Anyone else perplexed by Colbert's appreciation for this organization?

I was absolutely appalled tonight when I saw a guest from Heifer International on the Colbert Report who wasn't asked to answer for the DISSERVICE her organization does to the global community. The growing meat/dairy/egg consumption world wide is doing a travesty to both  our planet and to human health. It takes an average of ten pounds of grain and 100 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat. And you are trying to tell me impoverished families need livestock to live! No, they would be much better off eating the grains themselves and using the clean water for their own purposes. As far as dairy goes, 2/3rd of the non-caucasian population is lactose intolerant, most of the villages receiving these animals don't have electricity to store milk, and animals can only produce milk if they get pregnant. (Just like people. We aren't so different you know.) Are you asking these families to breed entire herds of cows and goats for the sake of milk? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how unsustainable that it. Not to mention the adverse health effects now linked to the consumption of animal fats!
 
Furthermore, the U.N. recently released a study showing that animal agriculture is the number one cause of global warming, producing more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined. Animal agriculture also pollutes waterways, and leaves villages susceptible to diseases such as the avian flu.

I was also disgusted that a live cow was brought into the studio, cementing the image in viewers' minds that animals in the United States live happy lives until slaughter. It is no secret, however, that industrial farming practices have taken over the entire United States landscape and that these are inhumane and abusive industries–– in addition to being one of the biggest offenders of workers rights!

I expected Colbert's usual antics, making his guests uncomfortable and forcing them to see their own hypocrisy and inconsistencies. However, he was nothing but nice to his guest tonight. I know Heifer International will receive the "Colbert Bump" after tonight's show and I am angry at all the suffering this will cause for people, the planet and animals alike. I expect better from the Colbert Report. They would do much better to highlight nonprofits like The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation who are also promoted to ending world hunger WITHOUT the adverse effects of animal agriculture. I just don't get it.

Children are usually not lactose intolerant, and they need calcium and protein that milk provides.  More importantly, most cultures traditionally consume milk as yogurt, which is typically fine for lactose intolerant people to eat.  Cows also produce valuable manure for growing crops, and of course at the end of their life provide both meat and leather.

It is difficult and expensive to live on a vegan diet and be healthy--for example, soy is one of the worst foods you can eat for health.  Poor people supplementing their diet with yogurt and eggs makes very good sense, and is as far from factory farming of animals as one can get.  I think this is a perfectly wonderful organization and will be donating money to it in the future.

http://www.heifer.org

Last time I checked, industrial farm workers aren't doing so great when it comes to human rights either.

One small family with a cow, an industrial-enviro complex doth not make.

Wow, your comment is so full of misinformation I don't even know where to begin...

Heifer International did not invent meat-eating, nor are they introducing meat-eating to these cultures.  Each village they work in designs their own program, with up to a year of planning and training before any animal arrives.  They choose the animals, based on what they think will best improve their lives.  It is 100% ignorant - so ignorant, and arrogant - to insist these people can just eat grains and get a complete diet.  If you have access to a a Whole Foods, or any grocery store, that is true, but when are you in remote very poor rural areas, the only way to get a complete healthy diet you need access to milk, eggs, meat, and the manure from animals to fertilize your small kitchen garden (even buying fertilizer is out of their range).  You seem to be recommending these hungry families line up each day for their handful of grain (shipped courtesy of Monsanto and Cargill) and then wait at home for the next handout.  Heifer allows them to create a small diversified farm, with a diverse source of income.  If you grow just grain what happens if the crop fails?  If you have crops, eggs and milk - you are far better off. 

Rather than Heifer imposing its views on these cultures, YOU are trying to impose your own vegetarian values on other cultures that have always eaten meat.

I do not support our filthy, immoral industrial agriculture system that abuses animals etc., but I do support small and medium size farms that provide healthy meat, milk eggs etc.  Heifer supports small farmers the world over, with training in sustainable agriculture that actually improves the environment.  If you read the UN report you reference, you will see it draws a clear line between small farms and larger industrial agriculture.  To link the two is not intellectually sound. Small farms are the answer, not the problem. 

Look, most of us think eating animals is ok, even if we don't think they should be raised in factories.  That will always be so. 

Very well said.

Another correction to the OP's info--free-range animals don't consume grain, they eat grass (and the meat is much healthier for it).  It's only factory-raised livestock that live on a grain diet.

didn't our monkey brains develop from eating meat?

besides, if it weren't for all the eggs & meat i've ate lately, i wouldn't have these sizeable pythons

One thing that was also obvious but yet somehow still eerily not is the fact that people "Aww" and make compassion noises towards the sweet calf brought on the show, and the same people, including Colbert, might be eating and thereby be responsible for the completely, completely, completely unjust killing and  taking of the life of a cow or a calf just like the one that was on.

Is the answer really to desensitize ourselves and brush it off with humor?

Here's one reason why we shouldn't: Becoming vegetarian/vegan is the ONLY way to effectively stop climate change.

The reason being that CO2 stays in the biosphere for over a hundred years, and if we cut out everything that caused CO2 today it would only be effective in the very long term.

According to the IPCC we don't have that luxury, as climate change is now an immediate problem that we need to fix now.

Enter Methane and Nitrous Oxide. Two gases produced almost exclusively by the livestock industry. Methane is about 20 times as warming a gas as CO2 and Nitrous Oxide about 300 times.

However these two gases are absorbed by the biosphere within about a decade, causing immediate cooling for the planet, and giving us enough breathing space so that our solar, wind and other carbon reducing projects can help in the long term.

Furthermore as China becomes a world power, they have a trend of copying the west, and that means eating more meat. If this trend is not stopped, and this mentality not changed here at home, the increased meat production i.e. the Methane, and Nitrous Oxide increases as well as the rain forest being cut down for soy production will offset all the work being done to reduce CO2 in other ventures.

As far back as 2006 the UN has sighted the livestock industry as being responsible for 18% of global greenhouse gases. 40% more than all the transportation in the world combined.

People do not make the Methane connection as all calculations are made into equivalents of CO2, however all gases and their type of effect are not equal.

Go Veg, Be Green, Save the Planet

I couldn't disagree more with your post. Heifer International is a very sustainable organization (it has been around since 1944.) You say that the recipients of the gift would be better off eating the grain and drinking the water the animals consume. Not all water suitable for animal consumption is fit for humans. Also, currently there are enough grains in the world for each human to have 3500 calories a day. That is in grains alone. But by just eating grains, an individual is missing out on several needed nutrients vitamins. 

Goat's milk is more easily digested than cow milk. Also, goats produce far less milk than cows do, so there is usually no need to store it. (Thus avoiding the complex of not having a refrigerator.) 

It is true that industrial farming is terrible. But Heifer's mission is to work with communities to end poverty and hunger WHILE caring for the Earth. They teach responsible farming methods that end overgrazing and erosion. Most of their projects are in the US, so they work with project partners here to practice responsible, mostly organic, farming methods. Most of your facts were true, but Heifer is very intelligent about how it goes about its business. None of them pertain to the organization of Heifer.  

I believe if an animal's life is going to end for a good cause, it should be well cared for in the process. Heifer tries to insure that it does just that. I recommend watching one of their videos "Legacy for Efrain" "The Promise" or one of their environmental films. Go visit one of their Learning Centers (I suggest the one in Arkansas) or go visit their headquarters. Talk to Beatrice, the little girl who wanted to go to school but had to work hauling water every day, whose life was change by a goat. She was able to go to school, eventually go to college in America, and is now at the Clinton School of Public Service. See if she thinks that her life wouldn't be better off without Heifer's gift of a single goat. Heifer doesn't just provide an animal to a family- it provides hope to an entire community.