Does Sustainable Eating Include Meat?
Question:
“Aren‘t ‘humane’ animal products more sustainable?”
Answer (from Humane Myth):
[...]At first glance, this may seem to be true. When one pictures a traditional small-scale farm with large open pastures, and then, in contrast, a huge industrial facility surrounded by giant lagoons of waste products slowly leaching into the countryside, it seems clear that producing animal products on a small scale is better for the environment. However, the reality is far more complicated than these simple images may suggest. A more fundamental question to ask is whether any form of animal agriculture, if practiced on the scale needed to meet existing demand for animal products, is good for the environment, or sustainable. [...]
[...I]f we don’t make major changes in the way we live, there are going to be drastic consequences, not in the distant future, but much sooner than most of us realize.
A recent study carried out by United Nations scientists demonstrated that animal agriculture is the number one source of greenhouse gas impact, making a greater contribution to global warming than all cars, trucks, buses, air planes, trains, and ships combined. [...] Regardless of the style of production, from the smallest scale farms to the largest industrial operations, the level of greenhouse gas impact per unit of animal products created is going to be in the same catastrophic range. [...]
[T]he production of a diet based on on meat, milk, and eggs uses several times more energy and water, and creates more toxic pollution, than a diet based on grains, vegetables and fruits. [...]
Producing “humane” animal products requires at least double the amount of land required for the industrialized style of farming adopted in wealthy countries over the last several decades. In some cases, it takes several times more land to convert to “humane” methods.
So while the immediate surroundings of smaller scale pasture-based farm operations may have less concentrated pollution and less soil erosion than that produced by large-scale industrialized farms, the reality is that vastly more high quality farmland would be needed to convert existing production to “humane” farming. That amount of land is simply not available on the scale needed to meet the rapidly growing worldwide demand for animal products. [...]
[S]tep back and take a wider view of what is happening on our planet now, and what is projected to come to pass if we keep living the way we are, we’re obligated to consider our individual responsibility. Wouldn’t it be great if each took steps toward living in a way such that if everyone on the planet lived as we were, human civilization would be sustainable?
The reality is that moving toward consumption of “humane” animal products does not meet this standard. Instead, it is a time and resource-wasting distraction[...]
It has been demonstrated that human beings can be perfectly healthy living on a vegan diet based on grains, vegetables and fruits. Each time we take a step toward adopting such a diet we’re acting as responsible global citizens, dramatically reducing our contribution to global warming, resource depletion, deforestation, pollution, species loss, poverty, and hunger, and animal exploitation.
There are very few actions [besides veganism] we can take as individuals that have such a tremendous positive impact, and negligible negative side effects. [...]
Need help going vegan? Here are some starter kits with recipes and resources:
Taking something of a devil’s advocate position:
I agree that producing as much meat through “humane” methods as are produced by CAFOs would have similar effects on the environment. I think part of the equation, though, for those who advocate this change, is that there would be less. That is, the small farms would produce less meat and meat would cost more and be not as readily available as it is today.
Further, the “beyond organic” type farm, where vegetables and animals live, where both are rotated and the waste from each is used to fertilize where needed, can duplicate, to some extent, a natural system. And therefore have a smaller impact on the environment.
It isn’t my ideal world but it’s far better than the one I live in today. I have visions of what our continent looked like when it was first discovered by Europeans. The masses of birds and four-footed animals was extraordinary, yet the waste was not a problem (see, for example, the book Sea of Slaughter by Farley Mowat). The system balanced itself. I suspect that if people were to kill an animal occasionally it would not have upset that balance (as in fact was the case with the native Americans). It was the overkill and overproduction that destroyed it.
It’s possible, I am saying, to have a form of meat agriculture that is not heavily damaging to the planet. But it means meat that is not as available as it is today, a lot less of it, much more expensive, a luxury. For our bodies as well as for the earth, this would be a better world. I would still not eat those animals but I would not ache as much for them.
Unfortunately, I don’t think it can happen, this idealized world. Now that we know how to overproduce we do it - I hate the expression but it’s a matter of unringing that damned bell. The question is how do you change people’s hearts? When loving societies are exposed to the material world it isn’t long before they emulate it. How do you stop that base part of us?
“How do you stop that base part of us?”
I’ve heard others call the desire to eat animal flesh a “base” desire, too. While agree that eating animals is dishonorable, meanspirited, selfish, and low. There’s another meaning to ‘base’.
I want to think compassion is a base desire. Compassion is basic, fundamental, essential. Humans tend to be naturally caring, empathetic, and compassionate. Children LOVE animals and are horrified when they learn we eat them. That’s their BASE desire to care.
Compassion is so fundamental to human nature that veganism is THE logical behavior. In order to promote a vegan world, we need only tap into that basic desire to love rather than hate.
I think we can affect people one-on-one, particularly our own children and others who look up to us. I am less convinced that we can have much effect on large groups of people.
For that matter, I have friends who would never consider themselves cruel, who would support prop 2 (for example), who are horrified by the abuses of CAFOs, who nevertheless offhandedly say “I’ll never stop eating meat, of course” without a second thought. No self-examination, no real thinking about it, simply an acceptance of “the way things are”. I honestly do not know how to get through. I am looking at my little collection of pamphlets on veganism and contemplating how I might just cut off the discussion next time and offer one of these instead, moving on to the next topic. The problem I have is that I can’t sum up my position in a few sentences and when I go farther I tend to get angry and that doesn’t serve me well.
I agree that we come from the womb open to loving other animals and seeing them as worthy of that love. We need to intervene there, somehow. That article on the Galagos Island people is hopeful that way.
I think we don’t need to worry about the majority of people. The ones who don’t think don’t matter. They just eat meat because it’s a habit. But if things changed - if meat became ridiculously expensive or uncool or seriously unhealthy - they’d reconsider. Just remember how many people laughed when the suggestion to ban smoking in public places was a new idea. Now look at how things are.
We must only influence the influentials. The rest don’t matter at all. They will just follow suit. They are “sheeple.”