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permaculture - [permaculture] Goat death (AKA So what do you really think about long term climate change due to pollution-related global warming)

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  • From: Paul Cereghino <paul.cereghino@comcast.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] Goat death (AKA So what do you really think about long term climate change due to pollution-related global warming)
  • Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 08:01:35 -0700

If you don't want to kill your domesticated animals, one approach would be to allow other animals to harvest your goats. If a goat herd is being protected by a human in a limited space, that herd will grow and grow until it denudes the landscape and then starves. It seems like all animals perpetuate through some kind of self regulation process (in the case of domesticated goats this becomes 'harvest', 'culling', 'male-preferential infanticide', 'killing', 'celebration of kali', 'leave billy to the coyote' or whatever we want to call it.) On the other side of the coin there is disease, murder, and starvation.

It seems like there are two pathways for animals contributing to greenhouse gasses. One is through methane production when we stockpile wet manure, methanogenesis requires anaerobic conditions (big stinky wet heap or cess pond). The other is the energy use in transportation and cooling of feed, animals, and meat product. Both pathways are solved by Vido's recommendations. So if you are looking for a causation argument... while vegetarians may be motivated to present their decision in a dramatic context, vegetarianism is one step removed from the problem/solution. Industrial agriculture and excessive fat consumption with an inactive lifestyle is self-destructive, while vegetarianism is a moral issue. I am not yet convinced that the moral gains of keeping blood off our hands outweighs the burden of giving up omnivory, but am open to argument.

Paul Cereghino
Olympia, WA


KNat wrote:

yarrow@sfo.com wrote:

The number-one thing everyone can do is to eat lower on the food chain. We could reduce greenhouse gases by about half within a year or two by stopping the breeding and eating of livestock.

Anyone have good resources on write ups of the impact of animals in biodynamic setting. My daughter is looking for articles on animals in homestead settings to round out a similar discussion on vegetarianism for global CO2 reduction..
(some background, our life choices have led us to raise our own animals (small so far) and the articles seem to get caught up in factory farms. Her view is animals are respectfully raised as members here and have many roles including continued contribution after death.)
She (and I) are discussing raising enough protein for ourselves instead of pasture vs using rocky hillside for goats and goats for fertilizer, milk, meat, laborers (packs and carts), leather, bone tools and soil additives. As you can imagine from that list, the sacrifice to become meat is more likely a sheep than a goat since goats do part of the labor and the sheep are passive contributors who require more protection, but males are hard to live with. It's pretty easy to balance w goats, sheep, chickens if males don't stay long.We have steep slopes and lots of brambly brush. Anyone have plan ideas for rocky, brushy, hillside lifestyle that doesn't have humans harvesting other animals? Does that even make sense?

Kathyann

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