Meat Is Murder on Climate
Claim: "You just cannot be a meat-eating environmentalist." -- Mark Prescott, manager vegan campaigns, PETA
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Discuss amongst yourselves.
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25 Comments:
Agreed! It would be nice to see the environmental leadership coming out and embracing vegetarianism, even if they're not asking the masses to do the same. The movement is lacking in leaders who are willing to lead by example.
"OK, I'll eat an eggplant tonight."
Fellow carnivores, are you convinced by my leadership? Let me know how many of you are so I'll know how many eggplants to buy.
WHAT?!!!!! that is absoloutly the most stupid thing i have ever heard of. Eating meat does not harm the enviornment. I am concerned about the enviornment. I will not stop eating meat though. I love being in naure (i.e camping, hunting, fishing, hiking...) Stop your whining and accept the fact by whining about eating meat will not change peoples opinions and dont make stupid waste of time articles like this. I feel like i just waster a little part of my life by reading it.
Why does it have to be all or nothing? How about just eating less meat?
Eating meat does not harm the enviornment????
Maybe not when the world's population was 2 billion people. At 6 billion, you better believe it has a huge impact.
Save a soybean. Eat a vegan.
It's true that livestock production can contribute to global warming, (being the MAIN cause seems a little far fetched), water pollution, deforestation, and other things, but how many of you drive cars? Use electricity? Eat? Buy manufactured goods?
As usual, moderation is the key here.
People like Mark Prescott who use a vegan/vegetarian litmus test for who qualifies as an environmentalist are at best trying to emotionally blackmail meat-eating environmentalist into becoming vegans. At worst what they are doing verges on fascism and blind fanaticism. Their rhetoric marginalizes the environmental movement and serves to drive away many potential members and allies.
I've heard these complaints for livestock, but could someone explain to me how seafood would be a problem? Or is this just a lot of hot air?
The UN report deals primarily with livestock, not fish. Fishing has its own problems, like, for example, overfishing.
Although I’m certain that most of meat we eat does adversely impact the environment, claiming that “You just cannot be a meat-eating environmentalist” is probably not in the best interest of the planet. That statement smacks of superiority and will probably alienate more people than anything. What we do need to consider (all of us, vegetarians and meat eaters) is where our food comes from. It is certainly possible to eat meat sustainably just as it is very possible to be an unsustainable vegetarian.
I don't want to be in the same camp as PETA. The fanatical behavior of such groups doesn't attract the kind of people who can make a difference in the world. Extreme behavior, like extreme remarks, simply does more to detract from a good cause than to persuade the masses.
On the other hand, I am firmly convinced that the available evidence proves beyond a reasonable doubt that meat consumption is a major cause of global warming. A lot of factors go into this assessment and larger animals like cattle contribute far more to climate change than does eating chicken. Fishing was never a consideration in this discussion.
It takes more acreage to raise one cow to maturity than what it would take to raise enough food for about 40 vegetarian people. Cattle are not raised on the open range anymore; they are produced by the millions on large feedlots that cover more land than 4 traditional "homestead" farms. They are over inoculated and given growth hormones that probably contribute to the obesity of the humans who consume them. The grain to feed them comes from far away. The acreage involved in production of grain for beef is enormous and the fuel consumption in farming and transportation must be considered as part of the beef production. This isn't just about the inefficient digestive system of the cow or the methane gas that it expels.
The more radical groups are just playing into the hands of the idiots like Senator James Inhofe who deny the existence of climate change. I'm not a vegetarian, but I have stopped eating beef. I hope that you will consider reducing your consumption of meat also.
LOL.. okay all you meating eating people - you cannot be environmentalists, according to this report from the United Nations, the group that brought us the oil for food scandal (remember Kofi's son?) and seen peacekeepers to Africa and did little to stop their peacekeepers from sexually assaulting young girls. I'm sorry, I have little faith in the UN. I can eat my meat and save the environment at the same time.
Kofi's son was on the take and some peacekeepers were pervs and that lets you off the hook? I don't think so.
I think he's saying it could make one dubious or the UN's credibility. However if this is the main cause of our problems then shouldn't the Sierra Club immediately turn their attention from the problems from coal and oil to the problems from meat. Maybe we need to work to remove from office all politicians who have ties w/ meat companies, own stock in grocers, patronize steakhouses, eat meat, or do not call for and end to ranching and other meet related industries? Good grief.
The same UN that has had chemical weapons from Iraq in their possession since the 1990's and are just now finding them. No wonder Bush couldn't find the WMD's. They were at the UN headquarters ha ha ha
Iraqi chemical weapon vials found in U.N. files
U.N. archivists unexpectedly turned up samples of material from an Iraqi chemical weapons plant in weapons inspectors' files dating back to the 1990s, but the substances remain sealed and posed no immediate danger, U.N. officials said today. Phosgene was used extensively during World War I as a choking agent and caused a majority of the war's gas deaths, according to the CDC.
The material was taken from al-Muthanna chemical weapons plant north of Baghdad. The samples are sealed and have been there since 1996.
Do we stop eating cheese and dairy products that come from cattle as well???
Good discussion. For what its worth, this report comes from the FAO -- the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN -- and can be found online here in pdf form. The conclusion of the report, that livestock/meat consumption is a major contributor to greenhouse gases is not unique to the FAO. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) also highlighted the role that livestock, land use and agriculture (in particular conventional rice paddies) have on total emissions.
It's worth noting that meat consumption is on the increase worldwide. In China, for example, per capita meat consumption tripled between 1981 and 2002.
It seems to me (writing as an unrepentant omnivore) that the problem can't simply be dismissed. On the other hand, whatever the folks at PETA may say, the likelihood of a worldwide shift to veganism seems about as likely as a worldwide conversion to celibacy. The question then becomes: what can we do about it?
Well, for starters, we can and, I think, should eat less meat. The average American eats something like 250 lbs of meat per year. Generally speaking, that's neither healthy nor sustainable. Cutting back to say 200, or even 150 pounds, hardly seems unreasonable.
We can also institute better farming practices: biodigesters to convert methane gas from manure to renewable energy; a switch from traditional to upland rice; use of agricultural wastes and byproducts as feedstock for biomass energy production; reduction of fertilizer inputs through adoption of integrated, no-till agricultural practices. There are even scientists trying to alter bovine stomach chemistry in order to reduce methane production in their guts.
I'm no expert, and maybe some of the above isn't realistic, but it seems like these are the kinds of things that need more research and discussion. Discrediting the UN, while good and easy sport, doesn't get us very far. Neither do sanctimonious pronouncements about who is and isn't an environmentalist.
But here's my question. If this a problem now, with a world population of 6.5 billion, what do we do at 9 billion? All-you-can-eat meat simply doesn't seem like an option going forward, greenhouse or no greenhouse.
Everything we do has an impact on the environment. Breathing releases CO2, passing gas releases methane. Eating in the modern world usually entails that food be grown, packaged in pretty wrappers, and shipped to grocery stores. But this does not mean that I will stop breathing, farting, and eating. And I will not stop eating meat because it is an important part of my diet. I can eat less meat, substituting beans or seafood, but it is important to keep a varied diet. Humans are omnivores, just look at your teeth: molars near canines, near incisors. Meat contains nutrients that can be difficult to obtain in vegetables without a lot of conscientious planning. That said, human needs wouldn't be so taxing on the environment if you did not have to multiply them by 6.6 billion!
I hope we never make it to 9 billion people. There are plenty of children in the world already who need loving homes. Stop reproducing and adopt!
For a bunch of liberal-leaning folks, many of you sure seem resistant to change, and to the idea that you may be doing something harmful. As environmentalists, we try every day to show people how their actions may hurt the environment...and we hope they can put their egos aside long enough to listen. Try doing the same. Visit www.goveg.com/eco and you might learn something. or read the UN's recent report that says that THE MEAT INDUSTRY is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than all the world's transportation combined (all the cars, trucks, planes, ships, SUVs, hummers, trains, etc).
If the NRDC, Sierra Club, Al Gore and various other environmental groups had not been consistently omitting the benefit to the planet of replacing a meat-based diet with a plant-based diet (for the purported reason of not confusing people about how they can slow down global warming), PETA never would have utilized this tactic that many of you seem to see as devisive. The animal rights community has, for years, been pestering these groups to speak truthfully about how destructive our societies taste for meat is on water quality, deforestation, air quality and global warming. Instead, while nearly ½ of our water is consumed for meat/dairy production and the majority of all U.S. industrial water pollution comes from these industries, a vegetarian diet doesn’t get even a mention (and if it does, it is in the footnotes, after not flushing when you pee).
PETA staffers frequently state that two half vegetarians are as good as one full vegetarian for animals (and I suppose the same for the environment). That concept too radical for y'all to try to promote? The best most environmental groups can come up with, which has just been added to the NRDC’s website, is that we consider replacing one meat-based meal with each week with a plant-based meal. Wow, let's not set our expectations too high for the most zealous environmentalists. Thats like asking people to drive one less day per month to stop the onslaught of global warming. What, according to my very unscientific calculations, that will give us 4% more time until the glaciers melt?
Gosh, I'd think if I was trully commmitted to improving the health of my planet and I wouldn't shoot the messenger (e.g. the UN or PETA) for telling me something that is inconvenient for my dietary habits. I'd want to figure out what alternatives there are and how I could change those habits. If that's the case, go ahead and feel good about that switch to the low flow shower head, which will save you about as much water in a year as not eating a single hamburger.
I'm just glad PETA has gotten environmentalists to at least discuss vegetarianism as one viable opportunity to help avert irreversable damage to our home.
Eco-Eating at www.brook.com/veg :
“Vegetarianism is literally about life and death — for each of us individually and for all of us together.
Eating animals simultaneously contributes to: their suffering and death; the ill-health and early death of people; the unsustainable overuse of oil, water, land, topsoil, grain, labor, and other vital resources; environmental destruction, including deforestation, species extinction, mono-cropping,
and global warming; the legitimacy of force and violence; the mis-allocation of capital, skills, land, and other assets; vast inefficiencies in the economy; tremendous waste; massive inequalities in the world; the continuation of world hunger and mass starvation; the transmission and spread of dangerous diseases; and moral failure in so-called civilized societies.
Vegetarianism is an antidote to all of these unnecessary tragedies.”
Dan Brook, Ph.D.
Finally science is beginning to shed some light on the vegetarian argument about it being the least impacting on the environment.
curt
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Source: Cornell University Released: Mon 08-Oct-2007, 11:45 ET
Diet with Some Meat Uses Less Land than Vegetarian Diets
Description
A low-fat vegetarian diet is very efficient in terms of how much land
is needed to support it. But adding some dairy products and a limited
amount of meat may actually increase this efficiency, finds Cornell
University researchers.
Newswise — A low-fat vegetarian diet is very efficient in terms of how
much land is needed to support it. But adding some dairy products and
a limited amount of meat may actually increase this efficiency,
Cornell researchers suggest.
This deduction stems from the findings of their new study, which
concludes that if everyone in New York state followed a low-fat
vegetarian diet, the state could directly support almost 50 percent
more people, or about 32 percent of its population, agriculturally.
With today's high-meat, high-dairy diet, the state is able to support
directly only 22 percent of its population, say the researchers.
The study, published in the journal Renewable Agriculture and Food
Systems, is the first to examine the land requirements of complete
diets. The researchers compared 42 diets with the same number of
calories and a core of grains, fruits, vegetables and dairy products
(using only foods that can be produced in New York state), but with
varying amounts of meat (from none to 13.4 ounces daily) and fat (from
20 to 45 percent of calories) to determine each diet's "agricultural
land footprint."
They found a fivefold difference between the two extremes.
"A person following a low-fat vegetarian diet, for example, will need
less than half (0.44) an acre per person per year to produce their
food," said Christian Peters, M.S. '02, Ph.D. '07, a Cornell
postdoctoral associate in crop and soil sciences and lead author of
the research. "A high-fat diet with a lot of meat, on the other hand,
needs 2.11 acres."
"Surprisingly, however, a vegetarian diet is not necessarily the most
efficient in terms of land use," said Peters.
The reason is that fruits, vegetables and grains must be grown on
high-quality cropland, he explained. Meat and dairy products from
ruminant animals are supported by lower quality, but more widely
available, land that can support pasture and hay. A large pool of such
land is available in New York state because for sustainable use, most
farmland requires a crop rotation with such perennial crops as pasture
and hay.
Thus, although vegetarian diets in New York state may require less
land per person, they use more high-valued land. "It appears that
while meat increases land-use requirements, diets including modest
amounts of meat can feed more people than some higher fat vegetarian
diets," said Peters.
"The key to conserving land and other resources with our diets is to
limit the amount of meat we eat and for farmers to rely more on
grazing and forages to feed their livestock," said Jennifer Wilkins,
senior extension associate in nutritional sciences who specializes in
the connection between local food systems and health and co-authored
the study with Gary Fick, Cornell professor of crop and soil sciences.
"Consumers need to be aware that foods differ not only in their
nutrient content but in the amount of resources required to produce,
process, package and transport them."
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average American
ate approximately 5.8 ounces of meat and eggs a day in 2005.
"In order to reach the efficiency in land use of moderate-fat,
vegetarian diets, our study suggests that New Yorkers would need to
limit their annual meat and egg intake to about 2 cooked ounces a
day," Peters said.
The research was supported in part by the National Research Initiative
of the USDA Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service.
Vegetarians First To Warn of Climate Disaster-(from overgrazing and clearing land for animal feed crops). Select Senate Committe on Nutrition & Human Needs June 1974.. same hearings abolished Basic 4 Food Plan as invention of the meat and dairy industry, which created the USDA.Nothing removes more vegetation than promise of grazing lands. Much of the logging done in other countries is done w/ the defective hope to make money grazing when the trees are gone.
This usually lasts less than a decade before the land starts looking like the middle-east
chewed to the cud,and baked from overexposure to sun.
Nothing will benefit health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet -Albert Einstein.
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