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Green myths and moral dilemmas
Dec. 28th, 2007 11:51 amI read this in the Times yesterday, and found it interesting enough that I thought I'd share it with you.
I also found it interesting because it triggered many conflicted thoughts in me, as these issues often do. As some may know, I'd like to be more environmentally friendly. I'd also like to be more socially aware, do more to promote animal welfare (within some quite freaky parameters, admittedly) and I'd like to live in a world where some form of global justice exists on both a local and international level.
And a lot of the time it seems as if those desires really don't go hand in hand.
For example, a while ago I came to the conclusion that I really should avoid long haul flights, and focus on taking local holidays, as long haul flights are really bad for the environment. I muttered darkly about the government taxing aviation fuel, and wished that they would. Yet recently I read that a scary percentage of Kenya's economy is dependent on the tourist trade - men and women to come to Kenya via long haul flights. If those flights become dramatically more expensive, then the bottom could fall out of that economy, and I don't like the idea of an African nation which the developed world has already screwed once through colonization suddenly being screwed all over again because we decide that we all need to take up the Green Man's Burden.
Elsewhere, I've had occasionally crisis over my views on battery farming. Basically, I don't object to meat, leather, or fur. I do believe that it is possible to ethically use all of these. I do, however, really think that animals do deserve a certain level of fair treatment in life. I do eat meat. I won't eat factory farmed meat. However, something I was reading a while ago pointed out that banning factory farmed chicken, for example, would essentially be a attack on the economically deprived in this country. It's easy for me to say "I think all chickens should be given a long and happy life on a farm" because I'm essentially a fairly privileged middle class chick from South London. I don't have to try and feed three children on a vanishingly small budget. I don't need to worry about getting food on the table. And I worry that I'm basically saying, when I say that I want factory farmed chicken to be illegal, that I am happy to let the poor and vulnerable in our society suffer from a lack of cheap food.
Tis something that frets me, and something I'm trying to put together in my brain.
I also found it interesting because it triggered many conflicted thoughts in me, as these issues often do. As some may know, I'd like to be more environmentally friendly. I'd also like to be more socially aware, do more to promote animal welfare (within some quite freaky parameters, admittedly) and I'd like to live in a world where some form of global justice exists on both a local and international level.
And a lot of the time it seems as if those desires really don't go hand in hand.
For example, a while ago I came to the conclusion that I really should avoid long haul flights, and focus on taking local holidays, as long haul flights are really bad for the environment. I muttered darkly about the government taxing aviation fuel, and wished that they would. Yet recently I read that a scary percentage of Kenya's economy is dependent on the tourist trade - men and women to come to Kenya via long haul flights. If those flights become dramatically more expensive, then the bottom could fall out of that economy, and I don't like the idea of an African nation which the developed world has already screwed once through colonization suddenly being screwed all over again because we decide that we all need to take up the Green Man's Burden.
Elsewhere, I've had occasionally crisis over my views on battery farming. Basically, I don't object to meat, leather, or fur. I do believe that it is possible to ethically use all of these. I do, however, really think that animals do deserve a certain level of fair treatment in life. I do eat meat. I won't eat factory farmed meat. However, something I was reading a while ago pointed out that banning factory farmed chicken, for example, would essentially be a attack on the economically deprived in this country. It's easy for me to say "I think all chickens should be given a long and happy life on a farm" because I'm essentially a fairly privileged middle class chick from South London. I don't have to try and feed three children on a vanishingly small budget. I don't need to worry about getting food on the table. And I worry that I'm basically saying, when I say that I want factory farmed chicken to be illegal, that I am happy to let the poor and vulnerable in our society suffer from a lack of cheap food.
Tis something that frets me, and something I'm trying to put together in my brain.
