LauraH’s Recent Comments

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  organic tobacco

  Maybe this is common knowledge - I'm not exposed to much advertising - but I was recently amazed to see an ad for "additive-free cigarettes" made with "organic tobacco."  Ummm... I guess it's less harmful to the cute babies...On What is your position on smoking? posted 4 years ago 9 Responses

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  deer overpopulation

  no, sjdunnejr, the deer are not short of land to live on.  They are thriving because human modification of prairie landscapes suits them perfectly.  Humans suppress fire, allowing groves of trees and shrubs to establish.  Humans add tree rows and hedges.  Thus the deer have places to shelter from storms and hide from predators (most of which humans have already removed).  Humans grow crops and put up hay piles and generally make it easier for deer to find food, especially in winter.  I am speaking of the prairies in southern Saskatchewan, Canad, the area I am most familiar with, and an area where whitetail deer were virtually non-existent before European settlement, and now are abundant.  Like robins and dandelions, deer do just fine with people.  Btw, your vegan lifestyle doesn't save them from trucks.On Umbra on soy vs. meat posted 4 years ago 27 Responses

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  on sinks

  Soy is no more of a sink than a cow; they both store carbon in their tissues, they both transfer some of that carbon to their human consumers, and they both release some of it when their non-food parts break down.On Umbra on soy vs. meat posted 4 years ago 27 Responses

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  leaving it wild

  Another point - just in case you're thinking that the answer for the prairies is to "let them go wild" - that approach would not work on the small pieces of native prairie that remain.  It's been tried.  The grassland gets engulfed by trees, brush, and invasive introduced plants.  It might work if you could "rewild" a large tract of land and let wildfires and wild bison do their work.  Good luck with the politics of that.On Umbra on soy vs. meat posted 4 years ago 27 Responses

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  vegan good, free-range meat better

  I fully understand that feedlot and factory-farm meats are among the worst choices of foods available.  However, I think the criticism of ranchers for "consuming" large amounts of land is simplistic at best.  Where I come from, ranch land is the healthiest land around.  Over huge areas, ranch land is the last refuge for wildlife that has lost the vast majority of its habitat to crop production.  Meanwhile, cropland has lost 50% of its productivity since these prairies were broken a century ago.  To reduce soil erosion, farmers have switched to zero tillage with high chemical use.  If you want to use this land to grow food, the gentlest, most effective way to harvest it is with a grazing animal.  There is no destruction of soil biota through tillage, no consumption of fossil fuels for tillage and seeding and harvest, no hazardous concentration of manure, and no need to transport manure back to fields.  Yes, there is often some fossil fuel consumption involved in managing and processing these grazing animals for meat.  Yes, cattle give off methane, but this problem is reduced (and their efficiency of meat production is increased) when they get a better diet.  Native grassland pasture is an excellent diet for cattle; research shows that they produce more meat from less plant material on this pasture (compared with tame forage pasture).  Yet native grassland is still being destroyed here.  Unless you dream of strict legal protection for native grassland (yeah, right, since when do politicians even notice the rural prairies, let alone attempt something so controversial?), the best hope to preserve our native grassland is to generate a significant market for range-fed bison and beef.  I'd buy some, if I could just get that freezer cleared out...On Umbra on soy vs. meat posted 4 years ago 27 Responses