Hello, the purpose of this blog is to provide a space for me to put my random ideas on improving the lives of the animals that are suffering needlessly for the human appetite. The ideas may not be fully thought out or may be incomplete, and I welcome any comments and criticisms so that they may someday be used to inspire wider audiences to make informed and compassionate decisions.
I would also encourage anyone who thinks of or hears about any other novel approaches to reducing suffering to send me an e-mail so I can post it here. I may link to posts I read on other blogs as well. There is a link to my e-mail and links to some of the other blogs I read on the side of this page. Replying to a post here is a safer way to ensure that I read your message, as spam filters can sometimes prevent legit messages.
Thanks, I hope you find some inspiration from my writings. Those in cages can't express their suffering, so it is up to us outside of the cage to help them.
3 comments:
Hey Bryan!
Thanks for your nice afterword on my comic, I figured if you loved animals you also consider people friends, despite differences! I didn't want to go on and on on my comic page about this so I thought I'd let you know on your blog that my background is as a vegan activist myself. Check out my personal vendettas page of my website: www.claudiadavila.com
My stance has been altered a bit over the years, as important things tend to do, due mainly to my naturopath's recommendations based on health problems I was having, but also in thinking that, in a post-peak-oil world, we'll need all the calories and nutrients we can get (especially up here in Canada where our growing season is half of what it is in, say, California). This means free range, compassionate, home-grown animals on a tiny scale, not industrial-scale horribleness. And only as a supplement to a grain- and veg-based diet, not a primary staple as it's unfortunately become in the modern world. Imagine a city of a few million people trying to farm all their food needs when no more produce can be shipped to them -- space and resources, including green space, will be fatally low. And, as a survival mechanism, having a few chickens, ducks and a goat would likely mean the difference of starvation vs. sustaining life. This is what I picture when I work on Luz, but because of the nature of the comic, I consciously choose not to be a doomsayer trying to scare the daylights out of readers. Can you see where I'm coming from?
I am fully aware of the issues (both health, environmental, economic and ethical) of industrial animal production and the vulgar eating habits we north americans have developed, which is one of many reasons that I actually welcome the end of petroleum (you can check out my peak oil blog if you're interested: www.ourpueblo.blogspot.com). Among many, many things, it will also mean an end of factory farming and choosing unsustainable food production practices. Although, hopefully somewhere in there, it will be an opportunity for humankind to see what a mess we've made of the world, stemming from a tragic disconnect with nature.
Thanks for reading :-)
~Claudia
Hi Claudia =] Thank you for the reply.
I understand and appreciate your optimistic view of a world where fuel has become so expensive that communities will have to provide for their own survival locally. Survival is gold. Although we may see oil soon become so expensive that getting food anywhere but local will be a luxury, it is not certain, and the progress of technology in developing alternative sources of energy may provide solutions before that becomes a problem. It is likely that we could have another source of energy before we run out of fossil fuel, hopefully a cleaner source.
Our more dire problem is climate destabilization due to global warming. We may not have the chance to extract all those fossil fuels before the world is plunged into wars over dwindling water supplies as regular climate events cause mass migration. This is already starting to happen, and it is still possible to prevent it. Eating local will prevent the use of some transport fuels, but the climate impact of animals used for food is even higher. It takes even more of that precious green space to graze cows, and if there's trouble growing vegetables in the winter, there's going to be trouble feeding the cows. There are solutions to both problems, and they're good to know in terms of survival.
I'm afraid that many of your readers are going to take the message of exploitation of animals for survival as justification to continue buying the same free range animal products from the store. I see it as a local food survival guide, for post oil or for a world fighting for survival otherwise, but we may not and shouldn't have to resort to harming animals to survive. Without saying 'only when absolutely necessary', people will find justification for continuing their dietary habits.
And transporting vegetables to a world of vegans would actually be a solution in itself, when we stop feeding well over half our grains to animals, we could easily use those grains to provide the oil as biodiesel or ethanol to move the vegetables to the rest of the world, even Canada! Growing fuel, even when it's used for combustion, is sustainable and carbon neutral.
I welcome the end of fossil fuels as well, because it will be great news for our atmosphere, but I wouldn't count on it, prices are lifted by news of limited supply, whether that news is real or not. And with technology providing new means of energy production, I wouldn't count on an end of petroleum ending the factory farm industry either, that's going to take informed consumer decisions first.
Thanks for writing and drawing!
-Bryan=]
I just read through some of your site, great dairy comics, cool stuff. The medical situation you've gone through must have been difficult, I've heard about medical conditions that make important parts of a vegan diet unavailable, and I've actually been studying nutrition to be able to create vegan dietary guides for holistic healing and individuals with specific dietary needs.
Good luck, I'll be trying out some of those recipes ;] Ciao!
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