{"id":87,"date":"2008-02-12T08:58:46","date_gmt":"2008-02-12T16:58:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.happycow.net\/blog\/?p=87"},"modified":"2008-02-12T09:00:46","modified_gmt":"2008-02-12T17:00:46","slug":"behind-the-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.happycow.net\/blog\/behind-the-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind the News"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><font face=\"Tahoma\">Far too often the media glosses over bigger issues in order to retain their unbiased standpoint. In an attempt to avoid making broad generalizations or looking at the implications of the stock standard news piece. In the New Scientist this week there was a brief piece looking at land use for crops and pastures. From this small snippet we learn that more than a third of the Earth not comprised of ice or water is now being used for farming. And with the push for eco-friendly biofuels, in particular the demand for soya and palm oil, more land can be expected to be converted for farming in the future. And that\u2019s where the new ends. What wasn\u2019t addressed were the implications for the environment, the changes in land allocation, the affects of human diet on land use and finally what can be done. Overall, this brief address becomes something easily overlooked and leaves those who take the time to read it undereducated on what\u2019s not being said.<br \/>\n<\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><font face=\"Tahoma\"><br \/>\nWhen looking at land division and its uses 28 million square kilometers (22 per cent) of ice-free land surface is covered in pasture and 15 million square km (12 per cent) is used to grow crops. These figures are meant to be under representative as they\u2019re exclusive of small farms with subsistence agriculture or those located underneath forest or trees. With the inclusion of human culture to our small planet, what was once completely natural has lost every ounce of its original pristine state. Causing broad, sweeping statements like, \u201cThe escalating transformation of the world\u2019s forests, wetlands, savannahs, waterways and other native landscapes as the biggest potential threat to human health and global sustainability.\u201d <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font face=\"Tahoma\">And as the world\u2019s natural landscapes transform into agriculture of other human uses, we further undermine the capacity of the planets ecosystems to sustain such a burgeoning human population. These fears are nothing new. Scientists have been forecasting the troubles associated with this change in land allocation for years, but is has only been recently that people have started to listen.<\/font><o:p><font face=\"Tahoma\">\u00a0<\/font><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><font face=\"Tahoma\">However, there is still time to make the changes necessary. Going vegan or vegetarian is on that list of changes to be made. Looking more closely we\u2019ll see that the 22 per cent of land allocated to rearing livestock produces 18 per cent of the world\u2019s green house gases (Compared to the 12 per cent produced by passenger vehicles). This translates to one person switching from a typical Western diet to a vegan diet reducing their personal CO2 emissions by 1485 kg per year.<\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><font face=\"Tahoma\">Vegetarian diets also use the smallest amount of land per capita, therefore committing yourself to an animal-free diet is a good start when it comes to preserving the natural environment. But whether you choose to include meat or dairy in your diet or not, be a conscious consumer. Modern agriculture practices are unsustainable with their heavy reliance on chemical pesticides so that going organic will preserve the land quality for future crops.<\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><font face=\"Tahoma\">Next time you see a small story of seemingly little consequence challenge yourself to understand the wider implications and the story behind the news.<span>\u00a0<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Far too often the media glosses over bigger issues in order to retain their unbiased standpoint. In an attempt to avoid making broad generalizations or looking at the implications of the stock standard news piece. In the New Scientist this week there was a brief piece looking at land use for crops and pastures. From this small snippet we learn that more than a third of the Earth not comprised of ice or water is now being used for farming. And with the push for eco-friendly biofuels, in particular the demand for soya and palm oil, more land can be expected to be converted for farming in the future. And that\u2019s where the new ends. What wasn\u2019t addressed were the implications for the environment, the changes in land allocation, the affects of human diet on land use and finally what can be done. Overall, this brief address becomes something easily overlooked and leaves those who take the time to read it undereducated on what\u2019s not being said. When looking at land division and its uses 28 million square kilometers (22 per cent) of ice-free land surface is covered in pasture and 15 million square km (12 per cent) is used [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8760,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-general"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Behind the News - HappyCow<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.happycow.net\/blog\/behind-the-news\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Behind the News - HappyCow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Far too often the media glosses over bigger issues in order to retain their unbiased standpoint. In an attempt to avoid making broad generalizations or looking at the implications of the stock standard news piece. In the New Scientist this week there was a brief piece looking at land use for crops and pastures. From this small snippet we learn that more than a third of the Earth not comprised of ice or water is now being used for farming. And with the push for eco-friendly biofuels, in particular the demand for soya and palm oil, more land can be expected to be converted for farming in the future. And that\u2019s where the new ends. What wasn\u2019t addressed were the implications for the environment, the changes in land allocation, the affects of human diet on land use and finally what can be done. Overall, this brief address becomes something easily overlooked and leaves those who take the time to read it undereducated on what\u2019s not being said. 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