President Herbert Hoover promised "a
chicken in every pot and a car in every garage." With warnings about
global warming reaching feverish levels, many are having second thoughts
about all those cars. It seems they should instead be worrying about the
chickens.
Last month, the United Nations published
a report on livestock and the environment with a stunning conclusion:
"The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most
significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at
every scale from local to global." It turns out that raising animals for
food is a primary cause of land degradation, air pollution, water
shortage, water pollution, loss of biodiversity, and not least of all,
global warming.
That's right, global warming. You've
probably heard the story: emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon
dioxide are changing our climate, and scientists warn of more extreme
weather, coastal flooding, spreading disease, and mass extinctions. It
seems that when you step outside and wonder what happened to winter, you
might want to think about what you had for dinner last night. The U.N.
report says almost a fifth of global warming emissions come from
livestock (i.e., those chickens Hoover was talking about, plus pigs,
cattle, and others)--that's more emissions than from all of the world's
transportation combined.
For a decade now, the image of Leonardo
DiCaprio cruising in his hybrid Toyota Prius has defined the gold
standard for environmentalism. These gas-sipping vehicles became a
veritable symbol of the consumers' power to strike a blow against global
warming. Just think: a car that could cut your vehicle emissions in half
- in a country responsible for 25% of the world's total greenhouse gas
emissions. Federal fuel economy standards languished in Congress, and
average vehicle mileage dropped to its lowest level in decades, but the
Prius showed people that another way is possible. Toyota could not
import the cars fast enough to meet demand.
Last year researchers at
the University of Chicago took the
Prius down a peg when they turned their attention to another gas
guzzling consumer purchase. They noted that feeding animals
for meat, dairy, and egg production requires growing some ten times as
much crops as we'd need if we just ate pasta primavera, faux chicken
nuggets, and other plant foods. On top of that, we have to transport the
animals to slaughterhouses, slaughter them, refrigerate their carcasses,
and distribute their flesh all across the country. Producing a calorie
of meat protein means burning more than ten times as much fossil
fuels--and spewing more than ten times as much heat-trapping carbon
dioxide--as does a calorie of plant protein. The researchers found that,
when it's all added up, the average American does more to reduce global
warming emissions by going vegetarian than by switching to a Prius.
According to the UN report, it gets even
worse when we include the vast quantities of land needed to give us our
steak and pork chops. Animal agriculture takes up an incredible 70% of
all agricultural land, and 30% of the total land surface of the planet.
As a result, farmed animals are probably the biggest cause of slashing
and burning the world's forests. Today, 70% of former Amazon rainforest
is used for pastureland, and feed crops cover much of the remainder.
These forests serve as "sinks," absorbing carbon dioxide from the air,
and burning these forests releases all the stored carbon dioxide,
quantities that exceed by far the fossil fuel emission of animal
agriculture.
As if that wasn't bad enough, the real
kicker comes when looking at gases besides carbon dioxide--gases like
methane and nitrous oxide, enormously effective greenhouse gases with 23
and 296 times the warming power of carbon dioxide, respectively. If
carbon dioxide is responsible for about one-half of human-related
greenhouse gas warming since the industrial revolution, methane and
nitrous oxide are responsible for another one-third. These super-strong
gases come primarily from farmed animals' digestive processes, and from
their manure. In fact, while animal agriculture accounts for 9% of our
carbon dioxide emissions, it emits 37% of our methane, and a whopping
65% of our nitrous oxide.
It's a little hard to take in when
thinking of a small chick hatching from her fragile egg. How can an
animal, so seemingly insignificant against the vastness of the earth,
give off so much greenhouse gas as to change the global climate? The
answer is in their sheer numbers.
The United
States alone slaughters more than 10 billion land animals every year,
all to sustain a meat-ravenous culture that can barely conceive of a
time not long ago when "a chicken in every pot" was considered a luxury.
Land animals raised for food make up a staggering 20% of the entire land
animal biomass of the earth. We are eating our planet to death.
What we're seeing is just the beginning,
too. Meat consumption has increased five-fold in the past fifty years,
and is expected to double again in the next fifty.
It sounds like a lot of bad news, but in
fact it's quite the opposite. It means we have a powerful new weapon to
use in addressing the most serious environmental crisis ever to face
humanity. The Prius was an important step forward, but how often are
people in the market for a new car? Now that we know a greener diet is
even more effective than a greener car, we can make a difference at
every single meal, simply by leaving the animals off of our plates. Who
would have thought: what's good for our health is also good for the
health of the planet!
Going veg provides more bang for your
buck than driving a Prius. Plus, that bang comes a lot faster. The Prius
cuts emissions of carbon dioxide, which spreads its warming effect
slowly over a century. A big chunk of the problem with farmed animals,
on the other hand, is methane, a gas which cycles out of the atmosphere
in just a decade. That means less meat consumption quickly translates
into a cooler planet.
Not just a cooler planet, also a cleaner
one. Animal agriculture accounts for
most of the water consumed
in this country, emits two-thirds of the world's
acid-rain-causing ammonia, and it the world's largest source
of
water pollution--killing
entire river and marine ecosystems, destroying coral reefs, and of
course, making people sick. Try to imagine the prodigious volumes of
manure churned out by modern American farms: 5 million tons a day, more
than a hundred times that of the human population, and far more than our
land can possibly absorb. The acres and acres of cesspools stretching
over much of our countryside, polluting the air and contaminating our
water, make the Exxon Valdez oil spill look minor in comparison. All of
which we can fix surprisingly easily, just by putting down our chicken
wings and reaching for a veggie burger.
Doing so has never been easier. Recent
years have seen an explosion of environmentally-friendly vegetarian
foods. Even chains like Ruby Tuesday, Johnny Rockets, and Burger King
offer delicious veggie burgers and supermarket refrigerators are lined
with heart-healthy creamy soymilk and tasty veggie deli slices.
Vegetarian foods have become staples at environmental gatherings, and
garnered celebrity advocates like Bill Maher,
Alec
Baldwin, Paul McCartney, and of course Leonardo DiCaprio. Just as
the Prius showed us that we each have in our hands the power to make a
difference against a problem that endangers the future of humanity,
going vegetarian gives us a new way to dramatically reduce our dangerous
emissions that is even more effective, easier to do, more accessible to
everyone and certainly goes better with french fries.
Ever-rising temperatures, melting ice
caps, spreading tropical diseases, stronger hurricanes... So, what are
you do doing for dinner tonight? Check out
www.VegCooking.com for great
ideas, free recipes, meal plans, and more! Check out the environmental
section of www.GoVeg.com for a lot
more information about the harmful effect of meat-eating on the
environment.
See also
All-Creatures.org - Becoming Vegan
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