Excerpt from the film "Meat The Truth": The power to stop climate change is ours. What we choose to eat influences climate change more than anything else (2 minutes)

WORLD WATCH INSTITUTE: As environmental science has advanced, it has become apparent that the human appetite for animal flesh is a driving force behind virtually every major category of environmental damage now threatening the human future—deforestation, erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice, the destabilization of communities, and the spread of disease.

Read more in the PDF World Watch Institute

Livestock accounts for 37 percent of human-induced methane, a gas with a global warming potential (GWP) 23 times that of CO2, largely through cattle flatulence and belching. It also generates 65 percent of humankind's nitrous oxide, which has a GWP 296 times that of CO2, mostly from manure, the FAO said in its 2006 report Livestock's Long Shadow. Then the eco-footprint of producing all the animals' feed must be factored in, as well as the carbon burned to power factory farms, slaughter houses and processing plants and refrigerate the meat. If all that were not enough, livestock is also a cause of widespread soil and water degradation, with major polluting agents including animal waste, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, and the fertilisers and pesticides used on feed crops.

These are the factors that led Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to say once that "the best solution would be for us all to become vegetarians." Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and London School of Economics Professor Lord Stern are among the eminent names to express similar sentiments.

IPS Dec 17, 2009: 'Meat-Eating Gets Grilled'

Read the UN FAO's 'Livestock Impacts on the Environment' (2006)

SO HOW CAN WE MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

Meatless Mondays!

Since the UN's request to eat less meat in 2006, the global response has been inspiring. According to the Meatless Mondays campaign, worldwide ten million families, 7,000 hotels and 425,000 food dealers have pledged meat-free meals once a week. Baltimore City Public Schools launched Meatless Mondays for its 82,000 students in October. (Read an interesting article about that here). Thirty-two U.S. hospitals have signed on to the Balanced Menu Challenge, a commitment to reduce meat purchases by 20 percent. For more information, visit the campaigns around the world:

• Meatless Monday (Canada)
• Meatless Monday (US)
• Meat Free Monday (UK)
• Support Meat-Free Monday (Paul McCartney, UK)

A small town in Belgium has gone meat-free one day a week. A sign of things to come, says one food historian.

For decades, environmental arguments against eating meat have been largely the preserve of vegetarian websites and magazines. Just two years ago it seemed inconceivable that significant numbers of western Europeans would be ready to down their steak knives and graze on vegetation for the sake of the planet. The rapidity with which this situation has changed is astonishing.

...Read more at Global Action Network Can vegetarians save the world (May 28th 2009)

Take A Bite Out of Climate Change (A Project of the Small Planet Institute): 10 Ways to Take a Bite Out of Climate Change

TIME Magazine: Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food (By Bryan Walsh Friday, Aug. 21, 2009)

PDFs: Click on any image to download PDF (or the link below it to source)
Why It's Green to Go Vegetarian [UK Vegetarian Society] vegsoc.org	Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the US pubs.acs.org	Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the US pubs.acs.org
Livestock's Long Shadow fao.org	Earthsave Global Warming Strategy earthsave.org	The Global Benefits of Eating Less Meat http://www.ciwf.org.uk/
Global Warming Executive Summary http://www.ciwf.org.uk/	Eating for the Earth veg.ca	Meat, Now It's Not Personal worldwatch.org
Livestock & Climate Change worldwatch.org	Limits to Growth: Facing Food Scarcity Source: earthsave.ca	New York Times: Re-thinking the Meat Guzzler Source: earthsave.ca

ENERGY INEFFICIENCY

On average, animal protein production in the U.S. requires 28 kilocalories (kcal) for every kcal of protein produced for human consumption. Beef and lamb are the most costly, in terms of fossil fuel energy input to protein output at 54:1 and 50:1, respectively. Turkey and chicken meat production are the most efficient (13:1 and 4:1, respectively). Grain production, on average, requires 3.3 kcal of fossil fuel for every kcal of protein produced. The U.S. now imports about 54 percent of its oil; by the year 2015, that import figure is expected to rise to 100 percent.

"Livestock Production: Energy Inputs and the Environment" by David Pimentel

In Canada, 3.5 acres (1.4 hectares) of land is used to feed each person. Most of this land is used for grazing or to grow feed crops. In contrast, only a half acre (0.2 hectares) is required to feed a vegetarian1 — seven times less land.

If the world were to move towards a vegetarian diet, large areas could be returned to wilderness. Unfortunately the opposite is still happening. Witness the ongoing destruction of rainforests to graze cattle and grow soy for animal feed. Considered to be the lungs of the Earth, tropical rainforests produce abundant oxygen, naturally store carbon, and sustain a rich biodiversity, providing a home to countless species of plants, animals and insects. In total, 785 species were driven to extinction in 2007 due to habitat destruction.

Grassland ecosystems are also threatened. About 70 percent of all grazing land in dry areas is considered degraded, mostly due to overgrazing, compaction and erosion attributable to livestock activity.

The vast majority of cereal crops grown in Canada — 77% to be exact — are directly fed to livestock, not people. And, on average, farm animals must be fed over 6 kilograms of crops to produce one kilogram of carcass meat for human consumption.4 Enough food is grown to easily feed everyone on the planet and alleviate high food prices. The problem is that most of it goes to fattening farm animals. Canadians and Americans consume almost 100 kilograms of meat, per person, per year. This involves the killing of 10 billion animals annually.

Source

WATER

We're told to conserve water, we should take shorter showers and install low-flush toilets (all good ideas) but in fact agriculture accounts for 87 percent of all the fresh water consumed each year (US). The bulk of this goes toward water required for livestock forage and grain production. Every kilogram of beef produced takes 100,000 litres of water, and broiler chickens take 3,500 liters per kilogram produced. Vegetable crops directly require dramatically less: only 900 litres go into producing a kilogram of wheat, and 500 litres per kilogram of potatoes. Reducing meat in our diet goes a long way towards conserving our precious water supplies.

Animal agriculture is a leading consumer of water resources in the United States, Pimentel noted. Grain-fed beef production takes 100,000 liters of water for every kilogram of food. Raising broiler chickens takes 3,500 liters of water to make a kilogram of meat. In comparison, soybean production uses 2,000 liters for kilogram of food produced; rice, 1,912; wheat, 900; and potatoes, 500 liters. "Water shortages already are severe in the Western and Southern United States and the situation is quickly becoming worse because of a rapidly growing U.S. population that requires more water for all of its needs, especially agriculture," Pimentel observed.

Source

World's Waters Choking from Meat Consumption and Other Human Activities

Greater meat consumption and demand for fossil fuels worldwide are expected to cause increasingly more harmful algal blooms and dead zones in coastal and freshwater areas. “Nutrient pollution in aquatic ecosystems, or eutrophication, is a rapidly growing environmental crisis,” said Mindy Selman, the lead author of a new report released today by the World Resources Institute (WRI). “Nearly 500 coastal areas already suffer from hypoxia. Our research indicates that number is expected to rise in the foreseeable future.”

Source

WORLD HUNGER

“U.S. could feed 800 million people with grain that livestock eat, Cornell ecologist advises animal scientists,” read the headline for this August 1997 article:

“If all the grain currently fed to livestock in the United States were consumed directly by people, the number of people who could be fed would be nearly 800 million,” David Pimentel, professor of ecology in Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, reported at the July 24-26 meeting of the Canadian Society of Animal Science in Montreal. Or, if those grains were exported, it would boost the U.S. trade balance by $80 billion a year.

Currently some 800 million people on the planet now suffer from hunger or malnutrition, while the majority of corn and soya grown in the world — which could be feeding them, goes to feed cattle, pigs and chickens. By some estimates 20 vegetarians can be fed on the amount of land needed to feed one person consuming a meat-based diet.

Growing crops to feed animals means there is less land on which to grow crops for humans. The knock-on effect of any increase in meat production is likely to reduce the land and resources available for producing other foodstuffs and push future food prices further beyond the limits of affordability for the world's poorest people.

Sir Paul McCartney sums it all up: "If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is just stop eating meat. That's the single most important thing you could do. It's staggering when you think about it. Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot: ecology, famine, cruelty."

LINKS:

• Earthsave
  "A reduction in meat consumption is probably the most potent single act individuals can take in the effort to halt the destruction of the environment and preserve our precious resources. Reducing meat consumption conserves water, saves energy, preserves top soil, reduces our dependence on chemical pesticides and fertilizers, and protects forests. All this while improving our health."
  — John Robbins, Founder of Earthsave International
• GoVeg.com
• Veg TV
• Vegetarian Society UK - www.vegsoc.org
• Vegetarian Society UK - Environmental Resources
• Young Veggie.org - www.youngveggie.org
• Vegetarian Diet Info - www.vegetarian-diet.info/
• 

Back to TOP OF PAGE