Environmental Effects of Animal Agriculture and Meat Consumption

Running head: ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF ANIMAL AGRICULTURE 1

Environmental Effects of Animal Agriculture and Meat Consumption

Kyle J. DiFulvio

Antioch University Los Angeles

Author Note

This research paper was prepared for Dr. Steven K. Steinberg’s Winter 2013

course.

ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF ANIMAL AGRICULTURE 2

Environmental Effects of Animal Agriculture and Meat Consumption

We as Americans identify with our time-honored traditions and rituals—gathering

around a turkey on Thanksgiving, eating out at a fancy restaurant, barbecuing on the

weekend, mom’s eggs and bacon for breakfast, celebrating a job promotion over an

expensive steak dinner, watching celebrity cooking shows that encourage meals such as

foie gras and veal. All of these gatherings, celebrations, and rituals bring people together,

adding warmth, laughter, and conversations with family and loved ones. These customs

bond us and comfort us; they stem from tradition, habit, and convenience. However, there

are serious and largely overlooked environmental consequences from our substantial

appetite for meat and dairy and the severe overuse of animal agriculture in our country,

consequences that are disregarded due to our myths of nature. “America the Beautiful”—

or, “America the Bountiful”—is an enduring historical concept, a myth of nature. It is

part of the many myths we identify with as a country: infinite land, natural resources,

fresh clean air, cascades of crisp water, and plenty of healthy and hearty meat-producing

animals available for us to use as we please.

American myths of nature originate from the time when America was first

discovered and settled but they continue on in an adapted fashion into the modern day.

Although the United States is no longer this vast undefiled land with seemingly abundant

nature to harvest and endless resources to tap, it is apparent that Americans do not truly

comprehend that we have real environmental problems to address. While Chapter 6 of

Rereading America, “Ah Wilderness! American Myths of Nature and the Environment,”

focuses on numerous aspects of the worldwide ecological crises (Colombo, Cullen, &

Lisle, 2010, Chapter 6), I want to focus on an issue that is not touched upon in Rereading


America nor is touched upon very often—the effects of animal agriculture and meat and

dairy consumption on the environment.

Denial and the Dinner Table

Our myths of nature contribute to our vast use of animal agriculture. We perceive

these animals as a never-ending supply of food without once contemplating the process

of production. Americans endorse convenience and instant gratification in our daily lives.

Due to its massive production, meat is cheap in the US compared to other countries. To

put it simply, meat is easy. Bittman (2012) of the New York Times declares, “…Our

production methods and the denial of their true costs have kept meat cheap beyond all

credibility. The American hamburger is arguably the cheapest convenience food there is”

(para. 3). We go to the store to buy meat, dairy, and eggs and not once do we see the

process that must occur for these items on the dinner table. In this manner, we are in

denial and out of touch with the reality of the impact of our meat consumption; we just

don’t ever see the process of production, beginning with the developing of land to grow

feed crops, or fishing of small ocean fish to create feed, and ending with the product in

the grocery store’s refrigerated section. “It takes 2,500 gallons of water, 12 pounds of

grain, 35 pounds of topsoil and the energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline to produce

one pound of feedlot beef,” according to Earth Save (n.d., para. 2). Is this something you

think of while eating dinner? Most likely, the everyday consumer buying meat products

at a store is not aware of the very real ecological impact of animal agriculture and

assembly-line meat production. “These assembly-line meat factories consume enormous

amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and

require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led


to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests” (Bittman, 2008, para.

4).

Food Waste in Animal Agriculture

Animal agriculture is surprisingly wasteful of our global grain, corn, and soy

caches. 70% or more of the entire world’s grain products alone—without factoring in

soybeans and corn products—are fed to farm animals in the US intended for meat

consumption (EarthSave, n.d.). Pimental (1997) points out, “The 7 billion livestock

animals in the United States consume five times as much grain as is consumed directly by

the entire American population” (para. 1). This is an alarming fact considering that there

are such great food insecurities throughout the world. United Nations Food and

Agriculture Organization [UN FAO] reports in 2010-12 approximately 870 million

people on the planet were “chronically undernourished” (2012, Key messages section,

para. 1). That’s pretty close to 1 billion. The grain currently being fed solely to livestock

in the US could feed nearly 800 million of those people; the other 70 million individuals

could be fed many times over if you consider the grain fed to livestock worldwide. And,

that is without even factoring in the global caches of soybeans, corn, rice, legumes, and

other vegetables fed to livestock everywhere (Segelken, 1997). “…If the entire world

switched to a [plant-based] vegan diet, our current [worldwide] food production could

properly nourish [at least] 7 billion people” (Marcus, 2000, p. 166). If every acre

expended for meat-dairy farming was devoted to vegetable agriculture, we would

certainly have a surplus food cache for the entire world population. In this manner,

animal agriculture is wasteful of the US and worldwide feed supplies because the amount

of meat yielded from slaughter is disproportionate to the grain and vegetable resources


consumed by meat-producing animals. Pimental (1997) asserts the following:

Each year an estimated 41 million tons of plant protein is fed to U.S. livestock to

produce an estimated 7 million tons of animal protein for human consumption.

About 26 million tons of the livestock feed comes from grains and 15 million tons

from forage crops. For every kilogram [equal to 2.20462 pounds] of high-quality

animal protein produced, livestock are fed nearly 6 kg of plant protein (para. 2).

Essentially, for every person eating 1 kg of T-bone steak, 6 people could be fed the same

quantity of plant protein. It seems ethically wrong for the US as a nation to have enough

food available to feed the entire world, yet continue to misuse it on meat-producing

animals that do not yield an adequate ratio of meat produced to plants consumed. It is

certainly a humanitarian issue that there is enough food on the planet to feed the entire

world and yet people are still hungry.

Animal Agriculture’s Water Waste and Water Pollution

Animal agriculture is remarkably wasteful of our clean water supplies. “U.S.

agriculture accounts for 87 percent of all the fresh water consumed each year” (Pimental,

1997, para. 4). The contrast in water consumption between animal agriculture and

vegetable-grain agriculture is staggering. In a study by the Stockholm International Water

Institution, they found “...it takes 550 liters [~145 gallons] of water to produce enough

flour for one loaf of bread in developing countries…but up to 7,000 liters [~1850 gallons]

of water to produce 100 grams [~0.22 pounds] of beef” (as cited by World Watch, 2004,

Fresh water section, para. 3). In plainer terms, it takes much less water to produce a

certain quantity of bread than it does to produce a similar quantity of meat. Thusly,

developing countries must ecologically and economically choose grains and vegetables


over meat to effectively feed their populations. To state this in another way,

approximately 2,500 gallons of water is used to create 1 pound of edible meat whereas a

mere 33 gallons is used for 1 pound of carrots and 24 gallons for 1 pound of potatoes

(EarthSave, n.d.). This presents a valid, water-conscious, eco-friendly argument in

support of vegetarian diets for both the US and other countries. “The standard diet of a

person in the United States requires 4,200 gallons of water per day (for animals’ drinking

water, irrigation of crops, processing, washing, cooking, etc.). A person on a vegan diet

requires only 300 gallons a day” (Schwartz, 86). After feeding and watering livestock, the

agricultural run-off from meat-producing farms pollutes streams and bodies of water with

toxins, introducing animal waste (urine and manure), antibiotics and hormones,

pesticides, phosphates and nitrates, and other contaminants to aquatic environments. “In

Iowa alone, hog factories and farms produce more than 50 million tons of excrement

annually” (Bittman, 2008, para. 22), which are stored in manure “lagoons” that

contaminate groundwater and streams. And, very recently, an amateur drone plane

discovered that the Trinity River runs red next to a pig slaughterhouse; it’s contaminated

with pig gore and is deemed to be a literal “river of blood.” Purportedly, the

slaughterhouse company dumps animal waste, including blood, hair, and body parts, into

one of the river’s tributaries on company land (Hill, 2012).

Polluted waterways eventually disperse into the ocean. Through this, animal

agriculture contributes to the acidification of the ocean and in turn reduces and destroys

the coral reefs around the world and threatens the survival of many reef-dependent

species of ocean life. A study by the Australian Institute of Marine Science found a 14%

reduction in coral growth in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Australia since 1990—this is


the most exceptional decrease in coral growth in at least 400 years (De’ath, Lough, &

Fabricus, 2009). And yet it’s not just water pollution that’s killing the world’s coral reefs.

Animal agriculture multiplies its pollution potential when you factor in its use of fossil

fuels for energy, transportation, and farming. Air pollution poisons the oceans by way of

the sea-air exchange—the Earth’s natural carbon and water cycles. The ocean absorbs

about 30 percent of worldwide carbon emissions (Oceana, 2012a). Essentially, the more

air pollution, the more the oceans draw in acidifying contaminants. Carbon dioxide in the

air is presently at 385 parts per million and rising. To prevent coral death, atmospheric

carbon dioxide levels must be reduced to 350 parts per million or less (Oceana, 2012b).

At the current rate, with water pollution—and overfishing—causing dead zones, decline

in biodiversity, coral fragility, fish death, algal blooms, and more, it is projected that

seafood may disappear by 2048, leaving the oceans fundamentally dead (Roach, 2006).

The Impacts of Fisheries and Fish Farm Agriculture

Water pollution is not the only ecological impact of animal agriculture on oceans,

lakes, and rivers: we harvest wild fish and practice aquaculture and mariculture with

devastating ecological impacts. Due to our appetite for fish meat and the usage of fish for

animal feed, we are exhausting the 13 major fisheries (12 of the fisheries are considered

depleted) and, to make matters worse, leaving dead zones in those fisheries from water

pollution and soil erosion (Duffy, 2009). Wollen (2012) explains: “90% of small fish are

ground up into pellets to feed to livestock. Vegetarian cows today are now the world’s

largest ocean predators.” Fishing with driftnets, deemed “curtains of death” by many,

indiscriminately kills tens of thousands of wild fish and sea mammals annually, including

endangered whales, dolphins, sea turtles, Bluefin tuna, and sharks (The Black Fish,


2012). “Shrimpers put out these big nets, and in these nets, for each pound of shrimp,

they catch more than 10 tens that amount of fish, turtles, and dolphins” (Williams, 2010,

p. 706). Global shark populations are endangered, with 73 million sharks killed annually

around the world, from the practice of shark finning to make shark fin soup, a highly

desired Chinese delicacy (Rand, 2010). Global sea turtle populations are vanishing too,

and shrimpers kill them indiscriminately with little care about the destruction of entire

species. According to Williams (2010), “There is an object called TED (Turtle Excluder

Device) that would save thousands of turtles and some dolphins from dying in the net, but

shrimpers are loath to use TED’s, as they argue it would cut the size of their shrimp

catch” (p. 706).

Fish farming, through aquaculture and mariculture, also negatively impacts

ecosystems. Aquaculture and mariculture both introduce confined (usually caged) foreign

crustacean and fish populations into local areas. The results of overfishing through

animal aquaculture/mariculture are destructive, causing water quality deterioration in

enclosed inlets, feed and waste sediment build-up underneath fishnets and cages, invasion

of escaped exotic species into neighboring local ecosystems, spread of disease amongst

exotic and local populations, and more (Landesman, 1994).

Air Pollution and Energy Waste in Animal Agriculture

Animal agriculture also introduces pollution into the air. “…A study last year by

the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Japan estimated that 2.2

pounds of beef is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the

average European car every 155 miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb

for nearly 20 days” (Bittman, 2008, para. 9). Those emissions are unsettling for such a


small quantity of meat. All the while, animal agriculture is responsible for 1/5th of the

world’s greenhouse gas emissions (cited by Bittman, 2008). The UN FAO also states,

“meat accounts for 18% of annual greenhouse-gas emissions – more than transportation,

which accounts for roughly 14%” (cited by Harrell, 2010, para. 2), and that animal

agriculture emits more air pollution than all automobiles, aircrafts, and water vessels

combined. This may be surprising to some people. When the media mention air pollution,

fossil fuels and automobiles, not animal agriculture, are typically the culprits that are

mentioned. Animal agriculture is responsible for “9% of annual human-induced CO2

emissions, 37% of methane (CH4) emissions, which has more than 20 times the global

warming potential of CO2, and 65% of nitrous oxide (N2O), which has almost 300 times

CO2’s global warming potential” (Humane Society, n.d., para. 1).

Several air polluting processes are taken in to account when considering the

ecological impact of animal agriculture—fuel burnt transporting animals and meat-dairy

products; fossil fuels burnt to provide energy for temperature control and ventilation,

lighting, and automated mechanisms for feeding and watering; chemicals use (such as

nitrogen fertilizer) and CO2 emissions in the production of animal feed; fossil fuels used

for equipment during the entire process; energy spent to create pesticides and herbicides;

et al (HS, n.d.). The land animals themselves, which amount to about 10 billion every

year just in the US, greenhouse gasses (GHGs) into the air in the form of carbon dioxide,

methane, and nitrous oxide, etc. (Bell, 2009). But, animal agriculture is not only

responsible for air pollution in the form of GHGs. It is also responsible for ozone

depletion and airborne elements that may make people ill. “Animal agriculture is a source

of several significant air pollutants, including particulate matter, ozone precursors,


greenhouse gases, and odors. Particulates are a mixture of extremely small airborne

particles and liquid droplets (aerosols), which are linked to respiratory disease in

humans” (Penn State Extension Agriculture and Environmental Center [PSE AEC], 2013,

Agriculture and air quality section, para. 1). These airborne elements are making us ill

while our air quality is also reduced by pollution from fossil fuels, affecting our

breathing, exacerbating allergies, asthma, and introducing carcinogenic contaminants in

the form of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), nitrogen oxide (NOx), and ozone into

our lungs via the air we must breathe. The PSE AEC (2013) explains:

Ground-level ozone is created in the atmosphere by chemical reactions

involving nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOC) in the

presence of sunlight. Ozone in the upper atmosphere is “good ozone,” protecting

the Earth from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays. “Bad ozone” is found at the

ground level. Ground-level ozone can cause respiratory problems for humans and

animals and affects the productivity of crops and plant health. Animal agriculture

is a source of VOC emissions that contribute to ground-level ozone formation

(Agriculture and air quality section, para. 1).

Because of these hazards, the pollution produced by animal agriculture is not worth its

environmental impact on air quality, negatively affecting breathing in humans and

animals, as well as the health of plants. Eight times more fossil-fuel energy is burned to

produce animal protein than to produce plant protein, while the animal protein yielded is

only 1.4 times more nutritious for people than the same quantity of plant protein

(Segelken, 1997). Meat’s alleged slightly higher nutritional yield comes at the cost of our

lung health. Through our meat consumption, we are allowing at least eight times more


pollutants to enter the air and affect our breathing health, the health of animals and plants

worldwide, and the oceans.

The Meat Industry’s View on Its Carbon Footprint

It isn’t surprising that the meat industry differs in opinion on the amount of its

own greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. According to the American Meat Institute’s

[AMI] Climate Change and Animal Agriculture Factsheet: “Despite claims to the

contrary, animal agriculture and meat consumption contribute only a small part of U.S.

GHG production” (2009, Animal Agriculture’s Role in GHG Emissions section, para. 1).

Their factsheet goes on to say that “only 2.8 of US GHG” is produced by animal

agriculture and that 94 percent of carbon dioxide emissions comes from fossil fuels.

However, the AMI’s numbers do not add up. It appears that the AMI view their carbon

footprint through “rose-colored glasses,” failing to factor in their own use of fossil fuels

when reporting on their GHG emissions, and only considering the considerably smaller

percentage of gases emitted by the actual meat-producing animals. Many studies, both in

the US and worldwide, including one by the UN FAO, report results on the contrary that

animal agriculture’s GHG emissions are much higher. According to World Watch (n.d.):

A widely cited 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture

Organization, Livestock's Long Shadow, estimates that 18 percent of annual

worldwide GHG emissions are attributable to cattle, buffalo, sheep, goats, camels,

pigs, and poultry. But recent analysis by Goodland and Anhang finds that

livestock and their byproducts actually account for at least 32.6 billion tons of

carbon dioxide per year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide GHG emissions (para.

2).


Deforestation Due to Animal Agriculture

Globally, animal agriculture is a main contributor to deforestation. “On top of [all

the other] ecological headaches [related to animal agriculture], there is the issue of

rainforest clearance. Despite all efforts to halt their destruction, rainforests are still being

cut down at an alarming rate,” as stated by McKie and Davies (2008) of The Observer

(para. 11). More and more everyday, rain forests are cleared to grow crops. These forests

filter out carbon from the Earth’s atmosphere and provide us with oxygen, not to mention

they are biologically diverse and ecologically fragile. However, as the demand for meat

rises, the demand for more farmable land increases, and the deforestation rate rises. By

some estimates, at least one-third of the world’s farmable land is currently used in some

manner for the process of animal agriculture, and much of that land was once forest of

some sort (Bittman, 2008). The UN FAO (2006) reports that about another third of all

farmable land is used to produce feed crop. “Expansion of grazing land for livestock is a

key factor in deforestation, especially in Latin America: some 70 percent of previously

forested land in the Amazon is used as pasture, and feed crops cover a large part of the

reminder” (UN FAO, 2006, Land degradation section, para. 2). Enormous areas of

Brazilian rainforest are being felled to produce both meat-producing livestock and feed

for those animals. “Every year, 32 million acres - an area the size of England - is

destroyed or degraded. Some of this land is used to provide pasture for cows. Other areas

are given over to fields for the growing of soya beans which are then used to feed cows”

(McKie & Davies, 2008, para. 11). In the US and worldwide, animal agriculture’s

ecological impact is intertwined and compounded by deforestation, air and water

pollution, food and water waste, and ecological degradation both on land and in water.


Animal Agriculture’s Global Effects

Worldwide, animal agriculture accounts for a reported 51% of GHG emissions

(Goodland & Anhang, 2009). Furthermore, the substantial impact of global meat-dairy

farming is compounded when taking into account deforestation, water pollution, and

ozone reduction. As I already said, the rainforests of the world play a vital role in

supplying the world with oxygen and remove carbon from the air by way of the carbon

cycle. Cutting down rainforest removes our natural air filter, which remove carbon and

release oxygen for us to breathe; animal agriculture replaces those filters with pollution

producers. Global meat production increased exponentially in the last 40 years. “The

world’s total meat supply was 71 million tons in 1961. In 2007, it was estimated to be

284 million tons” (Bittman, 2008, para. 6). As both meat production and deforestation

increase, air pollution worsens, and the Earth’s natural cycles to clean the air are

impaired—which, once again, only compounds global air quality and breathing issues.

Even worse, China and India, traditionally vegetarian societies, are imitating the

West with swelling demands for animal meat. By some reports, China’s appetite for meat

is now twice that of the US (Moore, 2012). If so, China’s pollution problems are

magnified twofold compared to the US. Along with that, worldwide appetite for meat

will cause food crises as world population rises if animal agriculture cannot keep up with

the growth in population (Noga, 2008). In considering the facts about pollution from

animal agriculture, growth in meat production only results in greater worldwide pollution

potential and ecological impact. There are largely unregulated pollution problems in

China and other 3rd World countries already, resulting in thousands of deaths every year

from air and water pollution affecting breathing and overall health (Li, 2013). Not only is


an increase in animal agriculture bad for the planet because of the sheer amount of

pollution, meat farming will not be able to sustain the world populace as population

continues to rise (Noga, 2008).

With worldwide wildlife populations disappearing at an alarming rate via

deforestation, environmental degradation, and ocean devastation, scientists are reporting

that we are in another mass extinction. “…The sixth mass extinction is in progress, now,

with animals going extinct 100 to 1,000 times (possibly even 1,000 to 10,000 times)

faster than at the normal background extinction rate, which is about 10 to 25 species per

year. [So, at the bare minimum, 10,000 species are going extinct yearly because of the

actions of one—human beings.] Many researchers claim that we are in the middle of a

mass extinction event faster than the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction which wiped out the

dinosaurs,” reports Endangered Species International [ESI] (2011, The sixth mass

exctintion has begun section, para. 1). With all the facts in front of us, we can construe

that animal agriculture currently plays a major role—if it isn’t the major role—in

extinctions through overfishing, overhunting, pollution causing acidification of oceans

and coral reef death, felling of rainforests, loss of habitat, and degradation of global

ecosystems. We are quite literally eating ourselves—and every other species on the

planet—out of house and home (Earth), and we’re doing it needlessly.

Animal Agriculture’s Role in the World Hunger Problem

As stated previously, although approximately 800 million people suffer from

hunger in the world, the majority of grain, corn, and soy we grow feeds meat and dairy

producing animals. And yet, we could feed all of the hungry people of the world on a

completely vegetarian diet from all the grains and vegetables fed to US livestock alone.


About 40 percent of the world’s grain and 50 to 70 percent of US grain is fed to meat-

producing animals (Segelken, 1997). With only a 6:1 ratio of grains expended to meat

produced, animal agriculture is essentially starving people around the world. This is not a

practical way to utilize our food caches, especially as population rises. Meat-based diets

demand more resources—energy, water, and land—than vegetarian diets. As US

population doubles in the next 70 years, greater stress will be placed on our currently

limited resources (Pimental & Pimental, 2003). The American Journal of Clinical

Nutrition reports that a person can obtain well over his or her recommended daily

allowance of protein from a meat-free vegetarian diet, and that this type of diet is more

sustainable than a meat-based diet (Pimental & Pimental, 2003). Hence, the most

effective way to eliminate current and future world hunger, while also reducing

ecological impact, is for a large percentage of the world’s population to shift to organic

plant-based diets.

Solutions to Animal Agriculture’s Worldwide Ecological Problem

Animal agriculture’s environmental impact is severe, yet there are many possible

solutions to solve these ecological problems – supervised fishing operations, switching to

plant-based diets, lessening meat-dairy consumption, advancements in technology such

as in vitro meat, et al. To lessen animal agriculture’s effects on world hunger, we could

use the grain, corn, and soybeans fed to meat-producing livestock (in commercial

farming), and instead feed the population through subsistence agriculture and organic

farming. Subsistence agriculture is farming in which the farmers grow enough food for

themselves and their kin; its ecological impact is insignificant compared to commercial

farming (LUCSUS, n.d.). If we expanded on that idea and consider community


subsistence farming, subsistence agriculture could be used to feed local areas. Organic

farming uses little to no chemicals to produce its plant protein yield, which would greatly

reduce water and air pollution from agriculture. Coupling both ideas together could solve

food scarcity and food insecurity in the world while generating minimal ecological

impact and reducing our carbon footprint.

Along the lines of community subsistence farming, purchasing locally sourced

food is an easy way to help decrease your carbon footprint. The closer to home food is

sourced, the less fossil fuel is expended and put into the air to transport the food, and less

processing (washing, preserving, packing) the food will need to go through to make it to

the grocery store. The food from local agriculture will be fresher because it hasn’t

traveled as far, it will be cheaper because of lower fuel costs, and it is easier to provide

organic food to local communities because it isn’t traveling as far, lessening the need for

pesticides and processing.

If people switched to plant-based vegetarian diets, personal environmental impact

is greatly diminished. A person can lessen his or her own personal carbon footprint by

switching to a plant-based diet even more than switching to an electric car. McKie and

Davies (2008) of The Observer report:

Geophysicists Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin from the University of Chicago

have even calculated that changing eating habits to become a vegetarian does

more to fight global warming than switching from a gas-guzzling SUV to a fuel-

efficient hybrid car, such is the amount of CO2 generated in the production of

beef, pork or lamb (para. 8).

Plant-based diets would reduce the demand for animal agriculture and therefore decrease


the ecological impacts of animal farming, including deforestation, water contamination,

and air pollution. And, besides detrimental ecological impacts, another idea to consider is

meat’s impact on your personal health. More and more studies are showing that meat and

dairy are bad for your heart and body. As our meat consumption goes up, so does the rate

of heart disease (Shaw, 2012). A recent Harvard study found that meat eating isn’t

actually healthy for you at all, and also that a vegetarian diet may seriously decrease or

completely eliminate the prevalence of heart disease, high cholesterol, atherosclerosis,

diabetes, osteoporosis, some forms of cancer, and more (Ornish, 2012).

Many people will scoff at switching to a plant-based diet. It wouldn’t be

surprising if the first thing that came to your mind was, “I can’t do that.” But, you can. I

did it. I spent the last 20 years of my life switching between being a lacto-ovo vegetarian

(eating a plant-based diet as well as dairy) and a pescetarian (eating a plant-based diet

and seafood only, no other meat). Last year, I started to learn more about the ecological

impact of dairy and seafood, and the animal cruelty and injustice that pervades both

industries, and I decided to switch to veganism. I thought it would be hard; however, it

wasn’t. It doesn’t need to be a sacrifice. There are many cuisines that are unexpectedly

and frequently vegetarian (or that can easily be made vegetarian), including Mexican,

Greek, Thai, and Chinese. And, there are many great meat and dairy replacements for

those who crave the texture and taste of meat and dairy. You may be surprised to hear

how many famous people are vegan, including comedian Ellen DeGeneres and former

President Bill Clinton. In 2011, Oprah challenged herself and her Harpo staff to go vegan

for a week (“Vegan Diet Spotlighted,” 2011). Even TV personality Martha Stewart is

dedicating entire episodes of her show to vegan cooking. More significantly, some of the


most notable human rights advocates of the 20th century were vegan and cared deeply

about animal rights. Mohandas Gandhi was a vegetarian for ethical reasons and an animal

advocate. Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., adopted a vegan diet

10 years before her death for health and ethical reasons, becoming a proponent for animal

rights. Their son Dexter Scott King is also vegan and a prominent animal rights advocate.

However, even with this knowledge, if you absolutely cannot see yourself

switching to a plant-based diet immediately, you can start off by lessening your family’s

and your own consumption of meat. I personally recommend to do it gradually as you are

reconditioning what you’ve done your entire lifetime. Even a slow change will have a

positive impact. And, you are the only one who can consciously change your personal

ecological impact. “The ecological crisis cannot be resolved by politics. It cannot be

resolved by science or technology. It is a crisis caused by culture and character, and a

deep change in personal consciousness is needed” (Williams, 2010, p. 712). You may

have heard of Meatless Monday, a global campaign to reduce the environmental impact

of animal agriculture and also improve personal health. It’s becoming a popular trend.

The city of San Francisco was one of the first to officially declare Mondays “Vegetarian

Day” (Tyler, 2010). Removing meat from you diet for just one single day out of the week

is a great start to lesson your contribution to the demand for animal agriculture. Going

vegetarian 2 or 3 days out of the week is an even better goal—perhaps, this more

approachable for everyone in the country—to contribute to the solution, reduce the

ecological impact of our appetites and, furthermore, to improve your health.

I’d like to point out that many people have said to me that, if animal agriculture

ended, so many farmers would be out of a job and it would hurt the economy. Animal


farmers would simply need to switch from raising meat-producing animals to growing

crops to feed people. As stated earlier, we feed a high plant ratio to produce a low ratio of

meat after slaughter. Arguably, farming would not suffer at all, it would boom as less

feed is expended on animal agriculture and arable land is utilized for vegetable farming

(Wollen, 2012).

With global appetite for seafood, we must find real solutions before we cause the

demise of our oceans. To prevent us from literally fishing the oceans to death, several

approaches need to be considered—like ecosystem-based management, spatial planning,

and incentive programs for fishermen. Ecosystem based management is a method of

marine conservation and fishery management that attempts to allow fishing while

considering and supervising the impact of the local fish population (Kappel & Martone,

2006). Spatial planning, as an extension of ecosystem-based management, helps

coordinate human activities in the oceans in places where our individual governments fail

to do so by allowing specific fisheries to be active only in certain areas at certain times.

Basically, it’s an attempt at conserving marine resources in the face of worldwide

overfishing and ocean environmental destruction. Another approach to try is to make

incentive programs more lucrative for sustainable fishing to encourage fishermen to not

just follow the laws but to also just simply not fish the oceans to death (Duffy, 2009).

We live in a world of incredible scientific advancements. In vitro meat may be a

possible solution in the future. “Longer term, it no longer seems lunacy to believe in the

possibility of ‘meat without feet’ – meat produced in vitro, by growing animal cells in a

super-rich nutrient environment before being further manipulated into burgers and

steaks,” states Bittman (2008) of The New York Times (para. 19). If humanity’s appetite


for meat cannot be decreased significantly enough (through partial or full adoption of

vegetarian diets) before we reach total global food insecurity and scarcity, meat made in a

lab could be a real solution, removing the need to “raise” and process livestock for

slaughter. This technological innovation may tackle hunger issues without using any

extra land for animal agriculture and livestock feed farming, while also creating more

jobs (Harrell, 2010).

The Animal Rights Question

One last important question to ask ourselves: is it moral and socially just for us to

eat meat? Alongside the environmental issues that result from animal agriculture, there is

the issue of animal cruelty. And, as stated earlier, at least 10,000 species are wiped out

annually through deforestation, fishing, hunting, and environmental destruction—all

actions of humanity associated with animal agriculture. We have domesticated wild

creatures for millennia so that they suit our desires—editing nature to fit our

requirements. In “Talking to the Owls and Butterflies,” Lame Deer (2010) made an

thought-provoking statement:

There is power in an antelope, but not in a goat or in a sheep, which holds

still while you butcher it, which will eat your newspaper if you let it. There was

great power in a wolf, even a coyote. You have made him into a freak—a toy

poodle, a Pekingese, a lap dog. You can’t do much with a cat, which is like an

Indian, unchangeable. So you fix it, alter it, declaw it, even cut its vocal chords so

you can experiment on it in a laboratory without being disturbed by its cries.

(687-688).

No matter which way you look at it, humanity’s treatment of animals is atrocious.


The way I look at it, there is really nothing humane or just about the assembly-line killing

of living creatures to satiate our appetites. It’s slavery and slaughter. These factory farms

resemble concentration camps more than anything else. Philanthropist, and former vice

president of Citibank, Philip Wollen declared in a speech at the St. James Ethics Centre,

“Animal rights is now the greatest social justice issue since the abolition of slavery”

(2012). The American idea that there are pastures full of happy dairy cows across

America is a total and utter myth. “Only 100 billion people have ever lived. Seven billion

people live today. And yet we torture and kill two billion sentient living beings every

week” (Wollen, 2012).

We need to ask ourselves, what gives us the right, as just another species on the

planet, to do this to other sentient creatures? What gives us the right to do this to the

planet? Why are we allowed to cause the unprovoked extinction of other species?

Perhaps, this is because another myth of nature pervasive in our society is that we own

the Earth. We do not own it—we are just another species on this planet full of Earthlings.

We are part of a complex ecosystem that we degrade and disrupt more and more

everyday. If any other creature impacted the entire planet the way humanity does, we

would call it a virus, a parasite, a plague, a cancer (Wollen, 2012).

Our justification for eating other animals is being referred to by a new word:

speciesism—assigning different rights and values onto a creature based simply on its

species (BBC, n.d.). Why is a companion animal, like a cat or a dog, more deserving of

life and care than a meat-producing cow, a swine, or a broiler chicken? Scientists argue

that pigs are even more intelligent than dogs, so why do we eat pork and not dog? Our

culture and social constructs dictate that eating a dog is unthinkable and horrible, while


eating a pig is normal. This is known as carnism (coined by author Dr. Melanie Joy), the

“term given to the psychological disconnect which allows people to eat some animals

while remaining resolutely sentimental about others,” (Schott, 2010). It is time that we

not only consider the environmental impact of our animal agriculture, but also the moral

impact of our animal agriculture.

Conclusion

The environmental impact of animal agriculture is unquestionably a mostly

ignored ecological dilemma in our day and age. The myths of nature that we identify with

as a country contribute to our vast use of animal agriculture, to the idea that our

environmental resources are vast and our ecological and moral impacts are something we

can overlook. However, I do feel there is hope as more and more people are becoming

aware of our situation, discussing it, and taking action. I have read more about it in the

media in the past year than I have in my entire life. I can name almost 10 people in my

life that have adopted a plant-based diet in just the past year. This is all good news but we

need to do a lot better. Our future situation as a world populace may be grave; the world

population and our governments need to act quickly. Rereading America states:

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, unless we slash

greenhouse gas emissions now, average world temperatures could rise by as much

as eleven degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century, triggering a two-to-three-

foot increase in the sea levels around the world. If we fail to act, scientists predict

that hurricanes, droughts, and famines will worsen, animal and plant species will

go extinct, and millions of people will be displaced” (Colombo, et al.,

2010, p. 644).


It is important that every person in the global community removes the horse-blinders,

consider his or her own ecological impact, and do something to reduce it. One of the

biggest steps we can take is to eliminate, change, and/or lessen our meat consumption and

reliance on animal agriculture. We live in the United States, which is considered one of

the world’s leading countries. If every person in the US takes even the smallest step

possible, the positive impact as a whole community would be huge, it would help smash

our outdated myths of nature, and it would set an example for other countries to follow

suit.

In the end, I personally have a hard time believing that other sentient beings were

put on this earth to be bred by the billions for the sole purpose of our use, abuse, benefit,

and profit. Multitudes of living, feeling creatures are brought into the world just to be cut

up, packaged, sold, and consumed. And, this is all happening while we destroy the planet

and, arguably, our own health. Is this really how it’s supposed to be? There is an old Cree

Indian prophecy that sticks with me whenever I try to answer these questions for myself:

“Only after the last tree has been cut down. Only after the last river has been poisoned.

Only after the last fish has been caught. Only then will you find that money cannot be

eaten.”


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Documents

Environmental Effects of Animal Agriculture and Meat Consumption