Today in lecture when discussing chronological primitivism, Professor Tantillo mentioned that the transition from vegetarianism to meat-eating could be described as a sin or fall of humans. In response to this, (and after hearing the Ape Man song), I am posting a link to a song that kind of highlights this point. It's called "I am cow" by the Arrogant Worms.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcPz850o3d4
I think this song (aside from having pretty good harmonies) highlights some of the important environmental consequences of eating meat. For example, the second verse talks about cows' contribution of methane gas to the atmosphere and its effect on the ozone layer. A 1988 article writes, "Humans are responsible for increased methane levels because they are raising more cows, growing more rice and chopping down tropical forests, which provides food for more termites".
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DEEDF143CF93BA35750C0A96E948260&scp=1&sq=methane+and+ozone&st=nyt
A more recent report shows that methane gas accounted for 14.3% of the anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in 2004 while CO2 fossil fuel use consisted of 56.6%.
IPCC Report: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf
The third verse also hints at the fact that there are a lot of cows living on the land. From an environmental perspective, this would mean that land needs to be cleared for the cows to have pastures to graze on, etc.
I hope the song and NYT article give a perspective to the concept of "chronological primitivism" being " the primitivism that looks backward to a “Golden Age” and sees our present sad state as the product of what culture and society have done to them". (definition taken from
http://www2.english.uiuc.edu/finnegan/English%20251/primitivism.htm
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