Tag Archives: environment

The Environment: The True Cause Of California’s Drought (And It’s Not Almonds)

Drawing by Leslie Goldberg

Note: Although this blog is primarily about art (music, film, literature, etc.), I have been concerned about the environment since I was a kid, and given that we have reached a point where climate change is seriously impacting the lives of humans and other animals (and fish and birds and insects)– in other words, it’s the biggest problem the world faces today and we can’t ignore it — I will be including articles related to climate change in the mix of my posts going forward.

My wife writes a great blog called “Vicious Vegan” that includes her humerous/serious essays along with her drawings.

Yesterday she posted an important piece about the true cause of California’s drought.

Here’s the first few graphs. (You can read the whole thing here.):

YUP, IT’S VEGANS WHO HAVE CAUSED THE CALIFORNIA DROUGHT

By Leslie Goldberg

Wouldn’t you know it? It’s the health food freaks, the almond milk guzzlers who are fueling California’s water shortage. Did you know that it takes a whole gallon of water to raise one almond?

A whole gallon.

Those self-righteous vegans who think they know something!

Since I happened to have a pound of almonds in the refrigerator I decided to count up those little water suckers and see how much water it takes to produce a pound of almonds. It was bad. Four hundred and thirty-three gallons of water.

Four hundred and thirty-three? Wait a minute. How about a pound of beef? (I dare say it’s a lot easier to eat a pound of beef than it is to eat a pound of almonds.) According to the folks at waterfootprint.org it takes between 3,000 and 5,000 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef.

“More than half the entire US water supply goes to livestock,” says the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

“It takes a lot of water to grow grain, forage, and roughage to feed a cow, as well as water to drink and to service the cow,” says the US Geological Survey Water Science School.

“Meat processing, especially chicken, also uses large amounts of water,” says the Environmental Working Group…

Read the rest here.

– A Days Of The Crazy-Wild blog post –

Audio: Neil Young Releases Free Live ‘Who’s Gonna Stand Up?’ – Listen Now!

Neil Young, Liverpool, July 13, 2014.

Neil Young is encouraging people to watch the documentary, “Under The Influence,” which is about how “corporations have usurped democracy by using their vast wealth to influence politics and silence the citizen voice in government.”

And he’s made available his new song, “Who’s Gonna Stand Up?,” which was recorded live in Liverpool on in July of this year.

This is all good. However, I’m disappointed in Neil Young because he, like many others who claim to be environmentalists, ignores the biggest cause of climate change in the world, which is the eating of meat and animal secretions (such as milk) and the use of products made from animals.

It would be good for Neil to watch the new documentary, “Cowspiracy,” and then encourage his fans to watch it too.

And if Neil gave up eating meat, he’d set a good example and he’d feel a lot better too.

[I just published my rock ‘n’ roll novel, True Love Scars.” There’s info about it here.]

— A Days Of The Crazy-Wild blog post —

Waiting for the End of the World: Al Gore Reviews Elizabeth Kolbert’s ‘The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History’

As Al Gore notes in his New York Times review of Elizabeth Kolbert’s latest dispatch from the first row of’ Man Vs. Planet Earth,’ “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History,” Kolbert has been documenting our continuing assault on our environment and all who live here for some time now.

Gore writes:

Over the past decade, Elizabeth Kolbert has established herself as one of our very best science writers. She has developed a distinctive and eloquent voice of conscience on issues arising from the extraordinary assault on the ecosphere, and those who have enjoyed her previous works like “Field Notes From a Catastrophe” will not be disappointed by her powerful new book, “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History.”

Kolbert, a staff writer at The New Yorker, reports from the front lines of the violent collision between civilization and our planet’s ecosystem: the Andes, the Amazon rain forest, the Great Barrier Reef — and her backyard. In lucid prose, she examines the role of man-made climate change in causing what biologists call the sixth mass extinction — the current spasm of plant and animal loss that threatens to eliminate 20 to 50 percent of all living species on earth within this century.

Extinction is a relatively new idea in the scientific community. Well into the 18th century, people found it impossible to accept the idea that species had once lived on earth but had been subsequently lost. Scientists simply could not envision a planetary force powerful enough to wipe out forms of life that were common in prior ages.

In the same way, and for many of the same reasons, many today find it inconceivable that we could possibly be responsible for destroying the integrity of our planet’s ecology. There are psychological barriers to even imagining that what we love so much could be lost — could be destroyed forever. As a result, many of us refuse to contemplate it. Like an audience entertained by a magician, we allow ourselves to be deceived by those with a stake in persuading us to ignore reality.

Read the rest of this review here, then weep.

-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-

Neil Young To Play Native American Group Benefit Concerts — Fighting Big Oil

Daryl Hannah (second from left) and Neil Young (center), with Athabascan Chipewyan Chief Allan Adam, left, during a visit to the Chipewyan Prairie First Nation in Janvier in September. Photo via the Edmonton Journal.

Neil Young will perform four “Honor The Treaties” benefit shows in Canada to raise money for the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) Legal Defense Fund.

The Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation is suing Shell Oil to stop the corporation from undertaking additional oil sands extraction projects the Indian group says will encroach on lands and resources protected by an 1899 treaty.

In September Young spoke at a press conference in Washington D.C. with Senators Harry Reid and Debbie Stabenow.

”I am against the Keystone pipeline in a big way,” Young said. “The fact is, Fort McMurray [Alberta] looks like Hiroshima. Fort McMurray is a wasteland. The Indians up there and the native peoples are dying. People are sick. People are dying of cancer because of this. All of the First Nations peoples up there are threatened by this. Their food supply is wasted, their treaties are no good. They have the right to live on the land, like they always did, but there’s no land left that they can live on. All the animals are dying.”

Supporting Young at all four dates is Diana Krall.

The shows will take place in Toronto (Jan. 12), Winnipeg (Jan. 16), Regina (Jan. 17) and Calgary (Jan. 19).

For more on this story, head to the Edmonton Journal or this the Calgary Herald.

-– A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post: sounds, visuals and/or news –-