Archive: https://archive.is/2025.03.26-113538/https://www.ft.com/content/eeb1ee80-00b8-4f9f-b560-a6717a80d58d
EU households should stockpile essential supplies to survive at least 72 hours of crisis, Brussels has proposed, as Russia’s war in Ukraine and a darkening geopolitical landscape prompt the bloc to take new steps to increase its security.
The continuing conflict in Ukraine, the Covid-19 pandemic that brutally exposed a lack of crisis response capabilities and the Trump administration’s adversarial stance towards Europe have forced the continent to rethink its vulnerabilities and increase spending on defence and security.
The new initiative comes as European intelligence agencies warn that Russia could attack an EU member state within three to five years, adding to natural threats including floods and wildfires worsened by climate change and societal risks such as financial crises.
Europe faced increased threats “including the possibility of armed aggression against member states”, the European Commission warned on Wednesday as it published a 30-step plan for its 27 capitals to increase their preparedness for crisis and mitigation measures.
Eating meat but not eggs and dairy isn’t even really in the discussion, though. If I tried it would be even harder than being vegan, because people wouldn’t understand what I’m doing on top of it all.
Sentence A does not follow from B.
Animal livestock is not required in the production of food from plants.
Nor does livestock husbandry require rape, torture and consumption of animals.
I’d buy pasture-raised eggs instead if they were sold anywhere near me, by the way. And didn’t buy anything when I had my own hens.
What do you do with all the useless male animals? In addition, the animal numbers don’t work out either if animals are not killed regularly. You’d have a quasi-exponentially expanding farm, as cows go on to live 15 rather than 5 years and egg-laying chickens live to become 5 years rather than 1, except you can’t squeeze milk or eggs from them at some point. And if you’re at the point where you have to kill animals anyway, you may as well eat them.
Allowing old animals to retire would raise costs, but only proportionately. In my personal case, I inherited a flock, and they all died a natural death.
The breeding “process” as it exists is very problematic. There’s research being done into hens that primarily give birth to more hens, but I’m not sure what progress has been made. The obvious other option is just to let them grow up, but now that I think of it roosters tend to fight each other anyway. Hmm, maybe I need to reassess chickens specifically.
Milk production could be stimulated with an injection. Bees make lots of honey.
Out of curiosity, what’s your stance on wild animals? If you just want to pave everything over and have no non-human animals, there’s an argument to be made for that. Usually when I talk to vegans their stance is more like animals should be allowed to live in some kind of natural state, and it’s no problem when a wolf kills a stallion for certain abstract reasons. If I was a horse I’d much prefer pulling a cart.