[Buddha-l] Re: Buddhist pacifism

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Mon, 2005-10-17 at 15:49 +0100, Stephen Hodge wrote:

> Do you even know how many animals are murdered each year for human 
> consumption ?  In the US alone, over 9.4 billion animals per annun (2.5 
> million per day) !

Sometimes I find it useful to think of this in human equivalents. For
example, the number of animals killed every day in America is about five
times the human population of the city in which I now live. It's about
the same as the human population of Montreal. My guess is that if a city
the size of Montreal were destroyed every day, people might begin to
think something was amiss. 

> I suggest you do a couple of things quickly.  Get the book that Joanna 
> mentioned recently by Charles Patterson, "Eternal Treblinka", or similar

Another older but still good book is John Robbins <cite>Diet for a New
America: How Your Food Choices Affect Your Health, Happiness and the
Future of Life on Earth</cite> (Despite the title, the logic of the book
probably works outside the Americas.) It is not so sensational, but it
gets the point across that the meat and dairy business is ruinous to the
environment and that an animal-based diet is bad for everyone's health.
He sites plenty of medical authorities who have done research linking
meat and dairy products to heart disease, all kinds of cancer, diabetes,
osteoporosis and various other degenerative diseases. It is thought-
provoking without being overly preachy. (Even though I completely agree
with them, preachy vegetarians usually have the effect of making me want
to take up cannibalism.) 

-- 
Richard Hayes