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A Q&A with EarthTalk, republished with permission
Dear EarthTalk: Vegetarians and vegans are so self-righteous about not eating meat and how meat eating is so bad for the environment. How true are these claims?
- Frank Doolittle, Sudbury, MA
There has never been a better time to go vegetarian. Mounting evidence suggests that meat-based diets are not only unhealthy, but that just about every aspect of meat production—from grazing-related loss of cropland, to the inefficiencies of feeding vast quantities of water and grain to cattle, to pollution from “factory farms”—is an environmental disaster with wide and sometimes catastrophic consequences.
There are 20 billion head of livestock on Earth, more than triple the number of people. According to the Worldwatch Institute, global livestock population has increased 60 percent since 1961, and the number of fowl being raised for food has nearly quadrupled in the same time period, from 4.2 billion to 15.7 billion.
The 4.8 pounds of grain fed to cattle to make one pound of beef represents a colossal waste of resources in a world teeming with hungry and malnourished people. According to Vegfam, a 10-acre farm can support 60 people growing soy, 24 people growing wheat, 10 people growing corn—but only two raising cattle.
Food First’s Frances Moore Lappé says to imagine sitting down to an eight-ounce steak. “Then imagine the room filled with 45 to 50 people with empty bowls... For the feed cost of your steak, each of their bowls could be filled with a full cup of cooked cereal grains.” Harvard nutritionist Jean Mayer says that reducing U.S. meat production 10 percent would free grain to feed 60 million people.
U.S. animal farms generate billion of tons of animal waste every year, which the Environmental Protection Agency says pollute our waterways more than all other industrial sources combined. The infamous 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill dumped 11 million gallons of oil into Prudoe Bay, but the relatively unknown 1995 New River hog waste spill in North Carolina poured 25 million gallons of excrement into the water, killing 14 million fish and closing 364,000 acres of shell fishing beds. Hog waste spills have caused the rapid spread of Pfiesteria piscicida, which has killed a billion fish in North Carolina alone.
Other than polluting water, beef production alone uses more water than is used in growing our entire fruit and vegetable crop. And over a third of all raw materials and fossil fuels consumed in the U.S. are used in animal production. Meat also increases our carbon footprints. According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, livestock around the world contribute more greenhouse gases (mostly methane) to the atmosphere—18 percent of our total output—than emissions from all the world’s cars and trucks.
“There is no question that the choice to become a vegetarian or lower meat consumption is one of the most positive lifestyle changes a person could make in terms of reducing one’s personal impact on the environment,” says Christopher Flavin of the Worldwatch Institute. “The resource requirements and environmental degradation associated with a meat-based diet are very substantial.”
Contacts:
Food First
UN Food and Agriculture Organization
Worldwatch Institute
GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION?
Send it to: EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; submit it online, or send an e-mail. To read past columns, visit the EarthTalk archives.
Community Voice
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Apr 25, 2008 4:45:59 PM
Also, what else do you know about Al Gore beside his documentary? You call him wasteful, but are you aware of any of the personal lifestyle changes he has made, as well as the modifications to his home in order to minimize his own impact and that of his family?
You also say that people won't "buy into" Global Warming because they are required to make sacrifices to reverse it. So...because the general public is too stubborn to make lifestyle changes that reduce our impact on the environment, it's acceptable for all to deny that human activity has had a negative impact on the Earth and everyone should keep living as wastefully as we always have?
Oh - I'm also a vegetarian.Edited by: GranolaJoe on Apr 24, 2008 11:26:18 AM
Apr 24, 2008 11:20:36 AM
Answer: Because he knows darn well that global warming is a myth and a conspiracy (just look at his own wasteful lifestyle for proof) and no one would buy into the global warming sham if it required people to make real sacrifices or radical lifestyle changes, like going vegetarian, to reverse it. Switching a light bulb is easy, everyone can do it and proudly affirm how "green" they are now.
I'm a vegetarian, by the way.
Apr 17, 2008 6:27:07 PM
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