NationStates Jolt Archive

A proposal, scheduled to close on June 14, proposed by The Empire Of The Ice Dragoons, concerning a stop to mass slaughters of animals, needs support. Improve the environment and support this proposal!

Not again. O GOD NOT AGAIN!!!!

The last thing we need is another treehugger resolution to make sure that the economies of NSUN will be hopelessly lost in the deep caves of Kumbya(SP?)

Hmmm, this coming from someone called Holyboy and the 666's... Interesting. And without the environment, there is no life, and therefore no economy.

Hmmm, this coming from someone called Holyboy and the 666's... Interesting. .

My country's name is The United Socialist States of Holyboy and the 666s. What do ya have against my name, punk??? :D

And without the environment, there is no life, and therefore no economy.

No economy, no jobs, no way to support the family, families die, no one cares about the stupid hippies. Please don't make me say that again, i have used this argument 3 times in the past 3 days. This is the vague argument, since i don't want to bore everyone.

You should post a copy of the proposal as most of the delgates here won't go searching for it. It also makes it easier for the rest of us to know what you're talking about ;):).

I'll do it for you this time.


Stop Mass Killings Of Animals

A resolution to increase the quality of the world's environment, at the expense of industry.


Category: Environmental


Industry Affected: All Businesses


Proposed by: The Ice Dragoons

Description: It has been a known practice to kill animals such as wolves through the use of poisons, traps, etc. This is simply inhumane, and must be stopped. It is known that no endangered species is to be killed (except in certain situations), but it is proposed that the mass killing of animals (even common animals) through the use of things such as disease and poison should be prohibited, as it is unfair, unneccessary and inhumane. Even pest animals should not be eliminated through the use of poison, as other animals may be killed accidentally. This, if made a law, would prevent the following practices:

- Poisoning of animals.
- Setting large amounts of animal traps.
- Introduction of disease and plague to a population of "undesirable" animals.
- General mass slaughters of animals, as many of the methods used to achieve this can be a danger to the environment.

Passing this law will improve the populations and biodiversity of ecosystems everywhere!

Approvals: 2 (Neo Mata Nui, Shikyrie)

Status: Lacking Support (requires 147 more approvals)

Voting Ends: Tue Jun 14 2005

Description: It has been a known practice to kill animals such as wolves through the use of poisons, traps, etc.

Proof is...where?

Even pest animals should not be eliminated through the use of poison, as other animals may be killed accidentally.

So what are the farmers suppost to use instead of pesticides? Or are they suppost to die with the crops, unable to produce adequet amounts of food, thus creating a potential shortage of food.


- Setting large amounts of animal traps.

I define large as 300 million trillian bagillian. Too bad.

While I do applaud the intent behind this proposal, I can't ask either of my regions delegates (my own region or the one where Waterana resides) to support this because cruel as it may seem, at times mass slaughter is a necessary evil.

While the environment is important, and a nations animal species are part of that environment, the rights of the animals must be balanced against the rights of humans whom I feel have the greater claim to live and work without the danger or destruction some animal species can bring. It must also be conceded that at times traps and poison are the best metholds to use to control rogue animals or pests.

(OCC) A real life example is introduced rabbits in Australia. They are a pest here of the highest degree and are responsible for putting several native species on the endangered list by breeding out of control (no natural enemies), and destroying very fragile ecosystems. The only way to control them has been by biological means. If that was banned here, we'd be overrun with rabbits in no time and some native animals would be pushed into extinction.

Holyboy and the 666s, can you please change the name in those quotes, all I did was post the proposal, I didn't write it. Thanks :)

Quite simply, no way. We are fully supportive of maintaining biodiversity and protecting the environment, but this is just a bad idea. First, banning mass killings of animals poses a problem for large-scale slaughterhouses for large-scale meat production. Second, I refuse to prioritise the lives of non-sapient animals above the greater good. It is often necessary to cull animals to protect biodiversity, as with the introduction and domination of non-native species. It is also sometimes necessary to kill animals in large numbers to save humans - for instance, in certain regions of _Myopia_, malaria is a massive risk, so we have a policy of killing as many mosquito larvae as possible in those areas. Additionally, sometimes crop pests pose a risk to human food supplies which outweighs the (admittedly manifold) risks of pesticide use, and this government will not force people to starve to protect the lives of locusts.

Read Never Cry Wolf. And there are alternatives to things such as pesticides, such as biological control. Don't kill aphids with poison, kill them with ladybugs, a proven, safe method. And if no safe method currently exists, devote time and research to finding one. Lake Murray currently has a weed problem, but are we filling the lake with herbicides? No! We're using sterilized grass carp to eat the weeds!

I'm not outlawing slaughterhouses, just the killings of animals in the WILD. And through the use of unpredictable methods such as poison that can get out of control.

Holyboy and the 666s, can you please change the name in those quotes, all I did was post the proposal, I didn't write it. Thanks :)

Sorry about that. Didn't realize that i was quoting you, and not the the resolution :eek:

I'm not outlawing slaughterhouses, just the killings of animals in the WILD. And through the use of unpredictable methods such as poison that can get out of control.

Actually, as your proposal reads, the operative clauses do not specify wild animals. It simpy talks about "General mass slaughters of animals".

Read Never Cry Wolf

Why don't you just summarise the relevant points to me - I don't actually have time to read it right now, and even if I did the debate would be over before I'd finished it.

And there are alternatives to things such as pesticides, such as biological control. Don't kill aphids with poison, kill them with ladybugs, a proven, safe method. And if no safe method currently exists, devote time and research to finding one. Lake Murray currently has a weed problem, but are we filling the lake with herbicides? No! We're using sterilized grass carp to eat the weeds!

Obviously, it's usually better to use biological pest control etc. But sometimes that simply isn't possible, and if we're facing a crisis, we won't necessarily have time to find a perfect solution. Your proposal doesn't allow for circumstances so dire that the risks of not using a dangerous method outweigh the risks of not doing it. For instance, say there was a lethal infectious disease spreading through some wild boars in an area, and we didn't have any medical cure or vaccination. Our scientists inform us that if we don't slaughter the local boar population within a week, the disease will likely get out of control, wiping out large numbers of wild boars and probably many of the pigs in farms across the nation. Clearly, whilst it would be nice simply to vaccinate animals at risk, we can't, and there is not time to develop techniques. So a mass culling is the lesser of two evils - but your resolution would prevent it, as it bans "General mass slaughters of animals".

Your proposal also fails to account for the possibility that scientists might be able to develop pesticides or diseases which would only target certain species. There are currently problems with pesticides that are merely general toxins and pose risks across the food chain due to bioaccumulation, but with developments in genetics, it might be possible to invent a chemical poisonous only to certain animals, or a disease which affects only a certain species in a pre-determined way. If such things were developed, your proposal would prevent their use in any and all circumstances.

A case can even be made for the forced extinction of a dangerous species. If a breed of mosquito were to be engineered, identical to the malaria-carrying species except that it produced a protein that destroyed malaria parasites in any blood it drank, there would be a strong case for investigating the ecosystems in which the natural mosquitos were involved and seeing whether it might be possible to sterilise the natural species using a disease specific to that species and replace it with the engineered one without major ecosystem damage. Or, if you're worried about using a viral or bacterial disease to sterilise them, there are even possible genetic methods of sterilisation (despite the apparent contradiction of spreading a gene causing sterility, in reality, there are apparently various tricks scientists are developing to ensure that genes remain dormant while they spread quickly through the population - New Scientist had an article on the possibility of wiping out mosquitos like this a while ago). Something like this would become an even more acceptable-looking option if HIV evolves and gains the ability to spread via mosquitos (real life scientists are saying this is a possibility) - but again, your proposal fails to take into account the possibility that in some cases, culling is the lesser of two evils.

Basically, I'm just saying that you can't issue blanket edicts on this kind of thing, because sometimes the alternatives are worse.

We feel the heart of this proposal is good natured.

However we can not vote in favor of it.

Many of our fellow UN delegats have expressed the same concerns that we have. Yes, we understand that the methods that you have listed are inhumaine but are often nessisary under extreme conditions. You also have to understand that not all nations have the financial means of seeking alterior methods.

Minister to the UN
Henry Peabody

Don't kill aphids with poison, kill them with ladybugs, a proven, safe method.

Um, no, not really. Ladybugs fail so miserably in the midwest, we brought in Asian ladybugs. Now we've got near-swarms of these damn things. And unlike native ladybugs, these will bite (humans), and their ichor smells horribly foul and can stain, making killing them something of a project.

No, I think I'll stick with pesiticides, thankyouverymuch.

And how does this proposal affect Book Publishing? Information Technology? How about Gambling - do feral cats gamble?

I really must question the "all businesses" affected bit.

We can not vote for this issue even though we do seem some of the logic that went into it. Yrneh is often especially in Summer troubled by insect spread disease. We ease that by using pesticides are we see Humans as FAR more important than animals. Also the Silver Mountian Grasshopper would eat many thousand tons of crops if it wasn't for chemical controls. We have put much work into designing pesticides that only effect the insect we are targeting. While thats not been fully successful we are hoping that in the future it will be. This resolution would cause much suffering in our nation and many others and should fail.

General Arthur Hendrik representing the Dominion of Yrneh

Cobdenia has carefully considered the views of the voters, and seeing as Great Crested Newts do not have the vote, and have never expressed a desire to do so, we cannot support this resolution as our country would rather live in economic prosperity than have even more bally newts all over the place again...