This page was last updated on April 26, 2012.
Changes needed to sustain environment; Unknown Vegan Advocacy Group; Beaver County Times; April 22, 2012.
A previous letter from this group was entitled “Healthier meals a must.”
When I wrote the original critique, as you’ll see below I noted “A quick Google search found this same letter tweaked by different ‘authors’ on … many other websites around the country [and] it’s fair to suspect it came from a vegetarian and/or vegan advocacy group.”
It appears the situation was worse than I thought. Not only did the named author apparently not write the letters, she did not submit them to the BCT. Here’s what the named author told me in an e-mail note: “I am a victim of identity theft and have been on the phone for two days with the BVT trying to get these letters permanently removed from the website. I did not know about either until a co-worker commented yesterday they saw ‘my’ letter posted online. I immediately called to find out where this letter came from. The person at the Times said it came in an email with something like ‘consciouseffort’ in the address. It had my name and address and a bogus phone number which he says he called and someone confirmed the letter was from me. He thought the number was a cell number but I investigated and found out that it is a land line in Chicago. When I called, I got a message in a man’s voice. … The message didn’t identify a person or group but just said ‘Leave a message and have a good meat-free day.’”
I confirmed the BCT removed the subject letters from its website. As a result, at the falsely-named author’s request I removed the critiques containing her name from The Bird’s Eye View, both on the website and on Facebook. I didn’t want this episode to be forgotten, however, so I re-published the critiques with the falsely-named author’s name removed. I have to wonder if any of the named authors of these spammed letters were authentic.
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“Just in time for Earth Day, a study published in last week’s ‘Environmental Research Letters’ warns that animal manure and fertilizers used in growing animal feed emit large amounts of nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas.”
[RWC] As I wrote in my critique of [the named author’s] previous letter, I’ll go out on a limb and guess [the named author] would not like readers to know she likely did not write this letter. A quick Google search found this same letter tweaked by different “authors” on AspenDailyNews.com, NJ.com, InsideBayArea.com, and many other websites around the country. I did not find the source of the form letter but it’s fair to suspect it came from a vegetarian and/or vegan advocacy group. Media outlets usually don’t like to publish form letters.
“An op-ed piece in this week’s New York Times warns that the devastating environmental impacts of a meat-based diet are actually magnified when raising animals on the range, because this involves much more land and more greenhouse gas emissions.”
[RWC] While we should never accept what we read without verifying it, it’s especially risky to use an “op-ed piece” as a fact source.
“These conclusions are in keeping with an extensive United Nations Environment Program’s report, which drew on dozens of smaller studies. The highly respected report concluded that agricultural production accounts for 70 percent of global freshwater use, 38 percent of land use and 19 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.”
[RWC] “The highly respected report?” By whom?
“In an environmentally sustainable world, meat and dairy products must be replaced by vegetables, fruits, and grains, just as fossil fuels must be replaced by wind, solar, and other pollution-free energy sources.
“As the world’s most conspicuous consumers, we have a special obligation to lead in pursuing an environmentally sustainable lifestyle. Our next trip to the supermarket is a great starting point.”
[RWC] Though readers probably figured it out by now, it appears [the named author] is a vegetarian or vegan and wants the feds to force her lifestyle choice on others. In this case, [the named author] uses the religion of manmade global warming to provide cover for her agenda.
© 2004-2012 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.