More to Peter Spencer's story?

The front page of The Australian has reported that there may be more background to Peter Spencer's reasons for hunger striking.

Read it here.

According to Peter Spencer's brother, there were family financial issues at play that may or may not have bearing on what he is doing now. However, attempts by The Australian to muddy the waters by bringing up an armed stand off he had with police 40 years ago after a marriage breakdown seems a bit ridiculous. It arguably makes for a better story, but I am wary of taking one crazy episode from someones youth as an explanation for something they are doing 40 years later. In fact, I am probably more wary of people who haven't done anything a bit questionable in their lives.

Always with these types of causes I bear in mind that we could all have egg on our faces at the end of the day. That natural caution is why I am generally not a joiner and how I wound up a climate skeptic. It occurred to me early on that Peter Spencer may be a bit nutty or snacking on the odd power-bar along the way (I certainly hope so), but at the end of the day it doesnt really matter, as he has publicised a little known government con-job perpetrated in the name of global warming, and that can only be a good thing.

The medico in me has been concerned from the get-go with his mental and physical health, given the extreme situation he has felt driven to. I hope there is some kind of resolution to the situation that allows him an out with his health and dignity intact, at the very least.

It would be a shame if the government was let off the hook on their policy decisions through media attempts at marginalising this poor bloke. Regardless of any background story on Peter Spencer, the issues he is protesting still stand.

Less meat = less heat: A bum steer

You'll have to excuse the paucity of posts lately. I have had a disgustingly grotty 'flu, and like most people even vaguely associated with the health care profession, make a crap patient. I tend to get irascible and cranky and self medicate with every over-the-counter remedy I can get my hands on. (Oh, and while we're on the subject, I would like to extend a big "f_ck you" to the backyard speed cooks of Australia. You know who you are. Why? For making it impossible to get pseudoephidrine for legitimate sinus complaints unless its mixed with a bunch of unpronouncable antihistamines that no-ones ever heard of before, which then means you can't take a proper therapeutic dose of the pharmaceutical you actually want. And no, I don't want phenylephrine, I'd be better off going home and washing some sugar pills down with rum. Cheers.)

Anyhoo, pardon the segue, I will now return to the title of this post. It turns out that what many of us suspected for a long time is true: Vegetarianism for "sustainability" reasons really is as dumb as it sounds.

UC Davis Associate Professor Frank Mitloehner has challenged the scientific basis of Paul McCartney's and Rajendra Pauchari's "Less meat=Less heat" campaign.

Mitloehner traces much of the public confusion over meat and milk’s role in climate change to two sentences in a 2006 United Nations report, titled "Livestock's Long Shadow." Printed only in the report's executive summary and nowhere in the body of the report, the sentences read: “The livestock sector is a major player, responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalents). This is a higher share than transport.”
These statements are not accurate, yet their wide distribution through news media have put us on the wrong path toward solutions, Mitloehner says.

Amazingly, (or not so much, depending on your level of cynicism) most people who thought to themselves "Oh, look! Is that a bandwagon?!" and clamboured right up on board the sustainable vegetarian bus, just seemed to be propagating ad infinitum a bit of poorly calculated conjecture.

What I would like to see (and I have been looking through the literature - if anyone knows of a study, let me know) is research into the carbon footprint of a "balanced" vegetarian diet versus eating the bit of dead animal occasionally. Its one thing to just cut meat out of your diet, but the goal of a balanced vegetarian diet is to bring your nutritional intake back up to a level commensurate with eating meat. (Which, if done for "health reasons" begs the question of why bother in the first place.) So the balanced vegetarian diet is pretty resource intensive. I'm guessing bang for your buck, it would probably make more sense to eat meat occasionally. No-ones saying you have to choke down a steak everynight. I mean, if you're not vegetarian for valid reasons of conscientious objection, then why the teetotaller stance? What are you, an alcoholic?

As Ambrose Bierce once said:

ABSTAINER, n.
A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.

Mitloehner's analysis is presented in a recent study titled "Clearing the Air: Livestock’s Contributions to Climate Change," published in the peer-reviewed journal Advances in Agronomy. Co-authors of the paper are UC Davis researchers Maurice Piteskey and Kimberly Stackhouse.

Strippers for Industrialisation and other types of stupid

Since my recent post on "sustainable vegetarians", I came across a related and poorly concealed opinion piece from Australian group Doctor's For The Environment. This is a bunch of folk who are going to keep me busy for awhile.

• First off, the name. I take one look at it and I have the overwhelming urge to start a group called "Medics for Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll" or something. Its kind of a redundant non-sequiter in Zen koan form. Makes about as much sense as "Fishermen for Breathing". ("Hey, I ike breathing. Do you like breathing? We'd better listen to these guys...")
• Secondly, they publish recommendations that doctors tell their patients to stop eating animals because of the "health dangers of red meat", as a way of curbing carbon emissions.

"As doctors we are in an influential position to educate our patients into healthy lifestyles and to implement preventative medicine in our clinics. To our advice on smoking, alcohol, exercise and drugs, we must surely add advice on meat. This is an issue that will have a significant impact on the health of the individual and at the same time the on health of the planet by reducing greenhouse emissions."

I tend to doze off a little in medical ethics and jurisprudence class, but I'm sure this violates primum non nocere, (first, do no harm) if not a hundred other medical ethical and legal guidelines.