K. Lee Lerner's Blog, page 2
March 12, 2023
Gun Policy update. “Come and read it”
I’ve been intending to revisit my policies since the tragic murderous mass shooting in Uvalde last year. Alas, there are no easy answers to prevent such evil. Moreover, the Second Amendment’s interpretation by the courts must trump my personal preferences. Regardless, we collectively need to get after the serious business of crafting effective gun laws that reduce gun-related violence while still protecting the inalienable right of an individual to self-defense.
Across a range of issues, history and complex arguments are now constantly sifted by Left and Right partisans to fit ideological boxes. When it comes to gun policies, our hyperpolarization greatly diminishes chances for consensus on rational, evidence-based, and effective measures.
America’s gun culture, Constitution, and the broader philosophical underpinnings of the inalienable right to self-defense are inexorably intertwined.
For both better and worse, we do have a gun culture in America. It is in our founding and frontier marrow. It has brought us glory and freedom; it has brought us sorrow and shame.
Those on the Right who deny that we have a gun culture deny both our history and current reality. Such denial is as silly as those on the Left who simplistically look to places with very different histories, cultures, and attitudes about gun use for laws and policies to import. In such cases, wishing we had the gun culture or laws of other countries becomes nothing more than impotent virtue signaling.
I am sickened by those who use guns to kill people who do not deserve to be killed. My heart also breaks when anyone–especially the tender and innocent–is cruelly killed by twisted monsters using guns.
But neither misplaced fear and loathing of guns nor “thoughts and prayers” over the misuse of guns help us toward crafting reasonable, enforceable, and evidence-based laws that reduce gun-related deaths without stripping away the inalienable–and in the United States, that term is critical to this debate–right of an honest citizen to mount a reasonable yet effective defense of person, family, and property.
In many ways, the United States remains exceptional, a relatively recent outlier in social and governmental experiments. The foundation of our republic is a natural philosophy that establishes an inalienable right to self-defense that implicitly establishes our individual right to defend ourselves, our family, our property, and our other rights.
I am, of course, referring to natural philosophical concepts, including the right to own property–which inherently means the right to protect property.
It is also important to note that our inalienable rights were clearly intended to be individual rights, not rights of the state.
Simple declarations that there are too many guns in America are not helpful.
In a society awash in guns, no one is buying guns and giving them away indiscriminately. Moreover, people and groups wanting to ensure that guns are reasonably available for purchase by those who determine they have a legitimate need for a gun as part of their inalienable right to self-defense are not “pushing guns.” Gun purchases are mostly made one at a time, based on individual decisions. Higher rates of gun ownership are not associated with higher rates of murder. According to 2019 data, California had a rate of 4.9 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, while Texas had just .1 higher at 5.0 per 100,000. Because of its larger population, California records about 550 to 600 more murders than Texas annually, yet nearly twice as many people in Texas own guns as in California.
The wholesale, or even significant, removal of guns from the United States is a fantasy that flies in the face of the philosophic concepts upon which the country was founded. Even if it were possible, given the realities of geopolitics–smuggling, porous borders, etc.–any overly broad bans on guns won’t do more than save us from a small percentage of homicides based on impulsive actions. While that would be positive, it would also shift the balance of lethal power wildly toward the criminal elements of society and thus diminish the right of honest people to a reasonable and effective means of self-defense.
We also need to be observant of evidence. Contrary to the claim that more guns means more violence and deaths, until recently, violent crime was in a decades-long decline while–during the same period–gun ownership soared.
Gun phobia and “ban guns” hysteria are not helpful.
Some people have developed an almost visceral dislike of guns or anything they perceive as related to “gun culture.” I’ll grant that some of this reaction, especially in the aftermath of despicable acts committed with guns, is genuine. I would also argue, however, that there are those who see guns as a form of protection, who think some portion of the anti-gun lobby simply seeks to disarm law-abiding gun owners. The more conspiracy minded extend this to include attempts by totalitarian and authoritarian governments and political parties to disarm their political opponents. While this is an extreme argument, it is not without global historical precedent.
It is always important to remember that legally owned firearms are used for lawful purposes much more often than they are used to commit crimes or suicide.
Regardless, gun phobia and “ban guns” hysteria are not helpful. Guns are useful tools when properly used, and there are people who have a need for guns and who, at a minimum, are well trained and are responsible with their guns. Rules that help keep guns–which are inanimate objects–out of the hands of people who should not have them, or should not have them in certain places, are laudable but too often not followed.
Simplistic memes, slogans, and policies crafted without evidence or by partisan ideology simply help us evade the tough task of formulating effective gun laws.
I recently saw a partisan meme saying, “Well-regulated militias don’t kill schoolchildren.” Below the meme was a comment about how the Second Amendment had been radically reinterpreted as an individual right because soldiers returning from World War II wanted to keep their weapons. That’s manifestly false, but even if it were true, those WWII veterans had good reason. Across history, “well-regulated” militias have killed–and in many places in the world still do kill–schoolchildren. Those returning soldiers wanted to keep weapons because they saw what horrors both criminals and well-regulated regular armies, militias, and governments could manifest.
Mass shootings with semiautomatic weapons are horrific but should not alone drive gun policies.
While mass-shooting events like Sandy Hook and Uvalde are heart wrenching and horrific, they actually constitute a very small percentage of gun violence. The principal public safety concerns with respect to guns are suicides and illegally owned handguns, not mass shootings. Mass shootings, as unfathomable as they are, account for less than 4 percent of gun-related deaths.
Attempts to ban “assault weapons” are impractical and unnecessarily divisive
The evidence is abundant that automatic and semiautomatic weapons can kill many people in a short period of time. Even the most skilled soldier can’t use a knife to kill or injure people as quickly as a deranged killer or terrorist can with a semiautomatic weapon.
Accordingly, there are good reasons to treat the dangers posed by high-capacity automatic and semiautomatic weapons as fundamentally different from those posed by rifles, shotguns, and non-semiautomatic pistols. I do that in the policies proposed below.
We live in a world, however, where risks and risk assessments can quickly change. The single-shot and slow-to-reload muskets in use when our rights were codified could not reasonably be considered an effective means of self-defense against today’s weapons and threats.
People who use what I term the musket argument often get this backwards and actually make a case that people can mount to establish a need for individuals to own semiautomatic weapons. Even if the codification of “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed” is seen as relating only to the right of the state to a well-regulated militia, a musket will no longer suffice. Moreover, our inalienable rights were clearly intended to be individual rights, not rights of the state.
Focusing on banning semi-automatic weapons is unhelpful; bans are impracticable for the reasons outlined, not likely to be as effective as desired, and so highly politically divisive that they impede reasoned compromise on gun policies.
There is precedent, of course, for limiting or restricting even inalienable rights in some circumstances. On that basis, there is hope that effective gun policies and laws can be crafted.
The realities of the lethality of semi-automatic weapons, along with an increase in homemade guns and guns that can be made of harder-to-detect materials, are incorporated into the policies I propose later on in this essay.
The evolution of my personal philosophy and practices
My personal views about weapons are grounded both in experience and expertise, but I’ll also admit that I am, philosophically, a cowboy at heart. I’m also a strong “you will need to pry it from my cold dead hands” and “come and take it” supporter of the Second Amendment. Despite those beliefs, however, based on evidence, I have long advocated for reasoned gun controls far more stringent than exist today. I am also always willing to adapt my thinking in response to new evidence.
I strongly argue that we should value our Second Amendment responsibilities as much as our 2A rights. I believe that with ownership of a weapon comes the responsibility to learn to use it legally, safely, and effectively, if needed. This includes, but is certainly not limited to, proficiency in shooting.
I was introduced to the responsibilities of owning a weapon as a child and, as a young man, I received extensive expert training with weapons, including courses in combat, close-contact, and urban shooting. As a naval officer, I earned expert marksmanship medals with both pistol and rifle. Without practice, however, those skills rapidly deteriorate. Accordingly, I make a dedicated effort to keep up with gun laws, use case studies, new training methods, and my own proficiency.
I have used a variety of weapons both personally (on the ranch, hunting, fishing, shooting, etc.) and professionally. There are photos of me taken earlier than my memories extend in which I am walking with a BB rifle, hunting birds. My first kill was a bird perched on a wire. I remember a mixture of pride, regret, and fascination with the still and lifeless bird. When I was eight years old, my grandfather gave me a single-shot .22 rifle and two bullets that were intended to last the summer. With the first bullet, I killed a skunk that was a bit too close to the house. The odor was strong, and my grandmother was not pleased. I used the second bullet to shoot the lock off the shed where my grandfather stored ammunition. Thankfully, my grandfather laughed at my ingenuity, but I was still not allowed more bullets until the next summer. By the time I was 14, I vowed never to kill any animal I wasn’t going to eat.
What turned me off hunting was the attitude and lack of skills many wannabe hunters displayed. I had my fill of doctors, lawyers, and such invited to the ranch who had yahoo attitudes and poor shoot skills. They had no respect for hunting, the land, nor the animals they killed.
As years passed, my evolving attitudes drew more of my time and interests toward fly fishing. When fishing, I carry a .357 in a shoulder holster, in case a bear with a bad disposition appears. In 50 years of fly fishing, I’ve had to draw it only twice, and never had to fire because other measures sent threatening bears off in other directions. I hunted elk with a bow in the mountains of Colorado, but I never took one. I had enough of the mountain hunting experience helping friends pack out meat from their kills up steep cliffs in freezing snowstorms.
While poor sportsmen were rarely invited back to the ranch, I had enough of appalling and meaningless death helping out with dove hunts hosting lawyers and business types out from the city who shot birds for fun while drinking beer. They had no intention of eating their kills. The better of them at least gave their birds to the Mexicans working on the ranch. During deer season, it became my job to track down and put wounded animals out of the misery some inept hunter had inflicted upon them. Years of those experiences quickly removed my taste for hunting, except to teach my son the essential skills.
Most of my own time hunting was spent just walking the pastures or riding a horse back into the draws. I would tie up by the windmill, pull an orange from my jacket, and read a book until it was time to head back to camp for dinner or a series of shots from some distant part of the ranch required investigation. Multiple shots often meant that another hunter needed help packing out the meat–or that the hunter had missed and a wounded animal would need to be hunted down. The last time I shot a deer that wasn’t already wounded by another hunter was in 1994, when I harvested a buck to show my son how to field dress a deer. After that, I retired my .300 Browning rifle to the saddle or firing range in favor of carrying my Browning side-by-side 12-gauge to hunt quail.
For more than 20 years, I earned top scores on combat-shooting courses that required shooting under unusual and difficult circumstances. I now favor a Walther 9mm semi-automatic 17-shot clip for personal protection. Although I am certainly well past my prime, I keep up with my defensive skills and I am confident that, if needed, I can still kill with or without a weapon, shooting with either hand.
I still have a multi-state license to carry a concealed weapon, but normally I do not carry a pistol in the United States except when out on the ranch or hunting, fishing, riding my motorcycle, or traveling to certain cities. I do, however, always have ready access to a secured weapon, and so I am careful not to inadvertently travel with it through the gate at NAS Pensacola or other places where weapons are prohibited.
My personal prejudices and biases related to gun policies
My dad was a cop. I support policemen, and I hope I would be the first to stop and help an officer in danger or distress. I have also taken action against bad cops. But to the essential main point, it is my responsibility and nature to respect laws and law enforcement but also provide for my own self-defense.
Accordingly, if someone is threatening by word or action to: (1) hurt a cop, a woman, a senior, a child, or anyone defenseless; (2) point a gun at me; or 3) be part of a threatening mob illegally detaining me, I’m going to exercise my right to defend myself and others with up to deadly force (with or without a weapon) as needed.
That position is hardwired in my brain because, in such situations, there is only time to react. Calling law enforcement is part of the protocol when time and the situation allows, but my responsibility to act to defend myself and others before law enforcement arrives is paramount. This may include securing a situation and waiting for law enforcement to arrive, or it may require use of a weapon before they arrive.
Rioting, theft, arson, or other deliberate destruction of property that involves reasonably threatening trespass of my home, land, or vehicle (car, boat, plane) is also subject to the application of deadly force (with or without a weapon) as needed.
With that personal preamble, I argue that we need better and more rational gun laws because good gun laws can help create a more civil society as well as protecting those charged with keeping the peace.
Potentially effective evidenced-based gun policies that respect both Constitutional rights to own and carry arms as well as protect an individual’s right to self-defense:
This will surprise many of my Texas friends: I am personally opposed to unlicensed carry (also called Constitutional carry) because so few people are skilled enough with a weapon or able to exercise good judgment with regard to weapons, but I respect the Constitution and the Court’s rulings in this regard.
The balanced policies I do advocate are not more burdensome than the requirements for pilots and many other professions.
In addition to drastically improving mental health screening and care, I argue we should:
(1) Continue bans on automatic weapons: Maintain a federal ban on automatic weapons. Make it a federal offense to modify semiautomatic weapons or be in possession of devices that can modify semiautomatic weapons to mimic automatic weapons in terms of mechanism or rate of fire.
(2) Observe higher minimum age requirements to buy some weapons:
(2.1) Age 18 for traditional hunting rifles and shotguns;
(2.2) Age 21 for pistols and semiautomatic weapons, with exceptions for those age 18-21 serving in the U.S. military, National Guard, or in law enforcement, who would be issued a federal voluntary weapons license (FVWL) as described below. Other exceptions might be considered, but would involve an applicant taking a sanctioned training course and passing a psychological evaluation as per FVWL requirements discussed below.
(3) Require two forms of identification for sale of weapons and ammunition: Purchases of weapons or ammunition require two forms of government-issued photo identification (driver’s license, passport, etc.).
(4) Establish voluntary weapons license programs that accord responsible gun owners wide use of weapons: Establish a FVWL required to carry a weapon across state lines. States may individually decide to create a SVWL with similar (but not more stringent) requirements. In all circumstances, a FVWL can serve as a state SVWL.
(4.1) Obtaining a FVWL or SVWL would require:
(4.1a) a criminal background check for felonies, prior weapons violations, domestic violence, pending charges, etc.;
(4.1b) the successful completion of a mandated psychological screening;
(4.1c) completion of mandatory range safety training at law-enforcement sanctioned gun ranges that includes live fire range exercises that include at least introductory safety lessons related to semiautomatic weapons.
(4.2 ) The license must be renewed every three years.
(4.3) A FVWL would automatically be issued to those serving in the U.S. military, National Guard, or in law enforcement. Veterans of those institutions who honorably served would need to renew their FVWL every six years.
(4.4) We should also establish hardship exceptions to FVWL or SVWL requirements. Those who cannot afford the costs of FVWL licensing can apply for grants to cover such training from a fund supported by licensing fees, concerned organizations, and special federal fees on weapons manufacturers dedicated to such a fund.
(4.5) FVWLs and SVWLs can be suspended for cause (set forth by federal and state legislatures) by order of a local law enforcement agency or court for a period of 30 days pending a court or higher court review and subsequent order to reinstate or revoke. Upon suspension, a show cause filing must be made within 3 days to an appropriate court or administrative review body. Subsequent denials or revocations are appealable and, if the applicant ultimately prevails, the agency filing the original show cause petition shall bear all costs of litigation related to the suspension plus liability for actual damages related to said defective suspension of FVWL or SVWL.
Weapons and Ammunition Sales (Public or Private)
(6) Establish enhanced waiting periods for some weapons.
(6.1) Without a FVWL or SVWL, there would be a mandatory 5 business-day waiting period for all weapons and ammunition purchases. The only exception would be sales of ammunition at (and limited to use at) law-enforcement sanctioned gun ranges.
(6.2) Without a FVWL or SVWL the sale of any semiautomatic weapon would require a 30-day waiting period.
(6.3) Akin to suspicious activity reports related to financial transactions by banks, any attempt to purchase a semiautomatic weapon without a valid FVWL or SVWL would be reportable to local and state law enforcement agencies.
(7.0) Restrictions on sales Private sellers and gun shows would be prohibited from selling weapons to those without a valid FVWL or SVWL. It would be a felony to knowing privately sell or transfer a semiautomatic weapon to someone not holding a valid FVWL or SVWL. Gifts or transfers of non-semiautomatic weapons intended primarily for hunting, fishing, and sport shooting among immediate family members (grandparents, parents, children, etc.) shall not be prohibited, but transfers of semiautomatic weapon must be made using a licensed gun dealer as an intermediate (and subject to the limitations stated above).
(8.0 Limit Weapons Carrying in Certain Venues When Law Enforcement Is Present
(8.1) Except by law enforcement officers or agents, it shall be a felony to knowingly carry or possess a weapon in licensed child-care facilities, schools, universities, hospitals and clinics; government buildings housing courts, law enforcement, or regulating agencies; and/or places of voting.
(8.2) People have a right to ban others from carrying weapons into their homes, on their property, etc. Congregations have a right to ban weapons from religious observances held on their property. Business owners have the right to ban weapons from areas of their business. provided they post “no weapons allowed” restrictions where a person may reasonably be expected to observe such a restriction prior to entering. It shall be a misdemeanor to unknowingly violate such a restriction by holders of a FVWL or SVWL, but a felony if the failure is proved to be deliberate, continuing, or conducted with a specified class of weapon (e.g., semiautomatic pistol with extra clips, semiautomatic rifle, etc.)
(8.3) Stadiums, sporting events, licensed public concerts in parks, etc. that provide armed security may prohibit all weapons provided they post “no weapons allowed” restrictions where a person may reasonably be expected to observe such a restriction prior to entering. It shall be a misdemeanor to unknowingly violate such a restriction by holders of a FVWL or SVWL, but a felony if the failure is proved to be deliberate, continuing, or conducted with a specified class of weapon (e.g., semiautomatic pistol with extra clips, semiautomatic rifle, etc.)
(9.0) Other restrictions specifically regarding semi-automatic weapons:
(9.1) With regard to semiautomatic weapons, carrying or use of multiple or high-capacity clips (clips allowing 10 or more shots) beyond one’s home, regular place of residence, property (e.g., land), requires a possession of a current and valid FVWL or SVWL.
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Additional facts and factors important to formulating additional or alternative evidence-based gun policies.
As a scientist – or at least someone trained as a scientist – I am heavily bent toward “all evidence accounted for” arguments. For any reasoned gun policy to work it must in some way address the following facts (as of January 2023) often omitted distorted or otherwise not thoughtfully addressed in our civil discourse about guns:
(1) We need more effective laws, not just laws so that we can say we’ve done something to curb gun-related violence and death. In 2019-2020 the lowest murder rate in the country is New Hampshire and they have what many legal experts consider to be among the least restrictive laws. States like Idaho, North Dakota , South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Montana, Colorado, Nebraska, and West Virginia all have lower per capita murder rates than Massachusetts and its highly restrictive gun laws. Washington D.C. has among the most restrictive laws yet consistently ranks high among the cities in terms of murder rates. In contrast, places known for an openness to “gun culture” and least restrictive laws like Texas, Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania are all solid mid table in per capita rankings of murder rates by state.
There is no clear relationship between strict gun control legislation and homicide or violent crime rates. A small number of factors significantly increase the likelihood that a person will be a victim of a gun-related homicide. As above, legally owned firearms are used for lawful purposes much more often than they are used to commit crimes or suicide.
(2) We need to have an open an honest non-racist discussion about race and gun violence. The per-capita offender/perpetrator rate related to gun crime is also roughly eight times higher for African-American offenders than for white offenders, and their victim rate was similar. About half of homicides are known to be single-offender/single-victim, and most of those were intraracial; in those where the perpetrator’s and victim’s races were known, 81% of white victims were killed by whites and 91% of black or African-American victims were killed by blacks or African-Americans.
Specifically, we need to discuss why race correlates so strongly with both perpetrators and victims. Race is certainly not a causative factor, but that simply means we need to dig deeper into cultural and social issues like poverty, lack of education, opportunities. It is frequently said that African Americans and other people of color are disproportionally victims of gun-related crimes. Indeed, FBI data shows that African Americans are more than eight times more likely to be victims of gun related crime. However, what is often left unsaid is the fact that the vast majority of perpetrators of crimes against blacks are other blacks.
Many people pull back from quoting or discussing these statistics for fear of being thought racist, but the numbers speak to an issue that can’t be ignored by anyone genuinely concerned about reducing gun violence toward ALL people. No one is well served by silence, especially if we can openly discuss and prove that race itself is not a causative factor but rather the byproduct of problems like poverty, lack of education, and equal opportunity that we can more directly and effectively address. We decry mass shootings in school, and extend to them intense media coverage , but many more young people of color are killed by gun violence in our cities without much more that a quick reference in local news.
(3) Gun violence statistics are not easily reducible to red state / blue state analysis. While gun control advocates attempt to portray legal gun owners and users in Republican majority or Republican-led red states as the problem with relation to gun policies and create false and/or deceptive memes about red states having higher rates of gun violence due to their embrace of gun culture and resistance to gun control measures. A more complete analysis of the data shows that gun-related murders and crimes are carried out either primarily — or in highly disproportionate numbers — by demographic cohorts in those red states by cohorts typically associated with strong support of the Democratic party in urban areas under the control of local Democratic leadership. The problem of black-on-black violence in particular does not recognize political boundaries.
I am of course referring also to the cultural attitudes expressed by President Obama’s comment at a San Francisco campaign fund-raiser in 2008 about small-town Pennsylvania voters who, bitter over their economic circumstances, President Obama said “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” as a way to explain their frustrations. Although then presidential candidate Obama quickly pulled back and regretted those remarks they left a scar on rural red state psyches that polls show still lingers in 2023. Similar cultural and political scars are created by broad calls to ban guns and/or take away guns, The NRA and some gun-rights advocates then lash back in response with call as to reject even reasoned discussion of evidence-based proposals for fear of a slippery -slope approach to gun control that will ultimately hinder responsible citizens from exercising their Second Amendment rights.
Summary
Until we can engage in respectful dialogue, with gun right advocates and gun-control advocates each focused-on evidence rather than stereotyping and political posturing, we have little chance of crafting effective gun policies.
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Resources:
FBI and Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection
FBI Crime Data ExplorerFBI Database on Law Enforcement Officers Killed and AssaultedFBI National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)FBI The National Use-of-Force Data CollectionRand. Mass Shootings in the United States https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/essays/mass-shootings.html
Pew Research. What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/
February 21, 2023
San Antonio, Texas — Remember the Alamo: Both the Heroic Sacrifice and Historical Uncertainties
Remember.
History and myth
combine to paint a canvas
brushed with heroes’ blood
o’er thirteen days of glory
at the siege of Alamo
Of the defenders,
only six are Texas born
Others find just cause
Travis, Crockett, and Bowie
Texians and Tejanos
Time and tales obscure
what is real from symbolicVictory or Death! Travis’ words drew the lineHis sword need not part the sand Against hopeless odds,
valiant men to be consumed
sacrificed their lives
***
As with many great battles in history, fact mixes with myth concerning the battle of the Alamo.
Historians and other writers who utter certainties about many events–for example, whether Travis literally drew a line in the sand with his sword–are hacks you should dismiss. Honest historians (i.e., scholars and writers not driven by an overarching ideology) who are well grounded in primary sources and intellectually capable of weighing evidence of varying credibility will honestly say, “We’ll never know,” or offer their opinion regarding many of the events associated with the Alamo with a level of confidence far from certainty.
About the Alamo and the mythology surrounding Lt. Col. William Barret Travis’ famous “line in the sand,” for example, historians still labor over whether Travis literally drew a line in the sand with his sword. Scholarly sentiment has swayed back and forth over the years, but the truth is that we will never know for sure.
I argue that it does not matter because Travis essentially drew a more important, and equally dramatic, metaphorical line in the sand for himself and the men under his command with his triple underscoring of ‘Victory or Death’ in his letter from the Alamo dated 24 February, 1836.
The only certainty one can offer about the Alamo is that an honest accounting of all sources, when objectively weighed, leads to the same conclusion. While interpretation of evidence can lead to substantial variations in the narrative (even the number of the Alamo’s defenders and who was fit for duty on 6 March, 1836 are uncertain), all those narratives ultimately lead to the same place: a heroic tale of sacrifice that led to Texas independence.
If you read otherwise, the historian or writer is either incompetent, ideologically driven, or trying to sell you something with an incendiary interpretation.
For those interested in historical truth, I recommend the following books as a start to serious study about the Alamo and the Texas Revolution. There are many fine books omitted from this list, but these are all excellent reading, as well as historically balanced:
“Alamo Sourcebook, 1836: A Comprehensive Guide to the Battle of the Alamo and the Texas Revolution” by Timothy J. Todish, Terry Todd, and Ted Spring
“Texian Iliad: A Military History of the Texas Revolution” by Stephen L. Hardin
“The Alamo Reader” by Todd Hansen
“The Blood of Heroes: The 13-Day Struggle for the Alamo–and the Sacrifice That Forged a Nation” by James Donovan
“Alamo Traces: New Evidence and New Conclusions” by Thomas Ricks Lindley
“The Alamo: A Primary Source History of the Legendary Texas Mission” by Don Nardo
Photo and content by K. Lee Lerner. East side of the Alamo Cenotaph. San Antonio Texas, ca 2010. ©LMG CC BY-NC-ND Otherwise: All Commercial Rights Reserved
The Alamo
February 17, 2023
Scattershooting with Presidential couplets…
***Though schooled at Harvard, Columbia, and Punahou,Obama’s glow still suffered foreign policy woe***Like “nu-ce-lear” fusion, Texas and W were linked,from war his Administration certainly did not shrink***The Ivy League and Rhodes scholarship aside,Arkansas’ Clinton was Hillbilly Bill to the snide.***The elder Bush served his country with distinction and yet,whether he was more Houston or Kennebunkport was anyone’s bet.***That President Reagan played a part we all knew,yet it worked and the country was born anew***From Plains, Georgia came a good man named Jimmy Carter,He made a mess, and about Iran should have been smarter.***President Ford was a fill-in it’s true,But he was a stout Michigan man who fought the Swine Flu.***And what can one say about Tricky Dick and Watergate?Except that Nixon went to China before meeting his rat-fucking fate.***A barefoot boy from Texas, a champion of civil rights,President Johnson is best remembered for ill-considered fights.***Camelot and President Kennedy’s time were too short,as the hope from Hyannis Port did an assassin’s bullet abort.***About President Eisenhower, I don’t personally know,I was too young and so farther back I shall not go
February 13, 2023
The forgotten threat of nuclear winter
For decades the threat of nuclear weapons use among major powers has declined. That decline stopped with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As a consequence, experts broadly estimate that threat of nuclear war is at a 40 year high.
While we rightly focus on the perils of global warming, the use of only a portion of the world’s nuclear weapon anywhere in the world by any power could kill hundreds of millions of people outside the conflict zone in what scientists term ‘nuclear winter.’
In essence, nuclear winter results from explosions and subsequent fires associated with a nuclear exchange. Vast amounts of smoke, soot, and other particles, would be injected into the upper atmosphere and block sunlight from reaching the Earth’s surface for up to a decade. This would result in a significant global cooling and diminished sunlight that, in turn, will deadly to catastrophic crop failure and global famine.
The term was first used by Richard Turco, but the concept of nuclear winter was based on based on data and modeling done in the 1980s by Carl Sagan and others.
When a nuclear device explodes its fireball produces a thermally intense shockwave that essentially vaporizes everything within a distance from the base that varies by the strength and altitude of the explosion(s), topography, etc.
Incoming return updrafts following a nuclear explosion can be so intense that they push particulate matter up to 50 kilometers above the Earth’s surface, polluting the stratosphere and damaging its constituent ozone layer that protects the surface from harmful UV radiation.
Resulting firestorms caused by the incendiary shockwave can burn in cities and rural areas for months while they add to the atmospheric soot and debris levels. Driven by upper atmospheric jet streams, the particles in the stratosphere stream around Earth to dramatically block sunlight for up to a decade. The food ecosystem would collapse as crops fail and livestock die.
Without widespread International cooperation, deaths from famine and starvation would certainly follow. A study published in the journal Science in 2007 estimated that even if the US and Russia used only a small fraction of their nuclear warheads (e.g., 0.1 percent of their combined 1450 megaton arsenals, such a conflict could push teragrams of soot into the atmosphere. Modeling suggests that amount is sufficient to cool Earth by absorbing and scattering sunlight.I n 2019, a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concluded, for example that a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, using 100 Hiroshima-sized bombs (and most US and Russian bombs now are far more powerful), could lead to a decline in global food production by 20 to 40 percent over the subsequent decade.
Alterations of surface temperatures could also alter precipitation patterns leading to increased wildfires and/or flooding.
The impacts of nuclear winter will vary by region. In 2019, a study published in the journal Earth’s Future asserted that higher latitudes would suffer cooling up to 20 degrees Celsius. Studies also suggest that nuclear winter could linger. In 2018, a study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters estimated that the effects of nuclear winter could last up to a decade.
Photo: Stowe, Vermont. Content and photo by K. Lee Lerner
For decades the threat of nuclear weapons use among majo...
For decades the threat of nuclear weapons use among major powers has declined. That decline stopped with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As a consequence, experts broadly estimate that threat of nuclear war is at a 40 year high.
While we rightly focus on the perils of global warming, the use of only a portion of the world’s nuclear weapon anywhere in the world by any power could kill hundreds of millions of people outside the conflict zone in what scientists term ‘nuclear winter.’
In essence, nuclear winter results from explosions and subsequent fires associated with a nuclear exchange. Vast amounts of smoke, soot, and other particles, would be injected into the upper atmosphere and block sunlight from reaching the Earth’s surface for up to a decade. This would result in a significant global cooling and diminished sunlight that, in turn, will deadly to catastrophic crop failure and global famine.
First used by Richard Turco, the concept of nuclear winter was based on based on data and modeling done in the 1980s by Carl Sagan and others.
When a nuclear device explodes its fireball produces a thermally intense shockwave that essentially vaporizes everything within a predicted distance from the base that varies by the altitude of the explosion(s), topography, etc.
Incoming updrafts following a nuclear explosion can be so intense that they push particulate matter up to 50 kilometers above the Earth’s surface, polluting the stratosphere and damaging its constituent ozone layer that protects the surface from harmful UV radiation. Resulting fires cause by the incendiary shockwave can create firestorms that burn in cities and rural areas for months while they add to the atmospheric soot and debris levels. Driven by upper atmospheric jet streams, the particles in the stratosphere stream around Earth to dramatically block sunlight for up to a decade. The food ecosystem would collapse as crops fail and livestock die. Widespread deaths from famine and starvation would follow.
A study published in the journal Science in 2007 estimated that even if the US and Russia used only a small fraction of their nuclear warheads (e.g., 0.1 percent of their combined 1450 megaton arsenals, such a conflict could push teragrams of soot into the atmosphere. Modeling suggests that amount is sufficient to cool Earth by absorbing and scattering sunlight.
In 2019, a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concluded, for example that a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, using 100 Hiroshima-sized bombs (and most US and Russian bombs now are far more powerful), could lead to a decline in global food production by 20 to 40 percent over the subsequent decade.
Alterations of surface temperatures could also alter precipitation patterns leading to increased wildfires and/or flooding.
The impacts of nuclear winter will vary by region. In 2019, a study published in the journal Earth’s Future asserted that higher latitudes would suffer cooling up to 20 degrees Celsius.
If it occurs, studies also suggest that nuclear winter could linger. In 2018, a study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters estimated that the effects of nuclear winter could last up to a decade.
November 17, 2022
Reading Caesar
Reading Caesar. Through the looking glass of history shine lessons for today.
October 14, 2022
Scattershooting on the science supporting, and perils of, vegetarianism and veganism
Scattershooting on the science supporting, and perils of, vegetarianism and veganism
No, this isn’t a post wherein a Texan lampoons vegetarians and vegans. In fact, I include an experimental vegan enchilada recipe below. Nor is it my intent to dissuade anyone from diet decisions related to their religious belief system. My intent herein is to respect dietary lifestyle choices that people make that work for them, especially if they sincerely intend those choices to be part of solutions to the many social and ecological problems humanity faces.
There are, however, perils inherent in many lifestyle choices, including plant-based diets. Some people choose vegetarian and vegan diets simply based other ethical concerns regarding the treatment of animals. I respect that, but well-intentioned ethics can also blindly bring additional hunger, disease, and famine to the poor in this world.
My intent here is simply to point out that there are health, environmental, and economic perils frequently overlooked in often ideologically-driven soft and friendly coverage of these lifestyles. According to growing sales figures of plant-based meat substitutes and other plant-based diet options in both Europe and America, the time has come to take a closer look.
To be sure, the medical evidence and warnings against too much red meat consumption, and the hazards of toxin bioaccumulation in some species of fish are substantial. While the perils of many omnivore diets continue to be well-studied, the potential perils related to plant-based diets have received far less attention. Regardless, the slate for plant-based diets is not clean.
While many assume that vegetarian and vegan options are “healthier” and that plant-based diets and fully substitute for diets that include meat, seafood, and dairy a study (linked below) published in the ‘American Journal of Clinical Nutrition’ found, for example, that children on vegan diets were, on average, 1.2 inches shorter and had up to 6 percent less bone mineral content compared to meat-eaters in their demographic cohort.
Empirical smoke may evidence a larger fire. Research continues on the impacts of meat-eating omnivorous diets, but more research needs to be done on the nutritional impacts of lacto-ovo-vegetarian diets (LOV) diets that include milk, dairy products and eggs, but no animal meat as well as vegan diets that do not include any animal products.
Many people assume that adopting plant-based diet is also better for the planet and adoption of such dietary practices seems like a science-based counter to methane and other greenhouse gas-producing farming of animals (especially famously flatulent cows). But this ignores argument that, despite the fact that the per calorie and protein production per acre of land devoted to raising plants is higher (see more on these efficiencies below) because of real-world harvesting, transportation, and economics /labor issues, the world would— according to some experts — need approximately 30 percent more cleared agricultural land to produce a plant-based diet for the plant. More agricultural land will in some regions be obtained by deforestation.
Energy expended in harvesting and transportation are issues often overlooked by vegetarian and vegan advocates. Farmers currently produce more than sufficient protein for the planet’s population, but inefficient transport means about a third of production is wasted. If plant-based diets were truly a small-farm supporting panacea, one could argue that this might be expected to increase the food transport woes of the world.
To feed the world a plant-based diet we’ll also need the plant-based diet agricultural production and transport to be industrialized along the same lines we have now. Whether we want it or not, that will happen because of a number of economic factors that drive agricultural industrialization now. Any conception that a shift to plant-based diets is going to mean a return to small family farms is folly. Contrary to the assumptions of many who have adopted plant-based diets who think only of small famers growing kale, the industrial agricultural giants are already heavily invested in promoting plant-based diets dependent on crops they already grow (e.g., wheat and soy).
Especially in cases of industrial farms, but also private farms in some climates, the additional land use will require more natural and artificial fertilizers that contribute to nitrogen contamination of waterways and oceans. Add to that well-documented and observed additional nitrogen burden the need for additional herbicide and pesticide use. Additional freshwater, already in short supply in some regions will also be needed to support the additional agricultural land. The water related peril is exacerbated by the anticipated increase in extreme weather, including drought, that can devastate crops.
One answer to this increase, of course, might be found in the research and increased plantings of genetically modified (GMO) crops. While the overwhelming evidence is that GMO cops are both safe and advantageous, they also have some perils to be discussed in future essays. Regardless, use of GMO crops plays against the “naturalist” views of many who embrace plant-based diets and certainly plays to the advantage of large international agricultural companies.
One the other hand, there are evidence-based arguments to be made that because so much agricultural land is dedicated to raising animals for meat, along with the crop tonnage to feed them, that demand for agricultural land and the accompanying pollution perils outlined above would be greatly reduced. As above, multiple studies have shown that plant-based agriculture is more calorie and protein-produced per acre productive than animal-based agriculture, produce less pollution and manure based toxins. Multiple studies show that vegetarian and vegan diets produce substantially less greenhouse gas emissions, etc.
Again, however, one needs to consider the real-world costs of all facets of production, harvesting, transportation, etc. Many of the non-peer reviewed literature promoted by plant-based diet advocates overlook these realities, No authoritarian system in the world could overnight ban meat production, reallocate land (especially towards optimal local efficiencies), and build the irrigation and engineering infrastructure needed to make some radical shift to plant-based diets that exclude meat.
Even if one concludes that the world should move toward plant-based diets, the reality is that absent the type of agriculture control exercised by Stalin and Mao — controls that created great famines that killed millions of people — the world will be using land for production meat for decades and possibly centuries to come.
Thankfully a middle path exists. Effective solutions are rarely binary.
While plant-based diets have the advantages listed above, studies suggesting that, on balance, the world can achieve the nearly the same positive environmental impacts by reducing rather excluding meat and dairy food groups. While this would not eliminate ethical concerns over the treatment of animals, it would certainly reduce practices people find cruel and objectionable without the imposition of one’s ethics on others.
With projected population increases to 9 billion by 2050 our current systems of agriculture and the balance of energy expended on meat vs plant based production is seemingly unsustainable. According to researchers in Copenhagen who evaluated and synthesized dozens of peer-reviewed published studies, the data clearly indicates that “agriculture alone is responsible for fully 10–12 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions (GHGEs).” [Which Diet Has the Least Environmental Impact on Our Planet? A Systematic Review of Vegan, Vegetarian and Omnivorous Diets. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11154110 ] If current practices simply scale up to meet a global population of 9 billion, current published literature — our current best science — estimates that “GHGEs will rise by up to 150% of current emission levels by 2030.”
Using the Life Cycle Impact Assessment technique (LCAs) “that factor in impacts of production, transport, processing, storage, waste disposal and other life stages of food production” the study provided evidence that vegan diets and lacto-ovo-vegetarian diets not relying on locally produced products — a privileged consumption available to few — or that contain highly processed products can carry a negative environmental footprint larger than locally sourced meat-based diets.
Cultural preferences aside, In some cases and localities meat-eating diets can be more environmentally sustainable than plant-based diets. In addition, the Copenhagen study cited showed that people who followed dietary recommendations for the Mediterranean diet, for example, had comparable environment impacts with those on strict vegetarian and vegan diets.
Omnivore diets vary considerably (e.g., the Atlantic diet, Mediterranean diet, Nordic diet, etc.) and the study concludes that semi-vegetarian diet, also called a flexitarian diet (Full disclosure, my personal preference) that occasional includes meat may be the most sustainable of all.
If one is concerned about the environmental consequences of a diet, the key take-away is to reduce meat consumption but also focus on local sourcing. Much more key to reducing environmental impacts than the type of diet is is local sourcing. The best diet is one that takes into account what foods are available locally.
However, even local sourcing can be tricky, there are circumstances where centralized production and distribution is more efficient than local production. Moreover, there are some products that are culturally unique, and the export of these commodities supports both local business and local cultural communities.
The “feel-good” linkage of plant-based diets with small family farmers is also not supported by the global data. It is, at best a localized linkage enjoyed mostly by privileged economic elites in economically and technologically advanced countries.
It’s not the traditional plant-based diet options from cultures based in economically developing nations or people living on remote pastural lands growing free-range quinoa that are appearing in markets, it’s the industrialized meat-substitutes that are growing in popularity.
Vegetarianism and veganism are not new. References to equivalent dietary practices are ancient. Restrictive diets have also long been a part of the ethics associated with the practice of religious faith.
In the modern era, vegetarianism and vegan dietary restrictions have also taken on the social currency of rebellion, protest, and otherwise incorporated into “return to land” and wide variety of countercultural movements (both left and right leaning). There are even ties to women’s suffrage movements.
All of that is fine — people ground their ethics on many varied perspectives in life — but no one should blindly preach that plant-based diets are somehow both scientifically and morally superior. There are too many cultural and local factors to consider.
Vegetarianism and veganism can also threaten economies and cultures. Our diets are much more based on cultural preferences and personal experience than caloric energy efficiencies or other factors I have discussed.
Do we really want a world without the cultural glories of Coq au vin? Do we want a world where some vegan version of an authoritarian Pol Pot orders everyone to slurp some algae-based slimly stew because it has the optimum nutrition with the lowest adverse environmental impacts?
Moderation —and an eye towards fresh and local— often avoids the extremes and supports local businesses and traditional cultures
People should challenge the practicalities of their own ethical choices when applied more broadly and on a larger scale, especially if their consumption is a lifestyle choice easily available to only those in economically and technologically advanced nations.
Veritas.
* * * * *Between bouts of COVID fever (which, alas, has returned in fiery force), I turned Sibley’s kitchen into a laboratory to create an all-vegetarian enchilada, admittedly borrowing liberally from online advice and products already on the market.To complete your mise en place for vegan enchiladas you will need: 4 organic medium-sized organic yellow corn tortillas; 4 Vine-ripe Sand Mountain tomatoes (or any vine ripe tomato); two cloves of thinly shaved garlic’ one -fourth cup lime juice; 3 pinches each of organic Mexican oregano, cilantro leaves, chili powder, and cayenne pepper; one-fourth cup each of pre -cooked or canned organic black beans, pinto beans, kernels of sweet corn, sweet onions (Texas 105 or Vidalia), and zucchini; along with about a eighth cup each of organic diced yellow or red bell pepper, diced green chilies, finely chopped jalapeñoes, and finely -chopped olives.Add finely diced tofu as desired (generally I eschew tofu).Dice tomatoes Set aside a handful of diced tomatoes to use as garnish) and reduce them for use in creating a medium for the enchilada’s filling and for the ranchero sauce to cover the fully- formed enchilada prior to baking. For both, with just a bit of water in the pan to start, reduce diced tomatoes before reducing heat to simmer while adding a touch of garlic, lime juice, and Mexican oregano. Gently fold in chili powder and cayenne pepper to preferred taste. Simmer for 10 minutes.Set aside half of the wet sauce for ranchero topping.Reduce the other half further while adding in a mix of pinto beans, black beans, kernels of corn, shaves of sweet, onions (Texas 105 or Vidalia), and bits of zucchini, bell pepper, green chilies, jalapeño, and olives.Add bits of tofu as desired (As above, I generally eschew tofu)Ladle filling atop a corn tortilla and then fold. Top the enchilada with sauce and a light sprinkle of chives and just a touch of chopped cilantro leaves.Cover with foil and cook in an oven preheated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes. Uncover, turn up the heat to 400 and cook for 5 to 10 minutes until the enchilada is darkened but before the ranchero sauce is completely dryServe, garnished with fresh lettuce and diced tomato and a wedge of lime to vegetarian and vegan friends prelubricated with liberal amounts of Sangria (sans blood of the bull, of course).When no one is looking, put the real enchiladas you cooked for yourself on your plate. If your guests say anything or are offended by them in any way, look coldly upon their virtue-signaling hysterics and faux nausea. Humans are well-established and evolved omnivores and so the chances are great that any offense is affectation.Offer them– and yourself — more Sangria.Think about chilled Mezcal shots for dessert.Scattershooting on the science supporting, and perils of, vegetarianism and veganism…
Scattershooting on the science supporting, and perils of, vegetarianism and veganism…
No, this isn’t a post wherein a Texan lampoons vegetarians and vegans. In fact, I include an experimental vegan enchilada recipe below. Nor is it my intent to dissuade anyone from diet decisions related to their religious belief system. My intent herein is to respect dietary lifestyle choices that people make that work for them, especially if they sincerely intend those choices to be part of solutions to the many social and ecological problems humanity faces.
There are, however, perils inherent in many lifestyle choices, including plant-based diets. Some people choose vegetarian and vegan diets simply based other ethical concerns regarding the treatment of animals. I respect that, but well-intentioned ethics can also blindly bring additional hunger, disease, and famine to the poor in this world.
My intent here is simply to point out that there are health, environmental, and economic perils frequently overlooked in often ideologically-driven soft and friendly coverage of these lifestyles. According to growing sales figures of plant-based meat substitutes and other plant-based diet options in both Europe and America, the time has come to take a closer look.
To be sure, the medical evidence and warnings against too much red meat consumption, and the hazards of toxin bioaccumulation in some species of fish are substantial. While the perils of many omnivore diets continue to be well-studied, the potential perils related to plant-based diets have received far less attention. Regardless, the slate for plant-based diets is not clean.
While many assume that vegetarian and vegan options are “healthier” and that plant-based diets and fully substitute for diets that include meat, seafood, and dairy a study (linked below) published in the ‘American Journal of Clinical Nutrition’ found, for example, that children on vegan diets were, on average, 1.2 inches shorter and had up to 6 percent less bone mineral content compared to meat-eaters in their demographic cohort.
Empirical smoke may evidence a larger fire. Research continues on the impacts of meat-eating omnivorous diets, but more research needs to be done on the nutritional impacts of lacto-ovo-vegetarian diets (LOV) diets that include milk, dairy products and eggs, but no animal meat as well as vegan diets that do not include any animal products.
Many people assume that adopting plant-based diet is also better for the planet and adoption of such dietary practices seems like a science-based counter to methane and other greenhouse gas-producing farming of animals (especially famously flatulent cows). But this ignores argument that, despite the fact that the per calorie and protein production per acre of land devoted to raising plants is higher (see more on these efficiencies below) because of real-world harvesting, transportation, and economics /labor issues, the world would— according to some experts — need approximately 30 percent more cleared agricultural land to produce a plant-based diet for the plant. More agricultural land will in some regions be obtained by deforestation.
Energy expended in harvesting and transportation are issues often overlooked by vegetarian and vegan advocates. Farmers currently produce more than sufficient protein for the planet’s population, but inefficient transport means about a third of production is wasted. If plant-based diets were truly a small-farm supporting panacea, one could argue that this might be expected to increase the food transport woes of the world.
To feed the world a plant-based diet we’ll also need the plant-based diet agricultural production and transport to be industrialized along the same lines we have now. Whether we want it or not, that will happen because of a number of economic factors that drive agricultural industrialization now. Any conception that a shift to plant-based diets is going to mean a return to small family farms is folly. Contrary to the assumptions of many who have adopted plant-based diets who think only of small famers growing kale, the industrial agricultural giants are already heavily invested in promoting plant-based diets dependent on crops they already grow (e.g., wheat and soy).
Especially in cases of industrial farms, but also private farms in some climates, the additional land use will require more natural and artificial fertilizers that contribute to nitrogen contamination of waterways and oceans. Add to that well-documented and observed additional nitrogen burden the need for additional herbicide and pesticide use. Additional freshwater, already in short supply in some regions will also be needed to support the additional agricultural land. The water related peril is exacerbated by the anticipated increase in extreme weather, including drought, that can devastate crops.
One answer to this increase, of course, might be found in the research and increased plantings of genetically modified (GMO) crops. While the overwhelming evidence is that GMO cops are both safe and advantageous, they also have some perils to be discussed in future essays. Regardless, use of GMO crops plays against the “naturalist” views of many who embrace plant-based diets and certainly plays to the advantage of large international agricultural companies.
One the other hand, there are evidence-based arguments to be made that because so much agricultural land is dedicated to raising animals for meat, along with the crop tonnage to feed them, that demand for agricultural land and the accompanying pollution perils outlined above would be greatly reduced. As above, multiple studies have shown that plant-based agriculture is more calorie and protein-produced per acre productive than animal-based agriculture, produce less pollution and manure based toxins. Multiple studies show that vegetarian and vegan diets produce substantially less greenhouse gas emissions, etc.
Again, however, one needs to consider the real-world costs of all facets of production, harvesting, transportation, etc. Many of the non-peer reviewed literature promoted by plant-based diet advocates overlook these realities, No authoritarian system in the world could overnight ban meat production, reallocate land (especially towards optimal local efficiencies), and build the irrigation and engineering infrastructure needed to make some radical shift to plant-based diets that exclude meat.
Even if one concludes that the world should move toward plant-based diets, the reality is that absent the type of agriculture control exercised by Stalin and Mao — controls that created great famines that killed millions of people — the world will be using land for production meat for decades and possibly centuries to come.
Thankfully a middle path exists. Effective solutions are rarely binary.
While plant-based diets have the advantages listed above, studies suggesting that, on balance, the world can achieve the nearly the same positive environmental impacts by reducing rather excluding meat and dairy food groups. While this would not eliminate ethical concerns over the treatment of animals, it would certainly reduce practices people find cruel and objectionable without the imposition of one’s ethics on others.
With projected population increases to 9 billion by 2050 our current systems of agriculture and the balance of energy expended on meat vs plant based production is seemingly unsustainable. According to researchers in Copenhagen who evaluated and synthesized dozens of peer-reviewed published studies, the data clearly indicates that “agriculture alone is responsible for fully 10–12 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions (GHGEs).” [Which Diet Has the Least Environmental Impact on Our Planet? A Systematic Review of Vegan, Vegetarian and Omnivorous Diets. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11154110 ] If current practices simply scale up to meet a global population of 9 billion, current published literature — our current best science — estimates that “GHGEs will rise by up to 150% of current emission levels by 2030.”
Using the Life Cycle Impact Assessment technique (LCAs) “that factor in impacts of production, transport, processing, storage, waste disposal and other life stages of food production” the study provided evidence that vegan diets and lacto-ovo-vegetarian diets not relying on locally produced products — a privileged consumption available to few — or that contain highly processed products can carry a negative environmental footprint larger than locally sourced meat-based diets.
Cultural preferences aside, In some cases and localities meat-eating diets can be more environmentally sustainable than plant-based diets. In addition, the Copenhagen study cited showed that people who followed dietary recommendations for the Mediterranean diet, for example, had comparable environment impacts with those on strict vegetarian and vegan diets.
Omnivore diets vary considerably (e.g., the Atlantic diet, Mediterranean diet, Nordic diet, etc.) and the study concludes that semi-vegetarian diet, also called a flexitarian diet (Full disclosure, my personal preference) that occasional includes meat may be the most sustainable of all.
If one is concerned about the environmental consequences of a diet, the key take-away is to reduce meat consumption but also focus on local sourcing. Much more key to reducing environmental impacts than the type of diet is is local sourcing. The best diet is one that takes into account what foods are available locally.
However, even local sourcing can be tricky, there are circumstances where centralized production and distribution is more efficient than local production. Moreover, there are some products that are culturally unique, and the export of these commodities supports both local business and local cultural communities.
The “feel-good” linkage of plant-based diets with small family farmers is also not supported by the global data. It is, at best a localized linkage enjoyed mostly by privileged economic elites in economically and technologically advanced countries.
It’s not the traditional plant-based diet options from cultures based in economically developing nations or people living on remote pastural lands growing free-range quinoa that are appearing in markets, it’s the industrialized meat-substitutes that are growing in popularity.
Vegetarianism and veganism are not new. References to equivalent dietary practices are ancient. Restrictive diets have also long been a part of the ethics associated with the practice of religious faith.
In the modern era, vegetarianism and vegan dietary restrictions have also taken on the social currency of rebellion, protest, and otherwise incorporated into “return to land” and wide variety of countercultural movements (both left and right leaning). There are even ties to women’s suffrage movements.
All of that is fine — people ground their ethics on many varied perspectives in life — but no one should blindly preach that plant-based diets are somehow both scientifically and morally superior. There are too many cultural and local factors to consider.
Vegetarianism and veganism can also threaten economies and cultures. Our diets are much more based on cultural preferences and personal experience than caloric energy efficiencies or other factors I have discussed.
Do we really want a world without the cultural glories of Coq au vin? Do we want a world where some vegan version of an authoritarian Pol Pot orders everyone to slurp some algae-based slimly stew because it has the optimum nutrition with the lowest adverse environmental impacts?
Moderation —and an eye towards fresh and local— often avoids the extremes and supports local businesses and traditional cultures
People should challenge the practicalities of their own ethical choices when applied more broadly and on a larger scale, especially if their consumption is a lifestyle choice easily available to only those in economically and technologically advanced nations.
Veritas.
* * * * *Between bouts of COVID fever (which, alas, has returned in fiery force), I turned Sibley’s kitchen into a laboratory to create an all-vegetarian enchilada, admittedly borrowing liberally from online advice and products already on the market.To complete your mise en place for vegan enchiladas you will need: 4 organic medium-sized organic yellow corn tortillas; 4 Vine-ripe Sand Mountain tomatoes (or any vine ripe tomato); two cloves of thinly shaved garlic’ one -fourth cup lime juice; 3 pinches each of organic Mexican oregano, cilantro leaves, chili powder, and cayenne pepper; one-fourth cup each of pre -cooked or canned organic black beans, pinto beans, kernels of sweet corn, sweet onions (Texas 105 or Vidalia), and zucchini; along with about a eighth cup each of organic diced yellow or red bell pepper, diced green chilies, finely chopped jalapeñoes, and finely -chopped olives.Add finely diced tofu as desired (generally I eschew tofu).Dice tomatoes Set aside a handful of diced tomatoes to use as garnish) and reduce them for use in creating a medium for the enchilada’s filling and for the ranchero sauce to cover the fully- formed enchilada prior to baking. For both, with just a bit of water in the pan to start, reduce diced tomatoes before reducing heat to simmer while adding a touch of garlic, lime juice, and Mexican oregano. Gently fold in chili powder and cayenne pepper to preferred taste. Simmer for 10 minutes.Set aside half of the wet sauce for ranchero topping.Reduce the other half further while adding in a mix of pinto beans, black beans, kernels of corn, shaves of sweet, onions (Texas 105 or Vidalia), and bits of zucchini, bell pepper, green chilies, jalapeño, and olives.Add bits of tofu as desired (As above, I generally eschew tofu)Ladle filling atop a corn tortilla and then fold. Top the enchilada with sauce and a light sprinkle of chives and just a touch of chopped cilantro leaves.Cover with foil and cook in an oven preheated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes. Uncover, turn up the heat to 400 and cook for 5 to 10 minutes until the enchilada is darkened but before the ranchero sauce is completely dryServe, garnished with fresh lettuce and diced tomato and a wedge of lime to vegetarian and vegan friends prelubricated with liberal amounts of Sangria (sans blood of the bull, of course).When no one is looking, put the real enchiladas you cooked for yourself on your plate. If your guests say anything or are offended by them in any way, look coldly upon their virtue-signaling hysterics and faux nausea. Humans are well-established and evolved omnivores and so the chances are great that any offense is affectation.Offer them– and yourself — more Sangria.Think about chilled Mezcal shots for dessert.
