Obsidian Potency 3.0
The Banality of Environmental Vegetarianism.
posted Tuesday, 27 February 2007
A conversation I had with my roommate sparked the e-mail that I am going to paste below. Since my prior entry wasn't enough to sway him, it appears that I have to break out the big guns.
There are many perfectly acceptable reasons why people may or may not choose to eat meat. The reason for this entry is that I now live with 3 people for whom eating meat is as much (perhaps more of) a political choice as it is a personal one. They cite principles of conservation, of animal welfare, of environmental degradation and wishing to prevent it.
To them, I say the following: not eating meat for political reasons doesn't make any sense. Comparing the two diets in an industrialized setting gives you a net difference of almost zero. Find a better reason.
Oh, I agree that eating factory-farmed meat is terrible for the environment. But it seems increasingly clear that eating factory-produced vegetables and dairy really isn't any better. Believe it or not, the industrial production of all our foods in developed countries means that either way, you're raping the environment severely and contributing to an unsustainable food market.
The only counterarguments I've heard to this generally read like the following: "This can't be true!" Yes, it can -- and it is. "Well, it's better than nothing!" It's certainly not better than eatling locally-produced free-range meat; actually, it's worse. "Maybe it's a wash at best." Actually it's more than a wash at best...and if it's a wash, why are you wasting your time with it? Aren't there more efficient uses of your time and energy?
Wouldn't it be better to kill fewer animals and eat most of them, rather than kill even more animals without eating any of them?
"Meat-eating causes glabal warming!" Touché. It does. But the global warming link can almost entirely be traced to current industrial, environmentally-damaging methods of livestock farming in existence today. It's the methods that are the problem, not eating meat in and of itself.
As promised, here are some acceptable reasons for not eating meat (you will note that not all of them are logical reasons):
I'll summarize the reasons (beyond the ones found in the above link). First of all, vegetarian diets have a TREMENDOUS environmental impact. Yes, meat diets kill livestock, produce millions of tons of harmful gases, generate a tremendous amount of waste, and use up a great deal of food and water.
But political vegetarians almost always fail to consider the following: Where does the fertilizer come from? How do you stop birds, insects and field animals from destroying your crops? How do you drive larger herbivore predators away? There is one answer to all these questions. You have to kill animals. Crops don't grow by dumping seeds in the ground; the fertilizer (and fertile soil) comes from dead animals and plants...the best stuff usually from animal waste and animal decay. You have to use pesticides to kill trillions of insects -- which, by the way, are animals. The field animals get brutally slaughtered by poisonous pesticides, traps and most often by harvesting equipment. Nobody eats these animals; they simply rot in the fields. I guess they eventually become fertilizer...but that process takes a lot longer than our food production system allows, so it's not like they immediately get recycled.
By contrast, meat consumption often utilizes grains that aren't fit for human consumption, grown on fields not suitable for more people-friendly crops. Also, no poison or insect-killing is involved. Organic, free-range cattle is even better. It has way less environmental impact than any other diet, because the cattle eat grass on fields not fit to grow food on, get herded to the slaughter, and actually get eaten.
How do those vegetable pesticides get produced? In the factory. Or you could introduce predator insects, no doubt with dramatic ecological effects. How do those crops get out of the ground and to your store? Using harvesters, factories and trucks -- all of which consume fossil fuels in one form or another. How are they kept fresh? The same way meats are: in a refrigerator or freezer -- both of which use freon and other nasty, global-warming-inducing stuff.
Unless you grow your own food, nobody can come up with a sound reason for making diet a political choice. Your energy would be better spent lobbying to make all food production less impactful and more healthy. You'd also be better served by eating organic, TRUE free-range animals to reduce your environmental footprint.
The difference you make by choosing not to eat meat in a country like the U.S. is akin to throwing a pebble on a beach. Sure, there's a difference. But it's barely noticeable, even if people were to do it en masse. I suppose if you enjoy symbolic gestures that have little practical meaning of impact , then this is the cause for you.
Anyway, here's the e-mail:
I grabbed some select stuff from a Wiki article on environmental vegetarianism [link added -- Ed]. None of this has anything to do with killing field animals.
I know you, so you probably aren't going to read the whole thing anytime soon. So I've taken the liberty of cutting and pasting, as well as bolding the stuff you should read right away. There is also a link towards the bottom to a study explaining why the Chinese have no alternative to feed their people without meat consumption.
The general moral of the story is that the "First World" should utilize more environmentally-friendly meat-production methods, because our current methods are unsustainable.
The other message, relevant to "environmental vegetarians", is that humanity as a whole should NOT switch entirely to a vegetarian diet. The consequences would be disastrous (particularly to the developing world), and would probably create an entirely different set of problems that are just as severe as the ones we face today. To feed growing populations, the developing world actually needs to produce meat for human consumption.
You may think I'm an asshole. Um, that may be. But I believe that vegetarianism for environmental reasons is an easy, overly-simplified lifestyle choice that is far more symbolic than substantive. I believe that anyone who chooses to be a vegetarian for that reason should get a complete picture of the impact (or lack thereof) of their choice, and be exposed to ideas that might drive them to redirect that energy towards strategies that might actually make the world a better place for real.
-jcabana.
---------------------
"...Greenhouse gas emissions are not limited to animal husbandry; for instance in many countries where rice is the main cereal crop, rice cultivation is responsible for most of the methane emissions."
"...Environmental vegetarians believe that the problem of overgrazing can be alleviated by adopting a vegetarian diet [15], although "[l]ong-distance air transport, deep-freezing, and some horticultural practices for producing fresh vegetables may lead to environmental burdens for vegetarian foods exceeding those of locally produced organic meat." [16] While most meat production in western countries, especially the United States, currently utilizes inefficient grain feeding methods, not all meat production is inherently a poor use of land. A proportion of all grain crops produced is not suitable for human consumption. This can be fed to animals to turn into meat, thus improving efficiency and providing the most food from a certain land area. [17]"
"...This view however reflects the situation in the developed world and does not take into account the situation in most third world countries. In the developing world, notably Asia and Africa, fossil fuels are seldom used to transport feed for farm animals. Sheep or goats, for example, require no fuel, since they graze on farmlands, while bales of hay for bovines are still transported mainly using bullock carts or similar devices. Little to no meat processing takes place in the vast majority of the developing world. Animals are also often herded to the place of slaughter (with the exception of poultry) resulting in a very low use of fossil fuels. [35] In fact farm animals in developing world are used for multiple purposes from providing draught power, to transportation while also serving as meat once it reaches the end of its economic life.
Finally, from this link: http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research
" Meat production is certainly energy inefficient and environmentally harmful when done in industrial-sized stables with intense use of feed crops such as maize and soybeans. In particular, the large amounts of manure produced by thousands of animals living in one place usually causes environmental problems. It is also a problem when forests are cleared for ranging animals, such as in Brazil. However, few practical alternatives to mass production of livestock and fish farming exist if a population of 1.48 billion must be supplied with protein. It is certainly not an alternative to harvest the ocean for protein. The few remaining fisheries would be quickly exploited if China were try to supply its protein demand through fishing. This might be possible for Japan, but not for China, whose population will be 13 times as large in 2050."
There are many perfectly acceptable reasons why people may or may not choose to eat meat. The reason for this entry is that I now live with 3 people for whom eating meat is as much (perhaps more of) a political choice as it is a personal one. They cite principles of conservation, of animal welfare, of environmental degradation and wishing to prevent it.
To them, I say the following: not eating meat for political reasons doesn't make any sense. Comparing the two diets in an industrialized setting gives you a net difference of almost zero. Find a better reason.
Oh, I agree that eating factory-farmed meat is terrible for the environment. But it seems increasingly clear that eating factory-produced vegetables and dairy really isn't any better. Believe it or not, the industrial production of all our foods in developed countries means that either way, you're raping the environment severely and contributing to an unsustainable food market.
The only counterarguments I've heard to this generally read like the following: "This can't be true!" Yes, it can -- and it is. "Well, it's better than nothing!" It's certainly not better than eatling locally-produced free-range meat; actually, it's worse. "Maybe it's a wash at best." Actually it's more than a wash at best...and if it's a wash, why are you wasting your time with it? Aren't there more efficient uses of your time and energy?
Wouldn't it be better to kill fewer animals and eat most of them, rather than kill even more animals without eating any of them?
"Meat-eating causes glabal warming!" Touché. It does. But the global warming link can almost entirely be traced to current industrial, environmentally-damaging methods of livestock farming in existence today. It's the methods that are the problem, not eating meat in and of itself.
As promised, here are some acceptable reasons for not eating meat (you will note that not all of them are logical reasons):
- You don't like the taste. Not much else to say about that.
- God (or another higher power) has informed you that you should not eat an animal, or any animals. This isn't logical -- but religion is for the most part based on faith, not logic. I'm not about to question someone's faith based on their choice of diet, so we can roll with this one.
- You don't like the idea of eating animals that run around kinda like we do, because the thought alone nauseates you. Fine - far be it for me to suggest you do something that makes you feel bad.
- For health/food safety reasons. I totally sympathize with this one. Sadly, the recent United States e.coli outbreaks featuring fresh spinach and lettuce as the culprits prove that our food supply is screwed whether you eat meat or not.
- You think animal welfare dictates that we don't kill animals if we don't have to. Well, I hate to break it to you, but all-veggie diets kill millions of animals - actually, vegetarian diets probably kill more animals than meat-eating diets in developing countries do. Factory-farmed meat might -- I repeat, MIGHT -- kill more animals than a vegetarian diet. But animal death via factory is generally much more humane than death via cultivator/harvester.
- You think you are helping the environment by not eating meat at all, i.e. you do not eat vegetables based on the politics of food. This is the worst reason of all, simply because you are wrong.
I'll summarize the reasons (beyond the ones found in the above link). First of all, vegetarian diets have a TREMENDOUS environmental impact. Yes, meat diets kill livestock, produce millions of tons of harmful gases, generate a tremendous amount of waste, and use up a great deal of food and water.
But political vegetarians almost always fail to consider the following: Where does the fertilizer come from? How do you stop birds, insects and field animals from destroying your crops? How do you drive larger herbivore predators away? There is one answer to all these questions. You have to kill animals. Crops don't grow by dumping seeds in the ground; the fertilizer (and fertile soil) comes from dead animals and plants...the best stuff usually from animal waste and animal decay. You have to use pesticides to kill trillions of insects -- which, by the way, are animals. The field animals get brutally slaughtered by poisonous pesticides, traps and most often by harvesting equipment. Nobody eats these animals; they simply rot in the fields. I guess they eventually become fertilizer...but that process takes a lot longer than our food production system allows, so it's not like they immediately get recycled.
By contrast, meat consumption often utilizes grains that aren't fit for human consumption, grown on fields not suitable for more people-friendly crops. Also, no poison or insect-killing is involved. Organic, free-range cattle is even better. It has way less environmental impact than any other diet, because the cattle eat grass on fields not fit to grow food on, get herded to the slaughter, and actually get eaten.
How do those vegetable pesticides get produced? In the factory. Or you could introduce predator insects, no doubt with dramatic ecological effects. How do those crops get out of the ground and to your store? Using harvesters, factories and trucks -- all of which consume fossil fuels in one form or another. How are they kept fresh? The same way meats are: in a refrigerator or freezer -- both of which use freon and other nasty, global-warming-inducing stuff.
Unless you grow your own food, nobody can come up with a sound reason for making diet a political choice. Your energy would be better spent lobbying to make all food production less impactful and more healthy. You'd also be better served by eating organic, TRUE free-range animals to reduce your environmental footprint.
The difference you make by choosing not to eat meat in a country like the U.S. is akin to throwing a pebble on a beach. Sure, there's a difference. But it's barely noticeable, even if people were to do it en masse. I suppose if you enjoy symbolic gestures that have little practical meaning of impact , then this is the cause for you.
Anyway, here's the e-mail:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I grabbed some select stuff from a Wiki article on environmental vegetarianism [link added -- Ed]. None of this has anything to do with killing field animals.
I know you, so you probably aren't going to read the whole thing anytime soon. So I've taken the liberty of cutting and pasting, as well as bolding the stuff you should read right away. There is also a link towards the bottom to a study explaining why the Chinese have no alternative to feed their people without meat consumption.
The general moral of the story is that the "First World" should utilize more environmentally-friendly meat-production methods, because our current methods are unsustainable.
The other message, relevant to "environmental vegetarians", is that humanity as a whole should NOT switch entirely to a vegetarian diet. The consequences would be disastrous (particularly to the developing world), and would probably create an entirely different set of problems that are just as severe as the ones we face today. To feed growing populations, the developing world actually needs to produce meat for human consumption.
You may think I'm an asshole. Um, that may be. But I believe that vegetarianism for environmental reasons is an easy, overly-simplified lifestyle choice that is far more symbolic than substantive. I believe that anyone who chooses to be a vegetarian for that reason should get a complete picture of the impact (or lack thereof) of their choice, and be exposed to ideas that might drive them to redirect that energy towards strategies that might actually make the world a better place for real.
-jcabana.
---------------------
"...Greenhouse gas emissions are not limited to animal husbandry; for instance in many countries where rice is the main cereal crop, rice cultivation is responsible for most of the methane emissions."
"...Environmental vegetarians believe that the problem of overgrazing can be alleviated by adopting a vegetarian diet [15], although "[l]ong-distance air transport, deep-freezing, and some horticultural practices for producing fresh vegetables may lead to environmental burdens for vegetarian foods exceeding those of locally produced organic meat." [16] While most meat production in western countries, especially the United States, currently utilizes inefficient grain feeding methods, not all meat production is inherently a poor use of land. A proportion of all grain crops produced is not suitable for human consumption. This can be fed to animals to turn into meat, thus improving efficiency and providing the most food from a certain land area. [17]"
"...This view however reflects the situation in the developed world and does not take into account the situation in most third world countries. In the developing world, notably Asia and Africa, fossil fuels are seldom used to transport feed for farm animals. Sheep or goats, for example, require no fuel, since they graze on farmlands, while bales of hay for bovines are still transported mainly using bullock carts or similar devices. Little to no meat processing takes place in the vast majority of the developing world. Animals are also often herded to the place of slaughter (with the exception of poultry) resulting in a very low use of fossil fuels. [35] In fact farm animals in developing world are used for multiple purposes from providing draught power, to transportation while also serving as meat once it reaches the end of its economic life.
A more efficient use of animal waste may be a contributing factor in sustainability. The by-products of slaughtered animals can be used to provide biogas. Trains running on this fuel are already in operation in Sweden [36]. The use of biogas to run mass transit is likely only possible as a side effect of industrial agriculture."
"A widely adopted vegetarian diet, in and of itself, may not have profound effects on the health of the environment. The support of alternative farming practices (e.g. well husbanded organic farming, permaculture, and rotational grazing) and certain plant commodity avoidance such as rice, have a similarly beneficial impact on environmental health and sustainable agriculture. According to Cornell scientists, "the heavy dependence on fossil energy suggests that the US food system, whether meat-based or plant-based, is not sustainable." [46] . Some environmental activists point out, adopting a vegetarian diet may be a way of avoiding more radical changes in lifestyle and may merely be little more than a righteous gesture. Dave Riley, an Australian environmentalist, echoes the views of some non-vegetarian environmentalists when he states that "being meatless and guiltless seems seductively simple while environmental destruction rages around us." [47]. Since modest reductions in meat consumption can subtantially reduce the burden on our natural resources, the adoption of a vegetarian or vegan diet as a means to reduce one's impact on the environment may not be necessary." [48]
Finally, from this link: http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research
" Meat production is certainly energy inefficient and environmentally harmful when done in industrial-sized stables with intense use of feed crops such as maize and soybeans. In particular, the large amounts of manure produced by thousands of animals living in one place usually causes environmental problems. It is also a problem when forests are cleared for ranging animals, such as in Brazil. However, few practical alternatives to mass production of livestock and fish farming exist if a population of 1.48 billion must be supplied with protein. It is certainly not an alternative to harvest the ocean for protein. The few remaining fisheries would be quickly exploited if China were try to supply its protein demand through fishing. This might be possible for Japan, but not for China, whose population will be 13 times as large in 2050."
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