Mary Robinson wants us all to become vegan

Dr Brown

Good old Noddy Robinson wants everyone in the country to become a vegan for the sake of "climate justice".

I wonder will she stop traveling around on private jets to cut down her carbon footprint ? somehow I don't think so.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/robinson-again-calls-for-move-to-vegan-37441801.html

Former president Mary Robinson is standing firm on her call for people to go vegan to tackle climate change, despite a backlash which saw her local council ask her to withdraw the comments.
The long-standing campaigner, who runs a climate justice foundation in her name, said she spoke "from the heart" when she made the remarks two years ago and stands by her call for people to consume less.
The former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights told the audience at the One Young World summit in The Hague yesterday that her comments made at the same summit in Ottawa two years ago prompted a formal letter from her local council in her native Co Mayo.
Mrs Robinson faced criticism from some in Ireland's farming community following her comments in 2016. She said: "I said we all have to do more. We have to be more energy-efficient, we have to recycle, we must think about what we eat, we need to eat less meat, maybe become vegetarian or even vegan.
"And the point is we do have to take a stand and we do have to make our voices heard and if people take action themselves, they are much more likely to use their vote and their power to change what government policies are doing.
"Individual action alone won't get us there even if we try our hardest; we need government policies."
She told this year's summit, attended by more than 1,900 young leaders from 196 countries: "Achieving climate justice, I believe, is the space race for your generation."

McMurphy

Tell noddy to fcuk off back to toytown, and bring big ears with him.

orourkeda1977

Noddy Robinson can f*ck off

mikeym

Ill just eat the grass out the front garden so?

More taxes on the poor will sort out the environment.

paw patrol

she had one trick .
that was beating princess diana in a race to Somalia for the cameras
that was it.


fcuk off you pompous overbearing media whore

mad muffin

So we all do more and then what? Do the factories stop polluting? Do the rich stop buys their jets? Cars? Untold amount of houses that use energy to maintain?

What then? Maybe we give up consuming all together, so they can continue the same way they always do?

Such a load of ****…

Austria!

Dr Brown wrote: »

Good old Noddy Robinson wants everyone in the country to become a vegan for the sake of "climate justice".

I wonder will she stop traveling around on private jets to cut down her carbon footprint ? somehow I don't think so.

Don't worry, even if she does we can probably find another excuse to never change our behaviour.

Ken.

Lets flip it on this idiot. She is basically calling for the mass extinction of a few animals. Cows,Sheep,Pigs and Chickens. Lets face it, if the eating of meat or animal products was banned world wide then why would any farmer bother keeping any of the above. I'd safely say they'd all be gone in about 30 years.

Same as idiots calling for a ban on horse racing. Do people really think Aidan O'Brien or Willie Mullins would keep 200 horses apiece if they couldn't make a few quid off them.

Eathrin

Boards.ie users sure do get upset at the notion of not abusing animals!

anewme

Eathrin wrote: »

Boards.ie users sure do get upset at the notion of not abusing animals!

Found this a strange thread to begin with.

Austria!

Putinbot wrote: »

Lets flip it on this idiot. She is basically calling for the mass extinction of a few animals. Cows,Sheep,Pigs and Chickens. .

Land clearing for animals causes many more species to go extinct.



I guess that's you gone vegan, seeing as this concerns you so much,

endacl

anewme wrote: »

Found this a strange thread to begin with.

Check who started it. Was never going to be better than strange.

elperello

Putinbot wrote: »

Lets flip it on this idiot. She is basically calling for the mass extinction of a few animals. Cows,Sheep,Pigs and Chickens. Lets face it, if the eating of meat or animal products was banned world wide then why would any farmer bother keeping any of the above. I'd safely say they'd all be gone in about 30 years.

Same as idiots calling for a ban on horse racing. Do people really think Aidan O'Brien or Willie Mullins would keep 200 horses apiece if they couldn't make a few quid off them.

You do know what happens to slow race horses don't you?

http://www.thejournal.ie/horses-slaughtered-food-chain-3953636-Apr2018/

Ken.

Austria! wrote: »

Land clearing for animals causes many more species to go extinct.



I guess that's you gone vegan, seeing as this concerns you so much,

Fück no. To paraphrase Charlton Heston "They'll prise my beef burger from my cold dead hands"

whisky_galore

Eathrin wrote: »

Boards.ie users sure do get upset at the notion of not abusing animals!

I can eat whatever the fcuk I want.

Enough with the insufferable preachyness, no wonder ye are so hated.

elperello

Putinbot wrote: »

Fück no. To paraphrase Charlton Heston "They'll prise my beef burger from my cold dead hands"

Unfortunately he won't have your back on this he died 10 years ago RIP.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Climate change is happening but unfortunately the most virtuous proponents of change are the most hypocritical of carbon users.

Robinson isn’t even a vegan herself, as far as I know but this is par for the course for her class. I mean she’s been so career driven she left the Irish presidency to get a better job party way through her term. She flies private jets. Her consumption is probably way above average.

We should all reduce meat though.

Ken.

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

We should all reduce meat though.

My brother in law is a vegan so I have to eat extra to make up for him. Not joking either.

elperello

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

Climate change is happening but unfortunately the most virtuous proponents of change are the most hypocritical of carbon users.

Robinson isn’t even a vegan herself, as far as I know but this is par for the course for her class. I mean she’s been so career driven she left the Irish presidency to get a better job party way through her term. She flies private jets. Her consumption is probably way above average.

We should all reduce meat though.

There is a valid point regarding Mary Robinson's carbon footprint. Until about 12 months ago she had a 6,500 sq ft mansion in Mayo. She sold it for €1.55m to move to a smaller place in Dublin. She said in a recent interview that she is "cutting down" on flights but still uses taxis to get about.

Until people like her are prepared to accept that their carbon allowance can only be the same as any citizen they will find it hard to sell their message.

By the way the reason you are hearing so much about her lately is she is plugging a book.

Gimme A Pound

Folks, nobody is being forced to do anything.

There are far bigger concerns to focus your energy on.

TheQuietFella

Close down all the fast food joints like MacDonald's & Supermac's and that should solve the problem and maybe do something about the levels of obesity.

Unfortunately it will put quite an amount of people out of work and that will put an enormous strain on revenue so I don't think this will happen!

cursai

Are tiger vegan

gozunda

Austria! wrote: »

Land clearing for animals causes many more species to go extinct. I guess that's you gone vegan, seeing as this concerns you so much,

Beware the attack of the veganators ...

No 'land clearing' in Ireland for animal agriculture

However intensive cultivation for arable and horticultural produce results in the death and destruction of many species.

But vegan propaganda won't tell you that ...

As for the cheap imported foodstuffs bought by those vegans ....

¯\_(ツ)_/ ¯. 

Grayson

I'm not a vegan but she's right. Saying that we should eat less meat products is simply what loads of climate scientists have said. The world is changing and we're going to change with it. It's not the first time this has happened either. Human diets have always changed because of economic reasons, they'll change again because of other reasons. We certainly don't have the same diets we did 100 years ago.

Animal farming is a huge contribute to greenhouse gasses. In addition we're getting to the point where we need to get more food globally. You will see a shift to non meet products in a lot of countries.

Globally our diets will change because they have to.

gozunda

Grayson wrote: »

I'm not a vegan but she's right ... Animal farming is a huge contribute to greenhouse gasses. ....

She's a media geisha with a mouth like the Mersey tunnel

Transport and Fossil fuels are the two biggest global contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.

You (not a vegan) going to give up your car / use of fossil fuels first No?

Richard Hillman

This is the next step folks. 20 years ago we would have laughed at the Sugar Tax, minimum pricing of alcohol or this preposterous idea in the UK to limit Pizzas to below 1000 calories. So many foods and drinks over the last few years have been ruined in the false name of health by the political/media establishment. Robinsons rhetoric may not be far off.

gozunda

Varik

Whatever about meat, but you should all stay away from dairy.

https://twitter.com/peta/status/1053073317786198022

Eathrin

gozunda wrote: »

Beware the attack of the veganators ...

No 'land clearing' in Ireland for animal agriculture

However intensive cultivation for arable and horticultural produce results in the death and destruction of many species.

But vegan propaganda won't tell you that ...

As for the cheap imported foodstuffs bought by those vegans ....

¯\_(ツ)_/ ¯. 

We're bottom in Europe along with the Netherlands for woodland cover.

Do you not eat any imported fruit or vegetables yourself?

gozunda

Eathrin wrote: »

We're bottom in Europe along with the Netherlands for woodland cover.Do you not eat any imported fruit or vegetables yourself?

Still preaching lol? In Ireland significant amounts of agricultural land have been planted with forestry in the past couple of decades. I mainly grow my own thanks or buy local. How's your vegan lifestyle and all that cheap nasty imported food grown with few if any environmental and ethical standards with its massive food miles doing? Though funny last time in AH you claimed not to be a vegan ....

kneemos

Thought eating bugs was the new land and energy efficient way to save the environment?

Grayson

gozunda wrote: »

She's a media geisha with a mouth like the Mersey tunnel

Transport and Fossil fuels are the two biggest global contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.

You (not a vegan) going to give up your car / use of fossil fuels first No?

I don't drive a car. I take the bus and it's partly because of the environmental concerns. I try to be as energy efficient as possible. I'm not going to personally make a difference but I can't not do the right thing. It'd be hippo-critical if I didn't.

I do have to add a caveat. I live near public transport. A lot, like my family who live in the west, don't. If I was to buy a car I'd go electric and I'd treat it as a car for life. A lot of people don't have that option. I'm not judging people who drive. I do think it's irresponsible at this stage to drive bigger than you need. I'm in the US right now for work. The number of huge cars here is ridiculous.


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/04/animal-agriculture-choking-earth-making-sick-climate-food-environmental-impact-james-cameron-suzy-amis-cameron

Animal agriculture is choking the Earth, and the longer we turn a blind eye, the more we limit our ability to nourish ourselves, protect waterways and habitats, and pursue other uses of our precious natural resources. Raising livestock for meat, eggs and milk generates 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, the second highest source of emissions and greater than all transportation combined. It also uses about 70% of agricultural land, and is one of the leading causes of deforestation, biodiversity loss, and water pollution.

On top of this, eating too much meat and dairy is making us sick, greatly increasing our risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, several major cancers (including breast, liver and prostate) and obesity. Diets optimal for human health vary, according to David Katz, of the Yale University Prevention Research Center, “but all of them are made up mostly of whole, wholesome plant foods”.

The fact is though that eventually we won't have a choice. We will be switching from a diet that's heavy in meat to one with far less. As climate change and population growth impacts our lives we will be switching. Part of it will be cost and part will be just necessity.

Grayson

gozunda wrote: »

Still preaching lol? In Ireland significant amounts of agricultural land have been planted with forestry in the past couple of decades. I mainly grow my own thanks or buy local. How's your vegan lifestyle and all that cheap nasty imported food grown with few if any environmental and ethical standards with its massive food miles doing? Though funny last time in AH you claimed not to be a vegan ....

To be fair it's bad forests. They're all pine with no undergrowth and have useless biodiversity.

Brae100

I have no problem with constructive criticism, but the use of crappy, derogatory terms like "Noddy" just makes me very suspicous. Anyone who uses those sort of derogatory terms usually has an underlying political agenda.

Outlaw Pete

gozunda wrote: »

Do you believe that Gorilla actually said that??

Come on. It's a jpg.

He could have been saying something entirely different there for all you know.

Pkiernan

mikeym wrote: »

Ill just eat the grass out the front garden so?

More taxes on the poor will sort out the environment.

Poor people don't pay tax in Oireland

dense

Dr Brown wrote: »

Good old Noddy Robinson wants everyone in the country to become a vegan for the sake of "climate justice".

I wonder will she stop traveling around on private jets to cut down her carbon footprint ? somehow I don't think so.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/robinson-again-calls-for-move-to-vegan-37441801.html

When she was speaking to Sean O Rourke a couple of weeks ago to plug her new book and the UNIPCC's latest report she admitted she herself is not a vegan.


She did say she is toying with the idea though.



The interview got a bit fuzzy each time O Rourke headed towards "climate science", it's obviously not her thing, with Robinson deftly managing to steer it back to the climate justice circus each time.


Vegan is so old hat now anyway.

Saving the planet now requires us to eat trendy insects.


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/15/edible-insect-save-planet-global-warming-tasty-trendy

suicide_circus

when vegan food tastes as good as non vegan food, I will become vegan

kneemos

dense wrote: »

When she was speaking to Sean O Rourke a couple of weeks ago to plug her new book and the UNIPCC's latest report she admitted she herself is not a vegan.


She did say she is toying with the idea though.



The interview got a bit fuzzy each time O Rourke headed towards "climate science", it's obviously not her thing, with Robinson deftly managing to steer it back to the climate justice circus each time.


Vegan is so old hat now anyway.

Saving the planet now requires us to eat trendy insects.


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/15/edible-insect-save-planet-global-warming-tasty-trendy

Would vegans eat bugs to save the planet?

OldMrBrennan83

Anyone wanting me to become vegan can lick the back end of my ballbag, and anyone wanting me to do it for bloody climate change can go and play in traffic afterwards.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Grayson wrote: »

I'm not a vegan but she's right. Saying that we should eat less meat products is simply what loads of climate scientists have said. The world is changing and we're going to change with it. It's not the first time this has happened either. Human diets have always changed because of economic reasons, they'll change again because of other reasons. We certainly don't have the same diets we did 100 years ago.

Animal farming is a huge contribute to greenhouse gasses. In addition we're getting to the point where we need to get more food globally. You will see a shift to non meet products in a lot of countries.

Globally our diets will change because they have to.

We need to get more food globally? Surely that’s a carbon producer. Did you mean locally?

Ireland is different from other countries that may have to import lots of food, in theory we don’t except what is not grown here.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Pkiernan wrote: »

Poor people don't pay tax in Oireland

They pay consumption taxes which is what carbon taxes are.

If the world was serious about this the first thing we’d do is ban private jets. Then we’d all have a non transferable carbon quota for flights etc. If you don’t have a car you can fly more.

padd b1975

Good old Pee Flynn just may have had a point all those years ago.

Eathrin

gozunda wrote: »

Still preaching lol? In Ireland significant amounts of agricultural land have been planted with forestry in the past couple of decades. I mainly grow my own thanks or buy local. How's your vegan lifestyle and all that cheap nasty imported food grown with few if any environmental and ethical standards with its massive food miles doing? Though funny last time in AH you claimed not to be a vegan ....

If you're claiming vegans to be preachy, you probably don't have a good enough argument to back yourself with, but good try.

What nasty food are you talking about? I buy the exact same stuff as everyone else at the supermarket minus the animal products and with more beans, lentils, nuts etc than before. Again, you're trying to discredit veganism by attaching negative words to things that are quite ordinary.

I wasn't a vegan last time around, glad you noticed. That's exactly the point. People change and you should too. Social progress was never made without it.

Nice misrepresentation there OP. She did not say she wants us all to become vegan. At least not in what you quoted - she may have elsewhere of course. She made a general call to recycle more and consume less - in general eat less meat and _maybe_ become vegetarian or vegan. She made a very clear distinction between where she was saying "have to" and "must" - and where she was saying "maybe". Absolutely nothing wrong with any of that.

And while I may not agree with all of it - I am certainly not about to become either vegetarian or vegan myself as I have yet to hear any arguments from those people as to why I should not eat meat even when I have asked them for some - it is good people are not only saying it but refusing to "withdraw their comments" in this new modern culture of getting people to back pedal or apologise for everything and anything they say.

For me I am as conscientious as the market will allow about what I eat - how much of it - and how. And I vote with my feet and my wallet in my attempts to support meat production that focuses on the welfare of the environment and the animals as best they can. And I farm hunt and kill my own where possible too.

I will be an early adopter of the products of people like Memphis Meats when they finally take off with a workable affordable product.

But while arguments for the benefit of animals and the environment abound - arguments for why we specifically should not eat meat or consume animal products appear next to non-existent in my experience. So I will not be stopping any time soon. Quite the opposite - I will throw an _extra_ steak on the grill for myself tonight in her honour as I always do for every person I see talk or post on the subject of not eating meat who go on to fail to offer any reason why I should not. I will happily have a double portion of lamb cutlets on Thursday too if anyone else wants to follow suit below

gozunda

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

Do you believe that Gorilla actually said that??
Come on. It's a jpg. He could have been saying something entirely different there for all you know.

So you dont believe him cos he's a gorilla is it? Thats a bit speciest. It was a great talk tbh. He pulled no punches. You should've been there.

animaal

She has a bit of a point, but only partly. She's purposely ignoring the real cause of the problem - and she's not alone in that.

The problem isn't meat-eating. Lions do it all the time, and they cause no problem. So why are humans different? Scale. There are far more humans than lions. If the human population was one tenth of its current size, there would be no problem.

The current rate of population growth cannot be sustained forever. The earth has a fixed size and "forever" is a long time. The idea of people going vegan to save the world is only going to slow things down by a few years at best. Of course, the better the standard of living, the more resources consumed. But this does not change the fact that a fixed world can not support an infinite number of people. Surely the aim is for all humans to have a good standard of living.

There are two ways to solve this. Either find new places for us to inhabit, or control the population by stopping/reversing the growth over time. The former requires space travel, and isn't going to be realistic in our time - if ever. The latter places more responsibility on the populations where growth is fastest: people other than "the West". This seems to be a non-runner.

Why do intelligent people ignore this? Is it because the real problem isn't John and Norah living in the suburbs with two children and a dog, but rather the parts of the world where population is growing at far higher rates?

gozunda

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

We need to get more food globally? Surely that’s a carbon producer. Did you mean locally?
Ireland is different from other countries that may have to import lots of food, in theory we don’t except what is not grown here.

Funny thing is - there is no food shortage globally. That's bit of propaganda is often pushed by various veganistas who insist that cattlefood should not be fed to cattle but be fed to people in the third world! How nice of them!

https://www.worldhunger.org/letter-food-shortage-world-questions/

What she would probably do well with is focusing on the laws behind food labelling so that people who do want to source their food environmentally are not conned and tricked. The Marys of this world can preach at us all they like to try to consider the environment - but if in doing so we are being conned and might even be doing _worse_ for the environment then why the hell should we bother?

One story that stands out was told by a boardsie in Germany who was buying "North Sea Prawns" because they were caught in the German sea and sold locally. All very environmental you would think. Reduced mileage and carbon foot print right?

Wrong*. Turns out however that while the prawns are indeed caught locally - they are put into refrigeration vans and driven to Morocco where they are shelled and processed by the cheap labor there. They are then driven back to Germany to be packaged. Thus conforming with the laws that they have to follow to claim to be "local" produce.

Upon discovering that said boardsie just lost faith in the whole concept of trying to buy locally to benefit the local environment and economy. He just buys whatever the hell he wants now - sure why bother when your lamb meat from New Zealand is half the price of the local stuff.

I can understand how he feels and sometimes I feel like saying "Feck it" myself. But so far I still source my meat and other products as conscientiously as I can. Though I wonder how conned I am like he was half the time.

* Though I read there is a new company who provide an alternative now to the drive to the Morocco version.

dense

kneemos wrote: »

Would vegans eat bugs to save the planet?

It'll depend on whether their social media influencers will.

We do need to cut back on how much meat we eat and stop exporting our Western diet to a few billion other people. Simplest way for that to happen is for subsidies to be cut massively on meat production. If we had to pay anything like the true price for meat I doubt many would even have it every day.