Vegetarian is the New Prius

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Vegetarian is the New Prius

 

President Herbert Hoover promised " a chicken in every pot and a car

in every garage. " With warnings about global warming reaching

feverish levels, many are having second thoughts about all those

cars. It seems they should instead be worrying about the chickens.

 

Last month, the United Nations published a report on livestock and

the environment with a stunning conclusion: " The livestock sector

emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors

to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local

to global. " It turns out that raising animals for food is a primary

cause of land degradation, air pollution, water shortage, water

pollution, loss of biodiversity, and not least of all, global warming.

 

That's right, global warming. You've probably heard the story:

emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are changing our

climate, and scientists warn of more extreme weather, coastal

flooding, spreading disease, and mass extinctions. It seems that when

you step outside and wonder what happened to winter, you might want

to think about what you had for dinner last night. The U.N. report

says almost a fifth of global warming emissions come from livestock

(i.e., those chickens Hoover was talking about, plus pigs, cattle,

and others)--that's more emissions than from all of the world's

transportation combined.

 

For a decade now, the image of Leonardo DiCaprio cruising in his

hybrid Toyota Prius has defined the gold standard for

environmentalism. These gas-sipping vehicles became a veritable

symbol of the consumers' power to strike a blow against global

warming. Just think: a car that could cut your vehicle emissions in

half - in a country responsible for 25% of the world's total

greenhouse gas emissions. Federal fuel economy standards languished

in Congress, and average vehicle mileage dropped to its lowest level

in decades, but the Prius showed people that another way is possible.

Toyota could not import the cars fast enough to meet demand.

 

Last year researchers at the University of Chicago took the Prius

down a peg when they turned their attention to another gas guzzling

consumer purchase. They noted that feeding animals for meat, dairy,

and egg production requires growing some ten times as much crops as

we'd need if we just ate pasta primavera, faux chicken nuggets, and

other plant foods. On top of that, we have to transport the animals

to slaughterhouses, slaughter them, refrigerate their carcasses, and

distribute their flesh all across the country. Producing a calorie of

meat protein means burning more than ten times as much fossil

fuels--and spewing more than ten times as much heat-trapping carbon

dioxide--as does a calorie of plant protein. The researchers found

that, when it's all added up, the average American does more to

reduce global warming emissions by going vegetarian than by switching

to a Prius.

 

According to the UN report, it gets even worse when we include the

vast quantities of land needed to give us our steak and pork chops.

Animal agriculture takes up an incredible 70% of all agricultural

land, and 30% of the total land surface of the planet. As a result,

farmed animals are probably the biggest cause of slashing and burning

the world's forests. Today, 70% of former Amazon rainforest is used

for pastureland, and feed crops cover much of the remainder. These

forests serve as " sinks, " absorbing carbon dioxide from the air, and

burning these forests releases all the stored carbon dioxide,

quantities that exceed by far the fossil fuel emission of animal

agriculture.

 

As if that wasn't bad enough, the real kicker comes when looking at

gases besides carbon dioxide--gases like methane and nitrous oxide,

enormously effective greenhouse gases with 23 and 296 times the

warming power of carbon dioxide, respectively. If carbon dioxide is

responsible for about one-half of human-related greenhouse gas

warming since the industrial revolution, methane and nitrous oxide

are responsible for another one-third. These super-strong gases come

primarily from farmed animals' digestive processes, and from their

manure. In fact, while animal agriculture accounts for 9% of our

carbon dioxide emissions, it emits 37% of our methane, and a whopping

65% of our nitrous oxide.

 

It's a little hard to take in when thinking of a small chick hatching

from her fragile egg. How can an animal, so seemingly insignificant

against the vastness of the earth, give off so much greenhouse gas as

to change the global climate? The answer is in their sheer numbers.

The United States alone slaughters more than 10 billion land animals

every year, all to sustain a meat-ravenous culture that can barely

conceive of a time not long ago when " a chicken in every pot " was

considered a luxury. Land animals raised for food make up a

staggering 20% of the entire land animal biomass of the earth. We are

eating our planet to death.

 

What we're seeing is just the beginning, too. Meat consumption has

increased five-fold in the past fifty years, and is expected to

double again in the next fifty.

 

It sounds like a lot of bad news, but in fact it's quite the

opposite. It means we have a powerful new weapon to use in addressing

the most serious environmental crisis ever to face humanity. The

Prius was an important step forward, but how often are people in the

market for a new car? Now that we know a greener diet is even more

effective than a greener car, we can make a difference at every

single meal, simply by leaving the animals off of our plates. Who

would have thought: what's good for our health is also good for the

health of the planet!

 

Going veg provides more bang for your buck than driving a Prius.

Plus, that bang comes a lot faster. The Prius cuts emissions of

carbon dioxide, which spreads its warming effect slowly over a

century. A big chunk of the problem with farmed animals, on the other

hand, is methane, a gas which cycles out of the atmosphere in just a

decade. That means less meat consumption quickly translates into a

cooler planet.

 

Not just a cooler planet, also a cleaner one. Animal agriculture

accounts for most of the water consumed in this country, emits

two-thirds of the world's acid-rain-causing ammonia, and it the

world's largest source of water pollution--killing entire river and

marine ecosystems, destroying coral reefs, and of course, making

people sick. Try to imagine the prodigious volumes of manure churned

out by modern American farms: 5 million tons a day, more than a

hundred times that of the human population, and far more than our

land can possibly absorb. The acres and acres of cesspools stretching

over much of our countryside, polluting the air and contaminating our

water, make the Exxon Valdez oil spill look minor in comparison. All

of which we can fix surprisingly easily, just by putting down our

chicken wings and reaching for a veggie burger.

 

Doing so has never been easier. Recent years have seen an explosion

of environmentally-friendly vegetarian foods. Even chains like Ruby

Tuesday, Johnny Rockets, and Burger King offer delicious veggie

burgers and supermarket refrigerators are lined with heart-healthy

creamy soymilk and tasty veggie deli slices. Vegetarian foods have

become staples at environmental gatherings, and garnered celebrity

advocates like Bill Maher, Alec Baldwin, Paul McCartney, and of

course Leonardo DiCaprio. Just as the Prius showed us that we each

have in our hands the power to make a difference against a problem

that endangers the future of humanity, going vegetarian gives us a

new way to dramatically reduce our dangerous emissions that is even

more effective, easier to do, more accessible to everyone and

certainly goes better with french fries.

 

Ever-rising temperatures, melting ice caps, spreading tropical

diseases, stronger hurricanes... So, what are you do doing for dinner

tonight? Check out www.VegCooking.com for great ideas, free recipes,

meal plans, and more! Check out the environmental section of

www.GoVeg.com for a lot more information about the harmful effect of

meat-eating on the environment.

 

--

Kim Bartlett, Publisher of ANIMAL PEOPLE Newspaper

Postal mailing address: P.O. Box 960, Clinton WA 98236 U.S.A.

CORRECT EMAIL ADDRESS IS: <ANPEOPLE

Website: http://www.animalpeoplenews.org/ with French and Spanish

language subsections.

 

 

Something to think about: We believe that the Golden Rule

applies to animals, too. We don't accept the prevailing notion

that " people come first' " or that " people are more important than

animals. " Animals feel pain and suffer just as we do, and it is

almost always humans making animals suffer and not the other way

around. Yet in spite of how cruelly people behave towards animals

-- not to mention human cruelty to other humans -- we are supposed to

believe that humans are superior to other animals. If people want

to fancy themselves as being of greater moral worth than the other

creatures on this earth, we should begin behaving better than they

do, and not worse. Let's start treating everyone as we would like

to be treated ourselves.