Moby's Essays from Everything Is Wrong (1995)
facts that i've collected:
In the past 20 years approximately 1 million species have disappeared from the world's tropical forests. From 1960-1985 over 40% of the central american rainforests were destroyed to create grazing land for cattle. The united states imports over 100,000 tons of beef from central america each year. It takes 23 gallons of water to produce a pound of tomatoes. It takes 5,214 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef. One acre of land can produce 20,000 pounds of potatoes. One acre of land can produce 165 pounds of beef. The u.s. cattle industry produces 158 million tons of waste per year. Livestock production is the #1 cause of water pollution in the u.s. 22 million acres of land have become unusable due to desertification. 85% of the topsoil loss in t he u.s. is the result of livestock production. In the u.s. 33% of ALL raw material consumption is used solely in the production of meat, egg, and dairy products. It takes 1 pound of grain to make 1 pound of bread. It takes 20 pounds of grain to make 1 pound of beef. 75% of the grain sent to third world nations goes to livestock production. The countries with the diets highest in animal products are also the countries with the highest rates of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, etc. 50 percent of men who eat meat regularly die of heart disease. 80% of usda chicken inspectors no longer eat chicken. If the average commuter passenger load in the u.s. were increased by just 1 person per day we would save 33 million gallons of gas each day. Americans spend over 1 billion hours stuck in traffic each year. 30% of u.s. greenhouse gas emissions come from cars. Air is sold in mexico city for $1.15 a minute by sidewalk vendors. What greenpeace spends in a year general motors spends in 4 hours. million children under the age of 6 suffer from lead poisoning. in europe 50% of the cars still use leaded gas. 2 million gallons of motor oil are dumped in american waterways each year. over 8 million tons of oil are spilled in the world's oceans every year. 5 billion gallons of water are flushed each day in the united states. Sewage treatment facilities in the u.s. discharge 5.9 trillion gallons of sewage wastewater into coastal waters every year. u.s. tuna fisherman are permitted to kill over 20,000 dolphins every year. 2 million sharks die in driftnets in the north pacific every year. Only 1 in 10 baby chimpanzees survive the trip form the jungle to the zoo. 1 billion animals are killed each year in experiments. 17 million animals are trapped in the u.s. each year for fur. Many traps are so painful that animals check through their own limbs to escape. For every fur animal trapped two other animals (dogs, cats, deer, etc.) are trapped and killed. In 1997 450,000 minks died on fur farms from heat exhaustion. 1 ton of recycled paper saves 17 trees, 7,000 gallons of water, and enough energy to heat the average home for 6 months. Enough wood and paper is thrown away each year in america to heat 1 billion houses for a year. Six times more jobs are created by recycling as opposed to landfill operations. The amount of money spent on trash disposal in american schools is equal to that spent on new textbooks. Out of every $10 that americans spend on food, $1 pays for packaging. 65% of garbage in the u.s. is packaging. 50% of all trash thrown away could be recycled into new products. 500 new dumps are built each year in the united states. Over 1 billion trees are used to make disposable diapers every year. Americans throw away 20 billion disposable diapers each year. Americans dump the equivalent of 21 million shopping bags full of food into landfills every year. billion batteries are thrown away each year by americans. over 700,000 tons of hazardous waste is produced in the u.s. every day. americans throw away 10 million cigarette lighters every week. 500,000 people die of cigarette related diseases in the u.s. each year. pesticides that are banned in the u.s. (such as ddt) are regularly sold to third world countries. 90% of all food borne pesticides are found in meat and dairy products. 10% of nursing mothers who were vegetarians had ddt in their breast milk. 90% of nursing mothers who were meat eaters had ddt in their breast milk. In 1945, before widespread pesticide use, u.s. corn growers lost 3% of their crops to insects. Last year they lost over 12%. 74 different kinds of pesticides have been found in drinking water. Over 100 chemical contaminants have been found in the breast milk of nursing mothers in the u.s. of the 34 chemicals most widely used on lawns, 25% are widely believed to cause birth defects, genetic mutation, and cancer. Americans spend 6 billion dollars on their lawns each year. 25% of u.s. nuclear reactors would not be able to contain a core breach meltdown. A 1985 study predicted a 45% chance of core breach meltdown in the u.s. before 2005. In 1992, 430,000 people in the world died from cancers resulting from nuclear testing radiation. More money is spent in the u.s. on nuclear weaponry in one year than was spent on housing from 1980-1992. To date cleaning up storage facilities for nuclear debris has cost taxpayers 200 billion dollars. In 1989 the u.s. military used 200 billion barrels of oil, enough to keep all american public transit systems running for 22 years. 1 ton of toxic waste is produced by the u.s. every minute.
---sources available upon request
Transcription source: http://www.serve.com/damien/personal/chain/moby.html (defunct)
essay one
by "everything is wrong" i mean EVERYTHING. i look around me - i'm typing on a plastic and metal and glass computer perched on a desk made from cut down trees and toxic paint. i sit in a building made of wood and bricks that were taken from the earth on a street made of poisonous asphalt that was laid over an ecosystem that had thrived for hundreds of thousands of years. i'm clothed in cotton that was saturated with pesticides while it grew and treated and dyed with toxic chemicals while it was being processed. all of my possessions were made hundreds or thousands of miles away and shipped in styrofoam and plastic wrap via gas burning engines and destructive road and air ways to me. my food, although organically grown and completely vegan, is shipped from where it was grown to my local store and is often packaged in paper, plastic, metal, and toxic inks. i know tons of people that eat meat, smoke cigarettes, drive cars, use drugs, etc., even though they know that these things will ultimately hurt the quality (and length) of their lives. i live in an apartment building where no one is on a first name basis. i know more about idiot actors in hollywood that i've never met than i do about the womyn who lives next door to me (and is probably more interesting). while walking to work i inhale toxic exhaust from cars sitting in traffic.
to make sure that eating 3 cans of oven cleaner will make you sick, or to make sure that pouring nail polish remover into your eyes will hurt you, we torture mice, rabbits, dogs, cats, etc. we use toxic chlorine bleach to keep our underpants while. we cut down the rainforests to drill for oil so that we can drive to the video store. do you see what i mean? everything really is wrong. even the back to nature people still drive cars and use products made from materials ripped out of the earth. people struggle all of their lives doing work that they hate just to be a functioning member of a system that is wasteful, destructive and unhealthy.
what i advocate is sensible, pragmatic, and non-destructive approach towards existence. we need to re-evaluate our practices. just as it doesn't make sense to hire an elevator operator to run an automatic elevator it doesn't make sense for billions of people to drive to work alone in their cars. it doesn't make sense to consume animal products. it doesn't make sense to use pesticides on agricultural products. it doesn't make sense to derive power from nuclear, coal, and petroleum when we have solar, hydro, and wind power. it doesn't make sense to maintain destructive systems just because people earn their livings form them. it doesn't make sense to pour billions of tons of toxic chemicals onto our lawns so that they'll look pretty and green. i could go on but you're probably either bored or overwhelmed by now. i advocate change; massive, massive change.
basically we should stop doing those things that are destructive to the environment, other creatures, and ourselves and figure out new ways of existing. - that's it.
essay two
the christian right is neither. god is angry, i think. here in the u.s. vast numbers of politicians and religious leaders (the line between the two being blurry) are masquerading hate, racism, sexism, and ignorance under the banner of conservative christian values.
conservative christian values are these - humility, mercy, compion, love, honesty, etc. nowhere in the bible does christ encourage his followers to be intolerant, greedy bigots. nowhere in the bible does christ encourage his followers to lie, slander, steal, or be divisive along economic or cultural lines. preserving the 'american way' has nothing to do with christ. in fact, the 'american way' of greed, cruelty, environmental destruction, racism, ism, homophobia, etc. would seem to have nothing to do with christ. christ is wonderful, loving, compionate and honest. today's right wing evangelical christians seem to be insecure, hate-filled creatures and although i should probably pity them, right now i'm angry. we sit back and watch as the christian right tries to legislate their petty morality at the city, state, and federal level. they successfully ousted the best chairman the new york city school system ever had because he encouraged condom distribution and an open minded curriculum. here's a question - how are teen pregnancy, hiv/aids, and a redundant, ineffectual curriculum christian? instead of spreading hate, ignorance and a narrow-minded social agenda why doesn't the christian right go out and spread mercy, compion and selflessness?
two thousand years ago christ called the religious & political leaders of his day 'whitewashed tombs, clean on the outside but inside full of evil'. god sent prophets, the religious political leaders killed and d them. god sent christ, the religious & political leaders killed and d him. the religious and political leaders of 2,000 years ago were 'whitewashed tombs, full of evil', and the religious and political leaders of today seem to be just as bad. -moby
Transcription source: the Google cache of http://killdevilhill.com/biblechat/messages2/28396.html
"i don't understand why asking people to eat a well-balanced vegetarian diet is considered drastic, while is medically conservative to cut people open" -dean ornish, md
"i have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race in its gradual improvement to leave off eating animals." -henry david thoreau
"your choice of diet can influence your long term health prospects more than any other action you might take" -former surgeon general c. everett koop
"nothing will benefit human health an increase the chances for survival on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet" -albert einstein
"until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace." -albert schweitzer
"if you have men who will exclude any of god's creatures form the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men" -saint francis of assisi
Transcription source: http://www.serve.com/damien/personal/chain/moby.html (defunct)
Copyright (c) 1995 Moby
Disclaimer: Moby's essays used to be posted on his website, moby.com, so I decided to post them here in their place. All of the essay text was taken directly from the album verbatim without prior consent of Moby or the record company or webmaster of the transcription source(s) (if any is/are indicated), which I may have edited (according to the original booklet) (but their work has saved me some typing). I do not intend to receive or divert any money or credit away from the Moby or the record company for this album.
