While water supply becomes ever more critical
and Australia reels under the impact of arguably the worst drought
on record, fingers continue to be pointed at supposed water
"guzzling" industries like rice and cotton growing.
But in fact, the amount of water needed for these crops pales
in comparison to what's required to produce meat and other animal-derived
foods.
Read Vegetarian Action's March 2007 Feature Article, 'WATER
CRISIS: Pointing the finger at the wrong culprits"
'Hidden
Waters', a recent report by UK-based organisation Waterwise
(www.waterwise.org.uk),
identifies that 65% of home water use (figures based on the
UK) is embedded in the food we eat, compared with 0.2% for
drinking water, 4.2% for other domestic use (cooking, cleaning
etc) and 30.6% embedded in industrial goods like TVs, cars and
furniture.
The report, actually a review of literature and
recent research, points out that the embedded water in foods
varies depending on the country where the food is produced,
and can be measured in various ways, but that the fairest way
- calorie by calorie shows meat and other animal foods costing
even more water in comparion to plant foods than other ways
of measuring. The report draws strong conclusions:
"Carnivorous diets are unavoidably more
water and land intensive than low-meat or vegetarian diets.
It has been estimated that if the entire world population
were to adopt a Western-style [ie, high meat]diet,
75 percent more water would be necessary for agriculture...
If the entire world were to eat a Western-style diet,
we could well run out of water."
Like other recent reports linking the production
of animal foods to environmental impact, the report has created
media interest, such as this Crikey article "The Crikey
Water Diet - Part I" (read
it)
Animal foods
& the environment:
Groups like Vegetarian Action, Viva!, Farm USA
and many other pro-vegetarian voices worldwide have been saying
it for a long time, but until now the message seemed to fall
on deaf ears.
However, it seems that the big players and "mainstream"
environmental organisations are at last admitting that changing
animal-reliant eating habits is critical to halt climate change
and environmental disaster.
The South Australian government's
"Sustainable Living" website
identifies animal products as having a high environmental impact:
"The good news is that eating 'lower on
the food chain' i.e. more whole foods that are plant-based
and with less processing, refining and packaging, also tends
to be healthier for you.
"Meat and dairy products are the most resource
intensive foods. Production of a single 150 gram serve of
meat is estimated to use over 200 litres of water [a very
conservative estimate! - Ed] and create 5 kilograms of greenhouse
pollution."
Unfortunately, the website continues "Diary
foods [sic] are important for good health." - a claim Vegetarian
Action would contest. (Check out White
Lies from UK's Vegetarian
& Vegan Foundation).
While the 'Food' page of the Sustainable Living
website mentions the amount of water required to produce different
foods (see above quote), but the 'Water' page makes no mention
of the water embedded in food, and therefore the impact of diet
on water conservation.
www.sustainableliving.sa.gov.au
- click on 'Focus on Food', then the link to 'Food'
The Australian
Conservation Foundation's (ACF's) 'GreenHome'
website similarly highlights meat and dairy
as the foods with the biggest environmental cost (it appears
to share the SA government's statistical source), although unfortunately
it stops short of suggesting people stop eating animal foods
altogether:
"Don't worry! We're not asking you to give up
your favourite foods!", the website says. (Vegetarian Action
says: Why not???) The ACF, like the SA government, also fails
to make the link between animal foods and water as a
distinct environmental issue. Still, it's good to see the major
environmental players naming the connection between the environment
and food.
www.acfonline.org.au
- click on the link to GreenHome
Major mainstream orgs link
An animal-hungry diet and its effects on the environment
have been making news for some time in major mainstream organisations,
finally bringing widespread confirmation of less readily accessible
information known to vego groups for many years.
In late 2006, the release of the UN FAO's (Food
and Agriculture Organisation's) report 'Livestock's
Long Shadow - Environmental Issues and Options' created
an enormous media stir online as well as in the print press.
Disappointingly, it seems once again the report's authors fall
short of stating the obvious solution - not eating meat! Instead,
the report warns somewhat paradoxically:
"The environmental costs per unit of livestock
production must be cut by one half, just to avoid the level
of damage worsening beyond its present level."
www.fao.org
- click on Newsroom, then News Stories, then 2006, then go
to 29/11/2006.
(News Release regarding the report. Full report and "Spotlight"
report summary can be downloaded as a pdf from link at right
hand side.)
A few examples of media responses to this report:
-
(US) The Morning Journal (Conclusion:
Global warming - humans are not to blame - blame the cows!)
Read
it
-
Eldis Development organisation - Agricultural
Resource Guide
Read
it
-
-
-
Ohio Livestock Organisation
Read
it
-
World Veterinary Association
Read
it
-
(US) Organic Consumers Association
Read
it
-
The Harbus - Harvard Business School Student
Weekly
Read
it
-
AllAboutFeed.net (Conclusion: Livestock
agriculture must be more intensive!)
Read
it
'Diet, Energy and Global
Warming', a study by researchers in the Department
of Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago, published
in Earth Interactions journal in 2006, found that "the
greenhouse gas emissions of various diets vary by as much as
the difference between owning an average sedan versus a sport-utility
vehicle" and that plant-based diets resulted in significantly
less greenhouse gas emissions.
Read the report at http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~gidon/papers/nutri/nutriEI.pdf
This report with its catchy car metaphor again
generated a media flurry in the press and online. An article
entitled "Vegetarianism is the new Prius" by Kathy
Freston in the Huffington Post (read
it) has been broadcast all over the world via inumerable
websites and discussed on countless forums and blogs. Haaretz
News (Israel) ran an article called 'Forget a Prius. Eat a Felafel'
Read
it
Page updated: 30 March 2007
