meat of the matter

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Meat of the matter7/30/2008

ENVIRONMENTAL

To fight global warming, don't just drive a Prius, ditch those burgers

MT ILLUSTRATION: MARY IVERSON

MT ILLUSTRATION: SEAN BIERI, CONCEPT BY MARY IVERSON

BY JIM MOTAVALLI

Ask most Americans about what causes global warming, and they'llpoint to a coal plant smokestack or a car's tailpipe. They're right, of

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course, but perhaps two other images should be granted similarly

iconic status: the front and rear ends of a cow. According to a little-

known 2006 United Nations report entitled "Livestock's Long

Shadow," livestock is a major player in climate change, accounting

for 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions (measured in carbondioxide equivalents). That's more than the entire global

transportation system! Unfortunately, this important revelation has

received only limited attention in the media.

How could methane from cows, goats, sheep and other livestock

have such a huge impact? As Chris Goodall points out in his book

How to Live a Low-Carbon Life (Earthscan Publications), "Ruminant

animals [chewing a cud], such as cows and sheep, produce

methane as a result of the digestive process. ... Dairy cows areparticularly important sources of methane because of the volume of

food, both grass and processed material, that they eat."

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the

American meat industry produces more than 1.4 billion tons of

waste annually five tons for every U.S. citizen and 130 times the

volume of human waste. Michael Jacobson, the longtime executive

director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, adds the

fact that just one midsized feedlot churns out half a million pounds

of manure each day. "The methane that cattle and their manureproduce has a global warming effect equal to that of 33 million

automobiles," the Center reports in its book Six Arguments for a

Greener Diet.

That's just one side effect of raising animals for food. It turns out

that nearly every aspect of the huge international meat trade has

an environmental or health consequence, with global warming at

the top of the list. If you never thought that eating meat was an

environmental (and by extension, political) issue, now is the time torethink that position.

A really big enterprise

To understand livestock's impact on the planet, you have to

consider the size of the industry. It 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 ofarable land. Meat production is a major factor in deforestation as

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well, and grazing now occupies 70 percent of previously forested

land in the Amazon region. In Brazil, 60 to 70 percent of rainforest

destruction is caused by clearing for animal pasture, one reason

why livestock accounts for 9 percent of human-caused carbon

dioxide (CO2) emissions. Other sources of CO2 include the burningof 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, 80 percent of the corn

and 70 percent of the grain grown in the United States. David

Pimentel, professor of entomology at Cornell, points out that "if all

the grain currently fed to livestock in the U.S. was consumed

directly by people, the number who could be fed is nearly 800million."

Grazing is itself environmentally destructive. 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.

Methane (a global warming gas 23 times more potent than CO2)

comes from many human sources, but livestock accounts for an

incredible 37 percent of that total. Nitrous oxide is also a verypowerful global warming gas (296 times more potent than CO2) and

by far the biggest source, 64 percent, originates (as does animal-

based methane) from manure "off-gassing." This process of nitrous

oxide creation is aggravated by intensive factory farming methods,

because manure is a more dangerous emitter when it is

concentrated and stored in compacted form. Nitrogen-based

fertilizers also emit nitrous oxide. Another byproduct of raising

livestock is copious amounts of ammonia.

Unacceptable risks

The environmental consequences of meat-based diets extend far

beyond their impact on climate change. According to the UN report,

producing the worldwide meat supply also consumes a large share

of natural resources and contributes to a variety of pressing

problems. Livestock production consumes 8 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

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indirectly results in 50 percent of all antibiotic use, and dumps a

third of all nitrogen and phosphorous into our fresh water supplies.

A study by the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal

Production (IFAP), released last April, called the human health andenvironmental risks associated with the meat industry

"unacceptable." One of the commission's major recommendations

was to "implement a new system to deal with farm waste to replace

the inflexible and broken system that exists today, to protect

Americans from the adverse environmental and human health

hazards of improperly handled IFAP waste."

And livestock forces other animals out. With species loss

accelerating in a virtual "sixth extinction," livestock currentlyaccounts for 20 percent of all the animal biomass on the planet. As

they occupy 30 percent of the planet, they also displace that much

wildlife habitat. The grazing of livestock is considered a serious

threat to 306 of the 825 "eco-regions" identified by the Worldwide

Fund for Nature, and to 23 of Conservation International's 35 global

hotspots for biodiversity.

Upping the volume

Meat production has become a major problem because of its very

success as a human food. In 1950, world meat production was 44

million pounds annually; today, it has risen fivefold to 253 million

tons per year. Pork production, for instance, was less than five

million tons annually in 1950, but it's more than 90 million tons

today. The average person on the planet ate 90.3 pounds of meat in

2003, double the figure of 50 years ago.

These sharp increases are partly the result of dramatically highermeat consumption in the Third World. China alone now consumes

half the world's pork, a fivefold increase since 1978.

Brazil makes an excellent case history. With 160 million head of

cattle, it has the second-largest herd in the world after India. In

Brazil, cattle provide 29 percent of the country's methane

production, and an amazing 10 percent of the world total. If that

were the only issue, Brazil's large cattle herd would be a major

problem. But it would be an enormous global warming aggravator

even if its cattle produced no methane, because Brazilian farmersburn rainforest land to create pastures.

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This process releases carbon into the atmosphere from the heavy

fires, and also destroys the rainforests' ability to act as a carbon

sink and capture CO2. These fires are Brazil's largest contribution to

global warming, which worries Brazilian environmentalists such as

Rubens Born of the group Vitae Civilis. He says he's waiting forBrazil's national inventory of greenhouse gas emissions, which will

allow him to see more precisely the scope of the problem.

Selective solutions

The few commentators who have taken on the connection between

meat consumption and global warming ignore the most obvious

solution: not eating meat.

The UN report offers a lengthy section entitled "mitigation options"

with a range of other choices. To avoid cutting down rainforests that

sequester carbon, the report suggests "intensification of agricultural

production on some of the better lands, for example by increased

fertilizer benefits." The logical conclusion to this suggestion is the

total confinement factory farming methods used in the United

States which, by twisted logic, could be said to have

environmental benefits because they are not land intensive (and

don't cut down trees). But the environmental problems associatedwith factory farming are legion, and include polluted air and

waterways.

Other UN suggestions include conservation tillage (leaving

agricultural residue on the soil surface to enrich its health) and

organic farming for better soil health, improved grassland

management, better nutrition for livestock to reduce methane gas

production, and capturing methane in anaerobic digesters to

produce "biogas."

The latter method has been adopted by several Vermont dairy farms

and works well. Cow manure is stored in the digesters (huge tanks)

at 100 degrees Fahrenheit and deprived of oxygen. That encourages

bacteria to break the manure down, releasing biogas that is 90

percent methane. This fuel is captured and burned in an engine to

generate electricity. Unfortunately, the equipment is expensive

$200,000 to $1 million, depending on the size of the farm. Only 32

U.S. farms were using digesters in a recent tally, so only a tiny

amount of methane production has been mitigated in this way.

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A Canadian study by Karin Wittinberg and Dinah Boadi of the

University of Manitoba lists 20 separate ways to reduce greenhouse

gas production from livestock. These include grinding and pelletizing

food for confined animals to make it more fully digestible (a 20 to

40 percent reduction), grazing steers on high-quality alfalfa grasspastures (50 percent reduction), adding canola oil to feedlot rations

(30 percent reduction), and separating animals by age group and

phasing in food related to their growth stages (50 percent

reduction). These are laudable solutions and should be

implemented, but, absent legislation, they're unlikely to be put in

place.

It takes seven pounds of corn to add a pound of weight to a cow,

and that's why 200 million acres of land in the U.S. are devoted toraising grains, oilseeds, pasture and hay for livestock. That land

requires 181 billion pounds of pesticides, 22 billion pounds of

fertilizer and 17 trillion gallons of irrigation water (not to mention

billions of gallons of global warming-aggravating fossil fuel for farm

equipment).

Another way of looking at this, supplied by M.E. Ensminger, the

former chair of the Animal Sciences Department at Washington

State University, is that "2,000 pounds of grain must be supplied to

livestock in order to produce enough meat and other livestockproducts to support a person for a year, whereas 400 pounds of

grain eaten directly will support a person for a year."

Because vegetarians enjoy lower levels of blood cholesterol and

suffer less frequently from obesity and hypertension, their life

expectancies are several years greater. But the benefits of the

vegetarian option are rarely on the agenda, even when the

environmental effects of the meat industry are under discussion.

A very big change

In the United States, Most people grow up eating meat and seeing

others doing the same. The message that "meat is good and

necessary for health" is routinely reinforced through advertising and

the cultural signals we're sent at school, work and church.

Vegetarianism is regularly depicted as a fringe choice for "health

faddists." The government reinforces this message with meat

featured prominently in its food pyramids.

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Jim Mason, co-author ofThe Ethics of What We Eat: Why Our Food

Choices Matter(Rodale Books), offers another possible reason we've

kept vegetarianism off the mainstream agenda. "People who eat

meat and animal products are in denial about anything and

everything having to do with animal farming," he says. "They knowthat it must be bad, but they don't want to look at any part of it. So

all of it stays hidden and abuses flourish whether of animals,

workers or the environment."

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 nonmeat entres 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.

Danielle Nierenberg, author of the Worldwatch study, works for both

that organization and for the Humane Society of the United States

(HSUS). She's a vegan, and very aware of the climate impacts of

meat-based diets. But, she says, "Food choices are a very personal

decision for most people, and we are only now convincing them that

this is a tool at their disposal if they care about the environment."

Nierenberg says that some of the Worldwatch report was published

in Environmental Health Perspectives, and there was concern that it

wouldn't see print if it overemphasized vegetarian diets. "People

have a very visceral reaction when told they shouldn't be eating the

core meats they grew up with," she says. "They get upset."

David Pimentel agrees that Americans are acculturated to eating

meat. "The nutritionists say we're eating way too much meat for ourhealth," he says. "The public knows this but it doesn't change their

dietary habits. What will alter their behavior is higher prices for

meat and milk, which are inevitable because of higher fuel prices

and [with the diversion of corn crops to making ethanol] the rising

cost of corn."

Although he admits it's an unpopular position, Pimentel says he'd

like to see gas reach $10 a gallon, because it will encourage energy

conservation and increase prices for environmentally destructive

meat, milk and eggs. "Right now, we have some of the lowest foodprices in the world," he says. "In the U.S. we pay 15 percent of our

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budgets for food, compared to 30 percent in Europe and 60 percent

in Indonesia."

Jacobson agrees. "People are pretty wedded to what they eat," he

says. "The government should be sponsoring major mass mediacampaigns to convince people to eat more fruit, vegetables and

whole grains."

He argues that cutting 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.

Jacobson adds that grass-fed, free-range beef (which has less

overall fat) is a healthier alternative, but grazing takes longer tobring the animals to market weight "and they're emitting methane

all that time."

He posits that the Centers for Disease Control or the Environmental

Protection Agency should be convincing Americans to eat lower on

the food chain. "There are the environmental and animal welfare

problems caused by 'modern' agriculture," he says. "The animals'

retribution is that we die of heart disease and cancer." Is there an

environmental argument to be made for livestock? Gidon Eshel, co-

author of the report "Diet, Energy and Global Warming" and aprofessor at Bard College, says that livestock "has an important role

to play in nutrient recycling. Minerals are taken up by growing

plants, and when those plants are eaten by grazers, some of it ends

up in their tissues and some is returned to the soil in their waste

products. But what's good in small quantities becomes toxic and

devastating in large amounts. So it is only beneficial if we were

raising livestock in much smaller numbers than we are today."

Eshel calls for enforcement of the frequently ignored federal CleanWater and Clean Air Acts, which contain provisions to protect

against harmful discharges of both animal wastes and the fertilizers

used to grow animal feed.

Eating more meat

A record 284 million tons of meat were produced worldwide in 2007.

In most developing countries, meat consumption per capita is

expected to double from the 1980s to 2020. Meat is aneconomically important product in most parts of the world in 2008,

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and it has powerful lobbies and enormous vested interests. There's

just one problem: It's hurting the planet, and wasting huge

resources that could easily feed a hungry world.

Offer these facts to many meat-eaters, and they'll respond that theycan't be healthy without meat. "Where would I get my protein?" is a

common concern. 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."

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 (Rodale Books).

A 2003 Harris Poll said that between 4 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."

Lisa Mickleborough, an editor at VegNews, is probably right whenshe says that animal concerns are a powerful force for turning

meat-eating into a moral issue. To be an animal rights leader is

almost by definition to be a vegan. But few environmental leaders

have gone that far. "As an environmental issue, it's pretty

compelling," she says. "The figures on methane production speak

for themselves. But when it comes to doing what's right for the

environment, most people don't take big steps they just do the

best they can."

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Jim Motavalli is the editorial director of New Mass Media and

a frequent contributor to *The New York Times* auto

section. Send comments to him via [email protected].

Comments

On 7/30/2008 11:01:36 PM, ww said:

Now, it comes to be, that we must all try very hard, on how to

reduce...regulate...and maintain the balance of the populous of "Carbon

Man" as we know it, to be in balance with all of the Natural World...that

of...self sustaining, regulating environment, conservation and respect for ourresourses. We must live within our means and not that of opulence.

On 7/31/2008 11:04:32 AM, Andy said:

"According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the American

meat industry produces more than 60 million tons of waste annually five

tons for every U.S. citizen and 130 times the volume of human waste."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't there roughly 300 million U.S. citizens

today? If that's true, and if the American meat industry produces 60 million

tons of waste annually, wouldn't that mean one ton of waste for every fiveU.S. citizens?

On 7/31/2008 11:22:48 AM, mimaja said:

I believe it. The amount of resources used to produce meat are much higher

than you'd think walking down the meat aisle. Here are some online

"factoids" * Water utilized to produce 1 pound of meat amounts to 2,500

gallons. In comparison, the water utilized to produce 1 pound of wheat

amounts to 25 gallons. * The cost of a common hamburger would be $35 and

the cost of one pound of beefsteak would be $89 if water was not subsidized

by taxpayers.

On 7/31/2008 7:42:49 PM, Jacobh said:

I just came off of a year and a half of vegitarianisim and I have just one

question. Why is it that none of these pro-vegitarian articles mention the

human need for B-12? There are no non-animal sources for this esential

nutrient. Quite honestly, I don't see how a diet that requires labritory

manufactured suplements can be considered natural. Sure, you could just eateggs and cheese, but isn't the dairy industry also contributing to methane

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production? Also, consider that our closest relatives, the apes get their B-12

by eating bugs and dirt. Yuck! I think that I'll stick to my current diet thank

you.

On 8/1/2008 3:17:52 PM, Ajax said:

Jacobh - B12 is produced by bacteria. The microorganisms live in soil, and

when livestock eat grain or grass, they consume soil residue which contains

the bacteria-produced B12 vitamin. That's how B12 gets into animal

products. Us vegans and vegetarians getting our B12 from fortified foods

such as soymilk and cereal isn't much different then omnivores getting theirs

from animal products, and our method happens to be a good deal healthier.

The vegan/vegetarian diet doesn't require "laboratory manufactured

supplements". I know plenty of vegans and vegetarians who choose to forgothe convenience of supplements (and that's ALL supplements are) in favor of

a more natural diet. Such a diet would require something like a garden in

which plants are grown in soil that has a healthy bacteria population, since

plants purchased from grocery stores are practically sterilized in order to

appease the mysophobic masses. Don't try to act like your diet is natural in

any way, shape, or form. You may look down on vegetarianism for its B12

"laboratory manufactured" links, but it's not like you're running around in a

forest with a spear hunting down your prey for meat, nor crawling into trees

and stealing bird eggs. Hardly anyone's diet is natural anymore. We've

forgone that in favor of convenience. The argument that a non-natural diet isa bad diet is illogical. Your juvenile response to the thought of eating insects

only shows me that you're not at all concerned with what's most natural.

You're simply a slave to your taste buds, willing to ignore all of the evidence

that supports vegetarianism and veganism as healthy, planet-friendly diets

just so you can enjoy a hamburger. I hope your flawed reasoning enables you

to continue your current lifestyle with a clear conscience.

On 8/2/2008 9:37:25 AM, renaud said:

I'd also like to comment that I've been a vegan for many years with excellent

health and ditto the comments above about the origin and sources of B-12.

Not only is a vegan diet healthier (as numerous studies have indicated

including this article) but it's just a compassionate way of living for the

environment and the animals. And yes, raising cows for dairy products most

definiitely contributes to global warming and methane production so eating

a diet of eggs and dairly products isn't the answer.

On 8/4/2008 3:26:27 PM, Sandy said:

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Great job on this post. It was very insightful. I was so surprised to read about

the UN report and the effects of meat production on the environment. I work

for a public health campaign called Meatless Monday. We encourage people

to give up meat one day a week to lower their risk of preventable diseases.

We know that lowering meat consumption is not only good for your health,but also for the environment. Eating less meat is a great way for people to

make a positive change. Take a look at www.meatlessmonday.com for some

recipe ideas. We also have an article up about meat and the environment

with some great resources for more information at

http://www.meatlessmonday.com/dyk_environment

On 8/8/2008 5:32:04 AM, telecomtom said:

p.s. The prerequisite for universal health care is universal health, and foruniversal health we need a diet consisting entirely of plant-based foods, no

meat, no dairy, no processed foods. The days of the middleman in the

American diet are numbered: no more cows, chickens, turkeys, pigs and

food-processing factories in the middle. There should be nothing between us

and the plants that feed us except for food-delivery vehicles, stores, sinks to

wash the food, knives to cut it and plates, spoons and forks to get it to our

hungry mouths and stomachs. It's a simple and very affordable system.

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