Biased student newspaper

[sprite1986]

Right, well I picked up a copy of our independent student newspaper, which has basically got a bit of an environmental theme going on this fortnight, particularly because Sheffield just hosted a whole week of climate-themed events, as well as a talk by Al Gore.

Anyhow, I opened up the centre spread which has practical ideas of how you can help reduce your own environmental footprint.

It has good stuff like avoiding North Sea Cod and vulnerable fish stocks, and bizarrely, a special mention that people should refrain from using.. cocaine..

But it has a whole little paragraph saying how people should refrain from using soya products, due to deforestation of the Amazon basin for soya production. But then next to that, it says how you should also avoid meat farmed abroad. Surely though, if they had done research, they might have said for people to cut-down/stop eating animal products, because they eat the soya.. and... and gah.

It just seems a really annoying article, which presents soya products in a really bad light, whilst mentioning little about the general inefficient meat production industry.

[Yoggy]

You're right Sprite, the farm animals eat WAY more soya than humans do.

It always bothers me when meateaters try to play "the counting game", saying that veg*ns are responsible for far more animal deaths than meateaters are, because farming kills insects and worms, etc. But even meateaters eat plants, AND the vast majority of commercial produce goes toward feeding the animals that meateaters eat!

Maybe you could write a letter to the editor of your paper explaining why it's far more effective to avoid meat than to avoid soya? Hopefully they won't be too biassed to print it.

[zorbed]

The type of people who write papers like that are stupid, clueless, poncey twats. Tenner bet they don't use recycled paper innit!

[Risker]

I think they've just taken some 'facts' at face value, not necessarily stupid but as the subject matter probably isn't of interest to them they haven't looked into it deeply.

If you do write to them I personally would play down my veganism as it could be easy to seem preachy and biased and could affect how the letter is recieved/responded to.

[satirecafe]

you're absolutely right

[sprite1986]

Cool, yeah, I think at the weekend, i'll spend some time planning a letter.

Thankyou for all your replies.

[Charlotte]

The Steel Press is a load a of sh*te frankly.....
Re Cocaine; apparently its grade is very exploitative of its producers. Watch out for a new fairtrade erm line

[flying plum]

on that note though, there are some products that use non-rainforest-farmed soy. alpro (if you can go by what they say on the carton) make sure their beans are from sustainable sources.

amanda

[Yogini]

At a speech at the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival last autumn, an attendee suggested that veg*ns are hurting the environment by eating all that soy. The speaker (Peter Singer) politely responded that that was pretty much the dumbest thing he'd ever heard (my paraphrasing.) He practically got a standing ovation for it.