What do you do? You give up, or substantially reduce, your consumption of animal foods. The harvesting of animals for food is the single most unsustainable of all human activities. It causes more environmental degradation than heavy industry, urban expansion and automobiles, combined.
A 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned:
- 80% of all agricultural land
- 50% of all freshwater
- 30% of all other raw materials, including fuel
In addition, our billion plus farm animals produce 130 times as much excrement as the entire human population. Some of that is recovered as fertilizer, but enough of the remainder escapes to significantly pollute our soil and water. In total, agriculture accounts for 70% of our water quality problems. Better treatment of urban sewerage, and reduced urban runoff, won't save our estuaries and offshore marine environments, if the animal waste problem isn't addressed. Amazingly, farmers are exempt from most of the regulations which apply to other industries.
By far the resource most severely impacted is land. 80% of all agricultural land in the USA is taken up by animal food production. It takes anything from four to six times as much land to feed a meat eater as it does to feed a vegetarian. If we reduced animal food consumption by 80% in this country we could get by using less than half the land area. That's a bigger chunk of land than the Louisiana purchase.
If the freed up land were used to produce food and timber for the rest of the world, there would be no need to clear another acre of rainforest until the year 2060. This figure is based on the present rate of rainforest destruction. Of course if China's meat consumption continues to increase, as it has been, the world's rainforests will disappear at an increasingly rapid rate. China has less agricultural land than America but has four times its population. In the US, livestock consumes two thirds of all grains and hay grown on its farms. Livestock in the rest of the world consumes only 21% of grain production. If the Chinese were to eat like Americans, the math becomes truly frightening.
Whether it is beef, pork or chicken, the figures are much the same. And it makes no difference whether the animals are free range or housed in feed lots. It's growing the feed for the animals which takes up all the land. It takes six to ten calories of grain to produce one calorie of meat. The ratio varies depending on the edible proportion of the animal and, more critically, the age of the animal when it is slaughtered. Whether the animal is two years old or four, it yields about the same amount of meat, but the four year old will have consumed twice the amount of calories.
The type of animal does make a difference however, when it comes to water consumption. Beef production consumes massively more water than any other meat product, at around 18,000 gallons per pound. Other meat products in turn consume massively more water than grains, fruits and vegetables. All told, production of food crops consumes four times more water than industrial, commercial and domestic users combined. The amount of water saved in the home by recommended water saving measures is insignificant in terms of the savings which could be achieved by reduced beef consumption. Eat one less pound of beef, and you save as much water as your family consumes in seven weeks. Eat eight pounds less, and you have saved a whole year's consumption.
If Americans alone were to reduce their consumption of meat, seafood, eggs and dairy their would be a massive positive benefit to the entire planet. Land savings would be global. Locally wildlife, forests, rivers and marine ecosystems could recover and thrive. Huge acreages would become available for wildlife habitat, recreation, and food and timber for export. If the Canadians and Europeans did the same, and China kept much to its traditional diet, the health of the global environment would be greatly assured. More would still be needed with respect to climate change, but even there we would be better able to deal with the consequences. More land for example would be available to facilitate wildlife migrations.
Think of all the expense and inconvenience that goes into sorting paper and plastic for recycling, cutting down on gas, or reducing household water consumption. All for relatively miserable benefit. All we are talking about here is a change of diet. And changing to a demonstrably healthier life extending diet at that. How hard is that?
No sacrifices are necessary in terms of gross domestic product, or living standards. Quite the contrary, there would be a net improvement in living standards and productivity. Vegetarians are healthier and live up to three years longer. In distribution terms the worst affected, farmers, make up only a tiny proportion of the population. The government could buy up farms instead of paying farmers to overproduce. Additional revenue should also be realized from savings in health costs.
No one has to give up meat entirely, or dairy, or seafood. But these should be substantially reduced in quantity to provide flavor rather than bulk.
Will it happen? Not until the reality begins to displace the deep seated myths about meat as a measure of status, affluence, strength and machismo. By which time it will probably be way too late. Look how hard it is for people to give up smoking, something that is even more demonstrably harmful to health. And we haven't even begun to achieve the necessary awareness we achieved with smoking in the 1960's. Blame no doubt will be laid at the feet of the meat and dairy industries, but the real problem is a public which doesn't want to know. Talk about an inconvenient truth. All that is required is a change of attitude. How tragic it will be if that failure to change costs us the earth.
Most of the figures quoted above will be found in the publication, "Six Arguments for a Greener Diet" published by the Center for Science in the Public Interest. This is no radical vegetarian group. It is an independent organization, entirely funded by member subscriptions, and it accepts no advertising. And while it favors a greener diet, it does not advocate a completely vegetarian or vegan diet. The six arguments it puts forward are:
- less chronic disease and overall health
- less food borne illness
- better soil
- more and cleaner water
- cleaner air
- less animal suffering
The case made is overwhelming, the figures staggering.
I also did research and calculations of my own, mostly from internet sources. The above publication lists some of these websites, in addition to its extensive bibliography. Where I came across differences in figures for such things as land requirements for meat eaters and vegetarians, I traced the figures back to the basics. Calculating how many calories a typical steer consumes, how much they weigh at slaughter, and how many calories their carcasses provide. It all checked out and the differences can be explained by different assumptions about the age of the animal at slaughter, and the yield in terms of edible protein per animal.
In the light of all this, how insane is the current rush to produce ethanol for fuel? This initiative can only increase the rate of rainforest destruction. Either that, or we make do with the land we have and grow less food. The policy has already placed pressure on food prices. So here we are subsidizing an economic activity that increases total demand for energy, creates pressure to expand the amount of land under cultivation, increases economic inefficiency and hugely exacerbates our environmental problems.
What does that say about our political progress in addressing environmental problems? Why are we doing this? Because we are worried foreigners will start restricting our oil supplies, and we want to throw even more money at our inefficient farmers. The oil is going to run out anyway folks. And we're burning it faster to produce the ethanol! Can't we start looking at options that make economic and environmental sense?
