If you’re trying to be green, perhaps like me you recycle obsessively, use energy saving bulbs and never drive. However, according to a New York Times article “when you look at environmental problems in the US, nearly all of them have their source in food production and in particular meat production”. If you are seriously interested in reducing your carbon footprint, apparently one of the most effective ways is to stop eating meat.
Per capita global meat consumption has more than doubled over the past 40 years; from 70 million to roughly 300 million tons today. This is expected to double again by 2050. Of this, Americans eat about 8 ounces of meat a day, twice the global average, and we grow and kill 10 billion animals every year. Instead of being raised locally where manure can be spread on nearby fields and transportation costs reduced, production facilities now resemble prisons more than farms, hundreds of miles from major population centers, and their manure streams pollute groundwater. The industrial production of livestock is growing more than twice as fast as land-based methods, and these assembly-line meat factories have several harmful effects for the environment.
ENORMOUS ENERGY CONSUMPTION
Producing meat has inherent energy inefficiencies. About 2x – 5x more grain is required to produce the same amount of calories through livestock as through direct grain consumption. This number is as much as 10x more in the case of grain-fed beef. To put this energy consumption in simplified terms, if Americans reduced meat consumption by 20%, it would have the same impact as if we all switched from driving sedans to ultra-efficient Prius’s.
SIGNIFICANT GREENHOUSE GASES GENERATED
Livestock production generates one-fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation! It is estimated that a 2.2 pound serving of beef is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 155 miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days.
DEFORESTATION
Livestock requires ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the vast destruction of the world’s tropical rain forests. An estimated 30% of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production.
POLLUTED WATER SUPPLIES
Agriculture in the US, which now largely serves the demand for meat, contributes to 3/4 of all water-quality problems in the nation’s rivers and streams. The only reason factory farming is optimal is because degrading waterways is free. If dumping carried a non-zero price tag, the entire structure of food production would drastically change.
STARVATION
Interestingly, the majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds cattle, pigs and chickens, even though roughly one billion people suffer from hunger or malnutrition. As more meat leads to an increased demand for feed such as corn and soy, this leads to higher prices for feed, which has tragic consequences for citizens of poorer countries.
DISEASE
The stomachs of cattle are meant to digest grass, not grain, and cattle raised industrially thrive only because they gain weight quickly, which encourages the efficiency of mass confinement and slaughter. But it causes health problems, administration of antibiotics is routine, which results in antibiotic-resistant bacteria that threatens the usefulness of medicines that treat people. Grain-fed animals are contributing to health problems among the world’s wealthier citizens — including heart disease, some types of cancer, and diabetes.
WHAT ABOUT PROTEIN?
Many ask, but what about protein? Americans eat 200 pounds of meat, poultry and fish per capita per year, representing an increase of 50 pounds per person from 50 years ago. We each consume something like 110 grams of protein a day, about twice the federal government’s recommended allowance; of that, about 75 grams come from animal protein. This recommended allowance is considered higher than it needs to be by many dietary experts. It’s estimated that we would be fine on 30 grams of protein a day, and virtually all of it from plant sources.
SUBSIDIES
Despite all these negative externalities, meat is subsidized by the federal government. Eliminating subsidies could help pass on the true costs of meat production to consumers; the UN estimates subsidies account for 31% of global farm income. In part because of subsidies, real prices of beef, pork and poultry have held steady, and even decreased, for 40 years or more.
THE GOOD NEWS?
So given all these staggering facts, perhaps you’re wondering
what the good news is? The good news is we all have the power to have an impact
by reducing our meat consumption. Personally, I initially became vegetarian due
to animal cruelty, but even without going into the horrors of killing and raising meat in confinement,
there are many larger global reasons to remain vegetarian. Perhaps the best
news is that we find that the good of people’s bodies and the good of the
planet are in fact perfectly aligned.