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A Frustrating Environment
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| "Apparently it's cleaner
to get close up and personal with animals' burps,
farts and excretions than to utter that dirty
word, 'vegetarian'." |
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Puzzlement and frustration seem to have reached
new heights within the global vego community in the face
of the inability of major environmental advocates to acknowledge
vegetarianism as an effective way to reduce the human impact
on the planet.
First it was former U.S. vice-president Al Gore, who, in
his documentary An Inconvenient Truth (May 2006), ignored
the role of animal foods in global warming. A few months
later the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released
Livestock's Long Shadow - Environmental Issues and Options.
This report acknowledged animal farming as one of the major
causes of the world's most pressing environmental problems,
yet fell short of considering diet change as part of the
solution.(1)
An article published online by ActiVeg, a vegan organization
based in UK, is indicative of the disappointment among vegos
at the lack of recognition of this issue within environmental
organizations and bodies. Referring to the publication of
the June 2007 issue of Earthmatters, the magazine of Friends
of the Earth UK, the article reads:
"…once again FoE's top dogs have refused to mention
the single action that any of its supporters could take
to greatly cut their environmental footprint and massively
reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases - eat vegan….
Like the government, FoE is afraid that telling its members
to go veggie would break the resolve of those hard and
fast environmental warriors - inducing random acts of
recycling bin burning, spur of the moment 4X4 purchases
and the construction of backyard nuclear power stations."
(2)
At a local level, too, the word vegetarian seems to be
still taboo within environmental circles. In the lead up
to the 2006 SA State election, Nikki Mortier, the Australian
Greens SA candidate for the seat of Adelaide, wrote that
it takes "11,000 litres [of water] to make a 'quarter pounder'
and 5,000 litres to make 1 kilo of cheese". However, outlining
the Greens' policies to "deal with the looming effects of
climate change and overuse of the Earth's resources", she
didn't mention reduction of animal food consumption, let
alone switching to a vegetarian diet, as part of the solution
to the present environmental crisis.(3)
Similarly, the Australian Conservation Foundation's (ACF's)
'GreenHome' website highlights meat and dairy as foods with
high environmental impact, but stops short of considering
vegetarianism as a possible way forward. Instead, the website
burbles: "Don't worry! We're not asking you to give up your
favorite foods!" (4)
To top it off, Dr Mark Diesendorf, instructor at the Institute
of Environmental Studies, University of NSW, visited Adelaide
in June to launch his latest book Greenhouse Solutions with
Sustainable Energy. In an article published in The Advertiser
he listed many measures for using energy efficiently in
the home, such as "insulation of roofs, hot water tanks
and (if possible) walls; draught sealing in winter and cross
ventilation in summer; gas heating; fluorescent lighting;
shading of northern and western windows in summer; fans
and evaporative coolers for summer; energy-efficient appliances."
(5) Glaringly absent in the article was any mention of food,
particularly the value of plant food as an environmentally
sustainable diet.
How many planet Earths?
"Livestock are one of the most significant contributors
to today's most serious environmental problems", says Henning
Steinfield, Chief of FAO's Livestock Information and Policy
Branch.(6) Why is it so?
By nature, animal farming is an uneconomical way of producing
food. Raising animals requires more land, water and energy
than producing crops for direct human consumption.(7) Feeding
the world's ever-growing human population on animal foods
requires a corresponding ever-growing animal population.
Presently, the global livestock population numbers over
22 billion - more than three times the world's human population.(8)
As such, livestock is responsible for deforestation and
land degradation; high levels of greenhouse gas emissions;
water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity.(9)
Dr Mathis Wackernagel, Director of the Sustainability Program
at Redefining Progress (Oakland, California) and co-creator
of the 'Ecological Footprint' concept, has compared humanity's
ecological demand over the last forty years with the Earth's
ecological capacity for each year. He has found that humans
started to exceed nature's ability to regenerate from the
mid-1980s onwards, so that by the year 2000 humanity was
using the equivalent of 1.2 Planet Earths.(10)
Many other scientists, such as Dr Noel Solomons, Senior
Scientist and Scientific Director of the Center for Studies
of Sensory Impairment, Ageing and Metabolism in Guatemala
City, share this conclusion. Speaking at the 2nd Sanitarium
International Nutrition Symposium, held in Melbourne in
April 2002, Dr Solomons pointed out that "if the US dietary
recommendations of two portions of fish per week were theoretically
adopted by the global human population then the world's
oceans would be fished out several times over." (11)
The 'ecological footprint' is a measure, in global hectares,
of how much productive land and water is needed to produce
what we use and to absorb what we discard.(12) Visiting
Adelaide in April 2003 to speak at the National Planning
Congress, Dr Wackernagel highlighted the fact that to stay
within the planet's carrying capacity we shouldn't use more
than 1.9 global hectares per person.(13) But, he pointed
out, presently humanity's footprint, namely the average
for all people on Earth, measures 2.29 hectares per person,
and the average Australian footprint is 7.6 hectares.(14)
In South Australia the 'ecological footprint' is 7.0 global
hectares per person, lower than the average national footprint
but still considerably higher than the OECD's (Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development's) average of 5.2
ha and the world average of 2.2 ha.(15)
According to the WWF Living Planet Report 2002, "humans
are currently running a huge deficit with the Earth - using
over 20% more natural resources each year than can be regenerated
- and this figure is growing each year." (16)
Urgent choices
In the face of all this it looks as if, to reduce our food-related
impact on the environment, we have only two choices: either
to reduce the world population to pre-1980s levels, or to
seriously consider the large-scale adoption of a plant food
diet. Which of these two options is more feasible? Which
one could be implemented - pronto?
The world's population reached the 1 billion milestone
in 1802 and doubled after 126 years (1928). It doubled again
after only 46 years, reaching 4 billion in 1974. 25 years
later, in 1999, it reached the 6 billion mark.(17)
Reducing world population to pre-1980s levels would seem
to be an impossible task, given the increase rate of the
last few centuries and the projections for the near future.
The latest forecast by the United States Census Bureau reports
that the world's population will reach the 8 billion mark
in 2030 and will grow to 9.4 billion by the year 2050.(18)
This population growth, along with growing incomes and
consequent changing food preferences, will increase the
demand for livestock products, with global production of
meat projected to more than double from 229 million tonnes
in 1999/01 to 465 million tonnes in 2050, and that of milk
to grow from 580 to 1043 million tonnes.(19) According to
Sir Crispin Tickell of Oxford University, (former) UK Government
adviser on environmental issues, there are just not enough
resources for the whole human population to be fed on a
typical Western meat-based diet, but rather, only enough
for 2.5 billion people.(20)
So here we are, on the verge of global ecological catastrophe,
still refusing to face our eating habits and the role a
plant food diet can play in lessening our impact on the
planet. As a vegetarian it puzzles me to find so much resistance,
especially by committed environmentalist, to the idea of
giving up a diet centred around the carcasses of dead beings
- when a plant food diet is healthier not only for the environment,
but also, as continually confirmed by new research, for
humans.(21)
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| "adopting a vegetarian diet
would do more for the environment than burning
less oil and gas". |
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Certainly, measures like recycling, car pooling, biking,
public transport use, energy-efficient appliances, and so
on, are important to help protect the environment. But food,
being the most basic need in life, undoubtedly plays a major,
if not 'the' major, role in an ecologically sustainable
lifestyle. According to the Government of South Australia,
Premier's Round Table of Sustainability, "[b]y consumption
type, food (36%) is the largest contributor to the average
South Australian ecological footprint, followed by goods
(23%), housing (18%), services (12%) and mobility (11%)."
(22) In the words of Alan Calverd, UK Physicist, "adopting
a vegetarian diet would do more for the environment than
burning less oil and gas".(23)
Avoiding the obvious seems to be a deeply ingrained feature
of the human psyche. On the back of growing, undeniable
scientific evidence of the huge environmental cost of animal
foods production and consumption, vego groups worldwide
repeat over and over again the benefits of vegetarianism
as an ecologically sound diet. Yet from one corner of the
world to the other, society's focus seems to be on anything
but a diet change.
As an example, French and New Zealander researchers have
recently joined forces in an effort to reduce the damage
to the atmosphere caused by livestock emissions. With France's
20 million cows accounting for 6.5% of the country's greenhouse
gas emissions,(24) and New Zealand's ruminants responsible
for 90% of the nation's methane emissions,(25) they are
trying to perfect "a burpless, wind-free diet" for ruminants.(26)
Apparently it's cleaner to get close up and personal with
animals' burps, farts and excretions than to utter that
dirty word, 'vegetarian'.
© Vegetarian Action July 2007
- Steinfeld, H. Gerber, P. Wassenaar, T. Castel,
W. Rosales, M. de Haan, C. Food and Agriculture Organisation
of the United Nations, November 2006. Executive Summary
and full report available online at www.virtualcentre.org/en/library/key_pub/longshad/A0701E00.htm
(accessed 3/6/07).
- StevieP. 'Friends of the Earth's Big Ignore',
ActiveVeg, www.activeg.org/news/990.html (accessed 8/7/07).
- Mortier, Nikki. Have You Ever Thought of
Voting Greens? Australian Greens SA, Adelaide, 9 March
2006.
- Australian Conservation Council. www.acfonline.org.au
- click on GreenHome (accessed 11/7/07).
- Diesendorf, Mark. 'Simple Strategies Can
Save Our World', The Advertiser, 8 June 2007, p.20.
- Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations, FAO Newsroom, November 2006. 'Livestock
a major threat to the environment - remedies urgently
needed'. www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/index.html
(accessed 3/6/07).
- Leitzmann, Claus. 'Nutrition Ecology: the
contribution of vegetarian diets', American Journal of
Clinical Nutrition 2003:78 (suppl):657S-9S. Available
online at www.acjn.org (accessed 19/7/07).
- World Resources Institute - EarthTrends:
the environmental information portal http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/agriculture-food/variables.html
(accessed 4/6/07).
- Steinfeld et al, op cit.
- The University of South Australia. Ecological
Footprint - Do We Fit on the Planet?, March 2003.
- Berriman, Mark. 'The 2nd Sanitarium International
Nutrition Symposium, Part Two', New Vegetarian and Natural
Health, Spring 2002, p.59.
- Earthday Network, 'Ecological Footprint'.
www.earthday.net/Footprint/index.asp (accessed 12/7/07).
- 'Footprints Impact on Earth's Resources',
The Advertiser 2/4/2003, p.19.
- Ibid.
- South Australian Government, 2007. 'Objective
3: Attaining Sustainability - Topics & Targets' from 'The
Plan', South Australia's Strategic Plan. www.stateplan.sa.gov.au/plan_targets_obj3.php
(accessed 8/7/07).
- World Wildlife Fund, November 2006. 'Living
Planet Report 2002'. www.panda.org/news_facts/publications/living_planet_report/lpr02/index.efm
(accessed 8/7/07).
- 'World Population', Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia. www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_population
(accessed 8/7/07).
- Ibid.
- From 'Global Importance
of the Sector', Executive Summary, Livestock's Long Shadow
- Environmental Issues and Options, Steinfeld et al, op
cit.
- Gellatley, Juliet. The Livewire Guide to
Going, Being and Staying Veggie!, Livewire Books, 1996,
p.66.
- University of Chicago News Office, April
2006. 'Study: vegan diets healthier for planet, people
than meat diets'. http://www-news. uchicago.edu/releases/06/060413.diet.shtml
(accessed 18/7/2007).
- Government of South Australia, Premier's
Round Table of Sustainability. 'Measuring Our Livestyle'
in Sustainable Living Choices, a Report on Sustainable
Consumption and Production, undated.
- Calverd, A. 'A radical approach to Kyoto',
Physics World, July 2005.
- Meuvret, Odile. 'Cattle a Cause of Global
Warming', The Advertiser, 1/10/2005, p.69.
- 'Nuclear Angst Passes on the Winds of Time',
The Advertiser, 14/10/2000, p.54
- Ibid
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