VEGANGELICA

As the novel continues...

Hi, 333! I'm glad you've enjoyed the discussion and hope you have a good journey to Washington as you shift your educational interests. There are a lot of nasty ways plants die due to disease and infestation...so phytopathology is an area that will always be of major interest in biology and industry...especially if the impacts of climate change on diseases (of humans and plants) are as predicted. I'm glad you are able to have the freedom to figure out just where your interests are. I did my masters on soybeans' hypersensitive response, in which leaves undergo localized death around the site of infection to try to prevent the spread of bacteria (an interesting example of cells "sacrificing themselves" for the sake of the whole organism).

TORETORDEN...
Thanks again for the thoughtful reply. I've been visiting with my Norwegian and Swedish-American inlaws and, now that I have returned, can put more time into answering your questions and replying to your post.

ON THE ETHICS OF USING DOMESTICATED ANIMALS:
You asked: "Now I'm extrapolating to the point where it's ridiculous of course but I guess what I'm wondering is are you against milk when you think it causes suffering or are you always against it? If you had one industry which caused suffering to cows and one that had happy cows, could you as a vegan support the good one?"

When I was ovo-lacto vegetarian for 10 years, I made peace with drinking milk and eggs because I assumed cows and chickens weren't killed and were treated well, both of which I learned were incorrect for parts of their, or their children's, lifespans. Unfortunately, both the dairy and egg industry currently are based on harming animals...and I'll explain the reasons in a moment.

If cows didn't suffer in any way, then, yes, I'd be less against people using them...except there would still be the issue of their loss of autonomy, their inability (due to humans) to form their own family and friendship relationships as they wish. For example, does Norway actually let cow mothers and children live together? Here in the U.S. dairy farmers take *all* of the mother's milk, not allowing her to nurse her calf for the full year or so calves normally want to suckle.

You wrote: "You then have to admit that you using milk doesn't have to go hand in hand with animal suffering. As long as there are cows, there's milk."

The reality is that cows do not give milk continually, Tore, unless two things happen:

(1) The cows are impregnated (in U.S. dairies, people generally do this artificially, collecting sperm from prime animals and impregnating females). If a cow has given birth, then within a year her milk supply starts to fall, and so people must impregnate her again if they want more milk from her. Cows are impregnated once per year to ensure they produce "enough" milk for human desires.

(2) After the calf is born, the calf is taken away so that people can take the milk. Female calves are taken away after several days and raised to be dairy cows. Male calves, alas, since they won't ever make milk, and weren't bred to put on weight efficiently = cheaply (like "beef" animals), are a "byproduct" of the dairy industry. The veal industry arose to create some "use" for male dairy calves. People kill male dairy calves when they are just 7 or so weeks old. In the U.S., they can still be housed separately (no physical contact at ALL with other animals). The EU requires group housing of "veal" calves, if I recall correctly.

So, wherever you have dairy cows, you will have a veal industry. I checked: Norway has veal industry.

(3) As you noted, domesticated cows produce a lot of milk. This shows the wonderful genetic variability that people have exploited, *not with the best interests of the cows in mind,* by selecting generation after generation of cows to suit human needs. Because domesticated dairy cows give so much milk, their other body systems generally suffer. By age 6 or 7, their milk production begins to drop. The dairy cows are no longer "worth their inputs," and so people show their thanks to the cows by killing them, although a cow could naturally live 15 - 20 years. All that is in a glass of milk.

So "as long as there are cows, there is milk" is a simplification, and one I didn't know about until I was 27 after years as an ovo-lacto vegetarian who hadn't done a lot of research...and perhaps didn't want to, because I liked yogurt and cheese. In fact, if people simply stopped their human-cow sexual relationship (a strange form of bestiality, I'd say, in which people milk the sperm from cattle, and impregnate females...which is typical for domesticated animals here in the U.S.), within several years the domestic cow population would plummet.

The story for eggs is similar. In an eggshell: people impregnate chickens; the chickens lay massive numbers of eggs; they are incubated in machines; the eggs hatch; half of them are male and are not useful for raising for meat (too expensive due to low feed-meat conversion efficiency), and of course these male chicks will *never* lay eggs. They are considered useless and so are crushed to death. In the U.S. this is what people do to approximately 8 million baby male chicks within days of their hatching, per year...something I can't help but notice the "Incredible Edible Egg" industry doesn't advertise to the public.

Meanwhile, the female egg-laying chickens, producing far too many eggs for their health, are "spent" after just a year (egg-production drops so it isn't worth feeding them), and people, again, showing their infinite mercy and sense of justice...kill them. Iowa is a lead egg-producing state in the U.S.

The reasons these animal exploitation schemes continue are, as in most human endeavors, given by two words: MONEY; TRADITION. And...people will do almost anything to satisfy their taste. Taste trumps all other concerns for most people.

ON HUMAN LOVE:
Yes, I agree with you completely that people are very compassionate toward those they consider to be "us." Human bands (existing long ago)...essentially an extended family...were very helpful and kind to those within their band. Apparently if a member of two bands met, they'd sit down and try to figure out if they had any relation in common. If they did, all was fine and they'd go on in peace. If they didn't, they'd try to kill each other.

The world of humanity currently suffers greatly from this us/them mentality (example: Israel/Palestine), and from people making choices that do not include equal voices for all members (again: Israel/Palestine situation...beginning back when certain countries created Israel).

And, unfortunately, people sometimes see "us" and "them" within the same family. Worldwide, women and children suffer the most from malnourishment because many males (and cultures...so women will do it, too) see women as being of less value, and so don't allow them or the kids to eat as much food, get educations, etc. Or we can look in history at, for example, Carthage. The god Baal (a human creation, I would say) demanded people sacrifice their firstborn babies...which they apparently did with gusto...and so now, around 20,000 pots containing newborn babies' charred remains are buried at Carthage, and appear to support historical records saying that people there practiced child sacrifice. (Sometimes families would take pity on their own children and so would buy slave children to sacrifice. Ugh).

All this points to the extreme flexibility of human behaviors. We are by nature capable of great compassion, I agree. And we are very social creatures, as demonstrated by the existence of MB, for example! To whom we direct that compassion is part of our culture, and as a vegan I support and argue for people broadening that circle of compassion to more and more sentient beings.

ON CULTURE/TRADITION:
You wrote, "There's a lot of culture tied up in animal farming." This is very true; however, I would argue that not all cultural traditions are necessarily ones that one should wish to continue based solely on the fact that they are traditions (which I know you are not doing...you pointed, out, for example, that the fairly short human history of animal domestication has led to altered, but unique, ecosystems, that have intrinsic value, as do domesticated animals themselves).

I would prefer to look at each tradition individually and critique it according to whether it is one I feel should be perpetuated or not. I will use an example that is very close to home for you in Norway. According to all I've read, Norway and Norwegians continue (in defiance of United Nations rules) to kill around 2,000 Minke whales per year (out of a Minke whale population of 107,000 individuals) for the sake of "tradition." Norwegians generally kill the Minke whales (says Wikipedia, at least) using "explosive penthrite grenade harpoons." So here's a question: is this good or is this bad behavior toward whales? Is this a tradition that would best die, or should be continued for the sake of a few whalers and some tasty whale meat dishes?

The killing of whales by Norway, Iceland, and Japan (the latter for "scientific reasons" that somehow appear to always result in the whales being eaten...how *convenient*) is not a huge economic industry. The countries' GNP would scarcely be affected if whaling were stopped...but people continue it...and from what I have read, Norwegians in general defend whaling staunchly...for the sake of tradition...much like many people in the U.S. West defend raising cattle there (despite gross environmental damage).

So, what do you feel about whaling? Is this, indeed, a hot topic in Norway?

Bye for now,
--Erica