No such thing as an environmental impact-free lunch
Re: “Want to conserve water? You’d be nuts to use cows’ milk”, Have Your Say, September 13.
Diane Cornelius advocates the benefits of alternatives to cows’ milk, but as ever there are two sides to the story. What she does not tell us, when recommending soya milk, is that over the past two decades about 300 million hectares of tropical forest have been lost thanks to the demand for soya beans and their milk. Pesticides sprayed by the agribusiness giants that control much of the soya production has affected biodiversity and resulted in soil erosion.
The fact is, livestock farming has an environmental impact, but so does the production of alternative foodstuffs, and the vegan/vegetarian activists need to ditch their moral righteousness and admit this. There is no such thing as an environmental impact-free lunch.
However, on one point I admit I may be wrong. I suggested that Eric Bahrt’s use of abusive language may stem from his diet, but the letters from Diane Cornelius and Jenny Moxham are free of rancour, so Mr Bahrt may have other issues that affect his emotions.
Robin Grant
Bangkok
