Repost: Sprouting Seeds, Spiralling Violence

[This is a repost of a post from May 22, 2008. I just can't shake this. I am more convinced than I was then that this is the simple arithmetic of the situation, and that we are living in a post-WW II fantasy world of post-industrial consumer equality for all. We can't "have our iPods" and "let the Chinese have theirs" (that's a figure of speech - I would point to meat consumption as a more immediate threat). There isn't enough.
Please also see my follow-up to this post from last year "There's Always One" for further elaboration.]

With food prices rising, the dollar falling, and the economy reeling, it is becoming increasing important that we learn how to grow a portion of our own food. The first steps are obtaining and sprouting seeds, so we'll explore those topics here.

Winning the War on Food: Sprouting Seeds and Saving Seeds is a great article today from Natural News.com.

The glories of sprouted pumpkin seeds were extolled on Krpamoya Prabhu's blog a short while ago.

At Atma Yoga we've been sprouting seeds and using them in the salads.

This morning on the way to work Param and I were talking about the rising cost of food. Luckily we only eat a few grains and vegetables. It must be really hard for people who eat a lot of processed foods and especially meat.

Spiraling Food Prices Result in Deadly Violence Around the World, another story today on NaturalNews.com, was the topic at the dinner table the other night at Atma. We ended up discussing the relative merits of the HK416 assault rifle (can be fired after being submerged in water or sand - not sure about both) versus the Barrett M468 (fires the 6.8mm round - more accurate than the AK-47, more powerful than the M16; which is exactly what you need to stop a zombie or a feral human), and how the Australian Government should stockpile a million of them to arm the Australia populace to repel 300 million feral Indonesians after their country gets submerged by rising sea levels.

Either that, or it should be encouraging people to reduce their consumption, not allowing the unrestrained inflammation of their material desires.

World-wide, meat consumption is increasing at the rate of 4.7 million tons per year [source].

In China, annual meat consumption has jumped from 16 kilograms per person in 1983, to 53 kilograms per person today [source].

Check out this data table that I generated over at Earth Trends:

World meat consumption is going up, and the Chinese are contributing a huge amount to that.

These people want to live like you.

The conclusion is staggeringly obvious: we need to nuke the Chinese now.

The longer we wait, the stronger they grow. The more meat they eat, the more aggressive and strong they become. The more time they have, the more they build their industrial capacity and their war machine.

It is us or them - the world is not big enough for both. In fact, the world is not big enough just for them, if they live like us.

There are only two things that a responsible leadership can do: waste them, or reduce our consumption.

If you think that nuking the Chinese is a ridiculous proposition, then think of the alternative. Continuing the way we are now the world will very, very quickly run out of resources. It's not just the current rate of consumption: the Chinese are increasing their meat consumption at 12% per annum. There are a billion of them.

Every pound of beef requires 16 pounds of grain. It requires land to be cleared to graze cattle. It produces methane. It uses and contaminates water in processing.

If you think that the idea of reducing your consumption is ridiculous then you have to consider the alternatives:

• Option 1: nuke the Chinese now.
• Option 2: get a whole lot of assault rifles and lots of ammunition for when it all goes down.
• Option 3: reduce consumption and model a more globally responsible, sustainable lifestyle.

Which one do you feel like choosing? Oh, by the way, if you don't want to choose we will arrange one of Option 1 or Option 2 for you, automatically.

The most revolutionary thing that you can do to combat global warming, resource depletion and the eventual war between the Chinese and America / Australia is to become a vegetarian.

It's probably the best thing you can do for your health and your emotional wellbeing as well.

It's certainly the best thing you can do for the health and well being of 270 million tons of animals per year, and climbing.