Environmental Consequences of Livestock

The Meat of the Matter: E Magazine on the Environmental Consequences of Livestock
 
Ask most Americans about what causes global warming, and they’ll point to a coal plant smokestack or a car’s tailpipe. But it’s two other images that should be granted similarly iconic status, says the July/August 2008 cover story of E – The Environmental Magazine (now posted at www.emagazine.com): the front and rear ends of a cow.
 
According to a little-known 2006 United Nations (UN) report called “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” livestock is a “major player” in climate change, accounting for 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions.
 
That’s more than our entire transportation system.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports that the American meat industry produces more than 1.3 billion tons of waste annually — five tons for every U.S. citizen and 130 times the volume of human waste. Michael Jacobson at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) adds that just one mid-sized feedlot churns out half a million pounds of manure each day. And waste is just one of meat’s many harmful environmental side effects.
 
Raising livestock is the single largest human-related use of land. Grazing occupies an incredible 26 percent of the ice- and water-free surface of the planet Earth. The area devoted to growing crops to feed those animals amounts to 33 percent of arable land. Meat production is a major factor in deforestation as well, and grazing now occupies 70 percent of previously forested land in the Amazon region. In Brazil, 60 to 70 percent of rain forest destruction is caused by clearing for animal pasture. Other sources of CO2 include the burning of diesel fuel to operate farm machinery, and the fossil fuels used to keep barns warm during the winter.
 
And food grown for animals could be feeding people. Raising livestock consumes 90 percent of the soy crop in the U.S., 80 percent of its corn and 70 percent of its grain. What’s more, all that grazing is leaving an impact: The UN reports that 20 percent of the world’s pastures and rangelands have been at least somewhat degraded through overgrazing, soil compaction and erosion. And methane (a global warming gas 23 times more potent than CO2) comes from many human sources, but livestock account for an incredible 37 percent of that total.
 
The environmental consequences of meat-based diets extend far beyond their impact on climate change. Livestock production consumes eight percent of the world’s water (mainly to irrigate animal feed); causes 55 percent of land erosion and sediment; uses 37 percent of all pesticides; directly or indirectly results in 50 percent of all antibiotic use; and dumps a third of all nitrogen and phosphorous into our fresh water supplies.
 
And livestock are forcing other animals out. With species loss accelerating in a virtual “sixth extinction,” livestock currently account for 20 percent of all the animal biomass on the planet.
 
The average person on the planet ate 90.3 pounds of meat in 2003, double the figure of 50 years ago. China alone now consumes half the world’s pork, a fivefold increase just since 1978.
 
But vegetarian diets are rarely proposed by environmental organizations. The “meat is good and necessary for health” message is routinely reinforced through advertising and by the cultural signals we’re sent at school, work and church. Vegetarianism is depicted as a fringe choice for “health faddists.”

Even such an enlightened source as the 2005 Worldwatch report “Happier Meals: Rethinking the Global Meat Industry” is careful not to advocate for a vegetarian diet, including it in a range of options that also includes eating less meat, switching to pasture-raised “humane” meat, and opting for a few non-meat entrees per week. Vegetarianism is the “elephant in the room,” but even in a very food-conscious age it is not easily made the centerpiece of an activist agenda.

CSPI’s Jacobson argues that cutting down meat consumption should be a public health priority. “From an environmental point of view, the less beef people eat the better,” he says, citing not only the release of methane from livestock but also increased risk of colon cancer and heart disease.

Offer these facts to many meat eaters, and they’ll respond that they can’t be healthy without meat. “Where would I get my protein?” is a common answer. But the latest medical research shows that the human body does not need meat to be healthy. Indeed, meat is high in cholesterol and saturated fat, and a balanced vegetarian diet provides all the protein needed for glowing health. Were humans “meant” to eat meat, just because our ancestors did? Nonsense, says Dr. Milton Mills, a leading vegetarian voice. “The human gastrointestinal tract features the anatomical modifications consistent with an herbivorous diet,” he asserts.

With the recognition of meat’s impact on the planet (and the realization that we don’t need it to stay healthy), is it possible that the human diet will undergo a fundamental change? The fact that the cornerstone of the American diet aids and abets climate change is an “inconvenient truth” that many of us don’t want to face, says Joseph Connelly, publisher the San Francisco-based VegNews Magazine. He takes a dig at Al Gore for not mentioning meat-based diets in his film and only dealing with them glancingly in his book, An Inconvenient Truth, and not at all in the film.

A 2003 Harris Poll said that between four and 10 percent of the American people identify themselves as vegetarians. So far, Connelly says that number seems to be holding steady. “From a sustainability point of view, what’s really needed is for people to understand the connections between factory farming, meat eating and environmental impacts,” he says. “That’s the first step.”

E – The Environmental Magazine distributes 50,000 copies six times per year to subscribers and bookstores. It’s website, http://www.emagazine.com/, enjoys 600,000 monthly visitors. E also publishes EarthTalk, a nationally syndicated environmental Q&A column distributed free to 1,700 newspapers, magazines and websites throughout the U.S. and Canada (www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/thisweek). Single copies of E’s July/August 2008 issue are available for $5 postpaid from: E Magazine, P.O. Box 50032, Boulder, CO 80322. Subscriptions are $29.95 per year, available at the same address.