things. I do not believe in biting off one's nose to spite his/her face in order to promote an ideology. I am far more interested in actually bettering peoples' lives. 

Adam says, "I do not believe in biting off one's nose to spite his/her face in order to promote an ideology. I am far more interested in actually bettering peoples' lives."

The decay of the left as a progressive force in human affairs is ultimately down to their inability to register those two sentences.

Anonymous interlocutor says, "Kurtzman advocates war with Iran and Iraq and revels in the deaths of millions of dark-skinned Arabs."

The internetz is just amazing.

This might all be true, but I also suggest adhering to a useful tenet when propagating a controversial argument: don't agree with Michael Crighton. Thriller writer he is, airtight anti-environmentalist he ain't.

It's pretty rad to know that my eschewing of beef over the past year (13 months and counting) has had a greater influence on the world than simply on the health of my colon. It will come in handy as additional ammunition to load my self-righteousness.

Keep 'em coming, Kurtzman.

From the page: "For example, we used the pesticide DDT to rid ourselves of the scourge of malaria, and then bullied the people of the global South into foregoing DDT in their own lands because we feared its impact on local wildlife."

This is a totally disingenuous argument: ignore the fact that the negative impact of DDT - which is completely disastrous not just to "local wildlife" but likely to humans as well - was not known at the time, and then conclude that it would be wrong to deny the positive results to other countries, as if they could also go back to the days before the harmful effects of DDT were known (see, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT, especially http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Effects_on_human_health).

These kinds of arguments are a kind of anti-intellectual throw-back to the simplistic 1950's "spray the hell out of it" attitude to pest control, and amount to a nonsensical hissy fit against a responsible attitude towards the environment.

spoken like a true american!!!!!

"I'm all right Jack."

Maybe everyone should start thinking about each other first. Then our fellow beings, then the enviroment. People make me sick, how can they judge others when they can't do it themselves. The western world polutes the world to make themselves strong, then causes the worst of desease on the poorer countries........ WAR!!!

Now they refuse or 'police' the help of drugs and aid.

I'm English and it makes me sick to the stomach to think my own country does it, and even has comunication with the 'animals' of the 'american government', which will pervert the truth to make war and kill untill only their sick little story is believed.

thankyou.... rant over.

To Kurtzman: I find your "ethical" concerns for denizens of the third-world a crock of s**t, since you do not even acknowledge the effects of DDT on human health. Did you know that one of the effects of DDT is breast cancer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT#Breast_cancer

Would you expose your infant daughter to DDT? If not, why would you advocate the same for African children? Also, your disdain for the bald eagles saved from extinction by the ban on DDT just goes to show your claims to be a "bleeding heart" another crock of you-know-what.

To Shprintzen: PETA is not an environmental group. They can be best described as publicity-seeking hounds who care more about taking pets away from disturbed pop stars than for the welfare of the environment or wildlife.

All in all, this post is so full of holes, anyone with half a brain can take it apart. But then, that's what most of the neo-con generated tripe is like.

Why should I care if 3rd world countries dont get the chance to make more babies or become over-developed? They are already a burden on us all; not as much of a burden as most gluttonous self absorbed Americans but a burden we don't need any more of just the same. All of this sentimentalism about those less fortunate is very irritating when what we really need is for a good 50% or more of the population to be eradicated! You could start with the Americans that take for granted that they are deserving of all the costly luxuries they use daily, and allow development of technologies after the few people that actually consider its impact lean how to use it responsibly!

It's not the affluent westerners who are going to suffer, mostly.