Contextual Moral Vegetarianism

By Deane Curtin

'Toward an Ecological Ethic of Care.' Hypathia, No. 6, spring 1991, pp. 68-71

 

In this [essay] I provide an example of a distinctively ecofeminist moral concern: our relations to what we are willing to count as food. Vegetarianism has been defended as a moral obligation that results from rights that nonhuman animals have in virtue of being sentient beings (Regan 1983, 330-53). However, a distinctively ecofeminist defense of moral vegetarianism is better expressed as a core concept in an ecofeminist ethic of care. One clear way of distinguishing the two approaches is that whereas the rights approach is not inherently contextual[1] (it is the response to the rights of all sentient beings), the caring-for approach responds to particular contexts and histories. It recognizes that the reasons for moral vegetarianism may differ by locale, by gender, as well as by class.

Moral vegetarianism is a fruitful issue for ecofeminists to explore in developing an ecological ethics because in judging the adequacy of an ethic by reference to its understanding of food one draws attention to precisely those aspects of daily experience that have often been regarded as "beneath" the interest of philosophy. Plato's remark in the Gorgias is typical of the dismissive attitude philosophers have usually had toward food. Pastry cooking, he says, is like rhetoric: both are mere "knacks" or "routines" designed to appeal to our bodily instincts rather than our intellects (Plato 1961, 245).

Plato's dismissive remark also points to something that feminists need to take very seriously, namely, that a distinctively feminist ethic, as Susan Bordo and others argue, should include the body as moral agent. Here too the experiences of women in patriarchal cultures are especially valuable because women, more then men, experience the effects of culturally sanctioned oppressive attitudes toward the appropriate shape of the body. Susan Bordo has argued that anorexia nervosa is a "psychopathology" made possible by Cartesian attitudes toward the body at a popular level. Anorexics typically feel alienation from their bodies and the hunger "it" feels. Bordo quotes one woman as saying she ate because "my stomach wanted it"; another dreamed of being "without a body." Anorexics want to achieve "absolute purity, hyperintellectuality and transcendence of the flesh" (Bordo 1988, 94, 95; also see Chernin 1981). These attitudes toward the body have served to distort the deep sense in which human beings are embodied creatures; they have therefore further distorted our being as animals. To be a person, as distinct from an "animal," is to be disembodied.

This dynamic is vividly exposed by Carol Adams in The Sexual Politics of Meat (Adams 1989, part 1). There are important connections through food between the oppression of women and the oppression of nonhuman animals. Typical of the wealth of evidence she presents are the following: the connection of women and animals through pornographic representations of women as "meat" ready to be carved up, for example in "snuff' films; the fact that language masks our true relationship with animals, making them "absent referents" by giving meat words positive connotations ("That's a meaty question;" "Where's the beef?") while disparaging nonflesh foods ("Don't watch so much TV! You'll turn into a vegetable"); men, athletes and soldiers in particular, are associated with red meat and activity ("To have muscle you need to eat muscle"), whereas women are associated with vegetables and passivity ("ladies' luncheons" typically offer dainty sandwiches with no red meat).

As a "contextual moral vegetarian," I cannot refer to an absolute moral rule that prohibits meat eating under all circumstances. There may be some contexts in which another response is appropriate. Though I am committed to moral vegetarianism, I cannot say that I would never kill an animal for food. Would I not kill an animal to provide food for my son if he were starving? Would I not generally prefer the death of a bear to the death of a loved one? I am sure I would. The point of a contextualist ethic is that one need not treat all interests equally as if one had no relationship to any of the parties.

Beyond personal contextual relations, geographical contexts may sometimes be relevant. The Ihalmiut, for example, whose frigid domain makes the growing of food impossible, do not have the option of vegetarian cuisine. The economy of their food practices, however, and their tradition of "thanking" the deer for giving its life are reflective of a serious, focused, compassionate attitude toward the "gift" of a meal.

In some cultures violence against nonhuman life is ritualized in such a way that one is present to the reality of one's food. The Japanese have a Shinto ceremony that pays respect to the insects that are killed during rice planting. Tibetans, who as Buddhists have not generally been drawn to vegetarianism, nevertheless give their own bodies back to the animals in an ultimate act of thanks by having their corpses hacked into pieces as food for the birds.[2] Cultures such as these have ways of expressing spiritually the idea "we are what we eat," even if they are not vegetarian.

If there is any context, on the other hand, in which moral vegetarianism is completely compelling as an expression of an ecological ethic of care, it is for economically well-off persons in technologically advanced countries. First, these are persons who have a choice of what food they want to eat; they have a choice of what they will count as food. Morality and ontology are closely connected here. It is one thing to inflict pain on animals when geography offers no other choice. But in the case of killing animals for human consumption where there is a choice, this practice inflicts pain that is completely unnecessary and avoidable. The injunction to care, considered as an issue of moral and political development, should be understood to include the injunction to eliminate needless suffering wherever possible, and particularly the suffering of those whose suffering is conceptually connected to one's own. It should not be understood as an injunction that includes the imperative to rethink what it means to be a person connected with the imperative to rethink the status of nonhuman animals. An ecofeminist perspective emphasizes that one's body is oneself, and that by inflicting violence needlessly, one's bodily self becomes a context for violence. One becomes violent by taking part in violent food practices. The ontological implication of a feminist ethic of care is that nonhuman animals should no longer count as food.

Second, most of the meat and dairy products in these countries do not come from mom-and-pop farms with little red barns. Factory farms are responsible for most of the 6 billion animals killed for food every year in the United States (Adams 1989, 6). It is curious that steriods are considered dangerous to athletes, but animals that have been genetically engineered and chemically induced to grow faster and come to market sooner are considered to be an entirely different issue. One would have to be hardened to know the conditions factory-farm animals live in and not feel disgust concerning their treatment.[3]

Third, much of the effect of the eating practices of persons in industrialized countries is felt in oppressed countries. Land owned by the wealthy that was once used to grow inexpensive crops for local people has been converted to the production of expensive products (beef) for export. Increased trade of food products with these countries is consistently the cause of increased starvation. In cultures where food preparation is primarily understood as women's work, starvation is primarily a women's issue. Food expresses who we are politically just as much as bodily. One need not be aware of the fact that one's food practices oppress others in order to be an oppressor.

From a woman's perspective, in particular, it makes sense to ask whether one should become a vegan, a vegetarian who, in addition to refraining from meat and fish, also refrains from eating eggs and dairy products. Since the consumption of eggs and milk have in common that they exploit the reproductive capacities of the female, vegetarianism is not a gender neutral issue.[4] To choose one's diet in a patriarchal culture is one way of politicizing an ethic of care. It marks a daily, bodily commitment to resist ideological pressures to conform to patriarchal standards, and to establishing contexts in which caring for can be nonabusive. 

Just as there are gender-specific reasons for women's commitment to vegetarianism, for men in a patriarchal society moral vegetarianism can mark the decision to stand in solidarity with women. It also indicates a determination to resist ideological pressures to become a "real man." Real people do not need to eat "real food," as the American Beef Council would have us believe.

[1] Regan calls the animal's right not to be killed a prima facie right that may be overridden. Nevertheless, his theory is not inherently contextualized.

[2] This practice is also ecologically sound since it saves the enormous expense of firewood for cremation.

[3] See John Robbing (1987). It should be noted that in response to such knowledge some reflective nonvegetarians commit to eating range-grown chickens but not those grown in factory farms.

[4] I owe this point to a conversation with Colman McCarthy. 

Morality is a Culturally Conditioned Response

Jesse Prinz   is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York. His books include Gut Reactions, The Emotional Construction of Morals, and Beyond Human Nature.

In this article, Jesse Prinz argues that the source of our moral inclinations is merely cultural.

Philosophy Now, issue 82, January/February 2011

Suppose you have a moral disagreement with someone, for example, a disagreement about whether it is okay to live in a society where the amount of money you are born with is the primary determinant of how wealthy you will end up. In pursuing this debate, you assume that you are correct about the issue and that your conversation partner is mistaken. You conversation partner assumes that you are making the blunder. In other words, you both assume that only one of you can be correct. Relativists reject this assumption. They believe that conflicting moral beliefs can both be true. The stanch socialist and righteous royalist are equally right; they just occupy different moral worldviews.

Relativism has been widely criticized. It is attacked as being sophomoric, pernicious, and even incoherent. Moral philosophers, theologians, and social scientists try to identify objective values so as to forestall the relativist menace. I think these efforts have failed. Moral relativism is a plausible doctrine, and it has important implications for how we conduct our lives, organize our societies, and deal with others.

Cannibals and Child Brides

Morals vary dramatically across time and place. One group’s good can be another group’s evil. Consider cannibalism, which has been practiced by groups in every part of the world. Anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday found evidence for cannibalism in 34% of cultures in one cross-historical sample. Or consider blood sports, such as those practiced in Roman amphitheaters, in which thousands of excited fans watched as human beings engaged in mortal combat. Killing for pleasure has also been documented among headhunting cultures, in which decapitation was sometimes pursued as a recreational activity. Many societies have also practiced extreme forms of public torture and execution, as was the case in Europe before the 18th century. And there are cultures that engage in painful forms of body modification, such as scarification, genital infibulation, or footbinding – a practice that lasted in China for 1,000 years and involved the deliberate and excruciating crippling of young girls. Variation in attitudes towards violence is paralleled by variation in attitudes towards sex and marriage. When studying culturally independent societies, anthropologists have found that over 80% permit polygamy. Arranged marriage is also common, and some cultures marry off girls while they are still pubescent or even younger. In parts of Ethiopia, half the girls are married before their 15th birthday.

Of course, there are also cross-cultural similarities in morals. No group would last very long if it promoted gratuitous attacks on neighbors or discouraged childrearing. But within these broad constraints, almost anything is possible. Some groups prohibit attacks on the hut next door, but encourage attacks on the village next door. Some groups encourage parents to commit selective infanticide, to use corporal punishment on children, or force them into physical labor or sexual slavery.

Such variation cries out for explanation. If morality were objective, shouldn’t we see greater consensus? Objectivists reply in two different ways:

Deny variation. Some objectivists say moral variation is greatly exaggerated – people really agree about values but have different factual beliefs or life circumstances that lead them to behave differently. For example, slave owners may have believed that their slaves were intellectually inferior, and Inuits who practiced infanticide may have been forced to do so because of resource scarcity in the tundra. But it is spectacularly implausible that all moral differences can be explained this way. For one thing, the alleged differences in factual beliefs and life circumstances rarely justify the behaviors in question. Would the inferiority of one group really justify enslaving them? If so, why don’t we think it’s acceptable to enslave people with low IQs? Would life in the tundra justify infanticide? If so, why don’t we just kill off destitute children around the globe instead of giving donations to Oxfam? Differences in circumstances do not show that people share values; rather they help to explain why values end up being so different.

Deny that variation matters. Objectivists who concede that moral variation exists argue that variation does not entail relativism; after all, scientific theories differ too, and we don’t assume that every theory is true. This analogy fails. Scientific theory variation can be explained by inadequate observations or poor instruments; improvements in each lead towards convergence. When scientific errors are identified, corrections are made. By contrast, morals do not track differences in observation, and there also is no evidence for rational convergence as a result of moral conflicts. Western slavery didn’t end because of new scientific observations; rather it ended with the industrial revolution, which ushered in a wage-based economy. Indeed, slavery became more prevalent after the Enlightenment, when science improved. Even with our modern understanding of racial equality, Benjamin Skinner has shown that there are more people living in de facto slavery worldwide today than during the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. When societies converge morally, it’s usually because one has dominated the other (as with the missionary campaigns to end cannibalism). With morals, unlike science, there is no well-recognized standard that can be used to test, confirm, or correct when disagreements arise.

Objectivists might reply that progress has clearly been made. Aren’t our values better than those of the ‘primitive’ societies that practice slavery, cannibalism, and polygamy? Here we are in danger of smugly supposing superiority. Each culture assumes it is in possession of the moral truth. From an outside perspective, our progress might be seen as a regress. Consider factory farming, environmental devastation, weapons of mass destruction, capitalistic exploitation, coercive globalization, urban ghettoization, and the practice of sending elderly relatives to nursing homes. Our way of life might look grotesque to many who have come before and many who will come after.

Emotions and Inculcation

Moral variation is best explained by assuming that morality, unlike science, is not based on reason or observation. What, then, is morality based on? To answer this, we need to consider how morals are learned.

Children begin to learn values when they are very young, before they can reason effectively. Young children behave in ways that we would never accept in adults: they scream, throw food, take off their clothes in public, hit, scratch, bite, and generally make a ruckus. Moral education begins from the start, as parents correct these antisocial behaviors, and they usually do so by conditioning children’s emotions. Parents threaten physical punishment (“Do you want a spanking?”), they withdraw love (“I’m not going to play with you any more!”), ostracize (“Go to your room!”), deprive (“No dessert for you!”), and induce vicarious distress (“Look at the pain you’ve caused!”). Each of these methods causes the misbehaved child to experience a negative emotion and associate it with the punished behavior. Children also learn by emotional osmosis. They see their parents’ reactions to news broadcasts and storybooks. They hear hours of judgmental gossip about inconsiderate neighbors, unethical coworkers, disloyal friends, and the black sheep in the family. Consummate imitators, children internalize the feelings expressed by their parents, and, when they are a bit older, their peers.

Emotional conditioning and osmosis are not merely convenient tools for acquiring values: they are essential. Parents sometimes try to reason with their children, but moral reasoning only works by drawing attention to values that the child has already internalized through emotional conditioning. No amount of reasoning can engender a moral value, because all values are, at bottom, emotional attitudes.

Recent research in psychology supports this conjecture. It seems that we decide whether something is wrong by introspecting our feelings: if an action makes us feel bad, we conclude that it is wrong. Consistent with this, people’s moral judgments can be shifted by simply altering their emotional states. For example, psychologist Simone Schnall and her colleagues found that exposure to fart spray, filth, and disgusting movies can cause people to make more severe moral judgments about unrelated phenomena.

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt and colleagues have shown that people make moral judgments even when they cannot provide any justification for them. For example, 80% of the American college students in Haidt’s study said it’s wrong for two adult siblings to have consensual sex with each other even if they use contraception and no one is harmed. And, in a study I ran, 100% of people agreed it would be wrong to sexually fondle an infant even if the infant was not physically harmed or traumatized. Our emotions confirm that such acts are wrong even if our usual justification for that conclusion (harm to the victim) is inapplicable.

If morals are emotionally based, then people who lack strong emotions should be blind to the moral domain. This prediction is borne out by psychopaths, who, it turns out, suffer from profound emotional deficits. Psychologist James Blair has shown that psychopaths treat moral rules as mere conventions. This suggests that emotions are necessary for making moral judgments. The judgment that something is morally wrong is an emotional response.

It doesn’t follow that every emotional response is a moral judgment. Morality involves specific emotions. Research suggests that the main moral emotions are anger and disgust when an action is performed by another person, and guilt and shame when an action is performed by one’s self. Arguably, one doesn’t harbor a moral attitude towards something unless one is disposed to have both these self- and other-directed emotions. You may be disgusted by eating cow tongue, but unless you are a moral vegetarian, you wouldn’t be ashamed of eating it.

In some cases, the moral emotions that get conditioned in childhood can be re-conditioned later in life. Someone who feels ashamed of a homosexual desire may subsequently feel ashamed about feeling ashamed. This person can be said to have an inculcated tendency to view homosexuality as immoral, but also a conviction that homosexuality is permissible, and the latter serves to curb the former over time.

This is not to say that reasoning is irrelevant to morality. One can convince a person that homophobia is wrong by using the light of reason to draw analogies with other forms of discrimination, but this strategy can only work if the person has a negative sentiment towards bigotry. Likewise, through extensive reasoning, one might persuade someone that eating meat is wrong; but the only arguments that will work are ones that appeal to prior sentiments. It would be hopeless to argue vegetarianism with someone who does not shudder at the thought of killing an innocent, sentient being. As David Hume said, reason is always slave to the passions.

If this picture is right, we have a set of emotionally conditioned basic values, and a capacity for reasoning, which allows us to extend these values to new cases. There are two important implications. One is that some moral debates have no resolution because the two sides have different basic values. This is often the case with liberals and conservatives. Research suggests that conservatives value some things that are less important to liberals, including hierarchical authority structures, self-reliance, in-group solidarity, and sexual purity. Debates about welfare, foreign policy, and sexual values get stymied because of these fundamental differences.

The second implication is that we cannot change basic values by reason alone. Various events in adulthood might be capable of reshaping our inculcated sentiments, including trauma, brainwashing, and immersion in a new community (we have an unconscious tendency towards social conformity). Reason can however be used to convince people that their basic values are in need of revision, because reason can reveal when values are inconsistent and self-destructive. An essay on moral relativism might even convince someone to give up some basic values, on the ground that they are socially inculcated. But reason alone cannot instill new values or settle which values we should have. Reason tells us what is the case, not what ought to be.

In summary, moral judgments are based on emotions, and reasoning normally contributes only by helping us extrapolate from our basic values to novel cases. Reasoning can also lead us to discover that our basic values are culturally inculcated, and that might impel us to search for alternative values, but reason alone cannot tell us which values to adopt, nor can it instill new values.

God, Evolution, and Reason: Is There an Objective Moral Code?

The hypothesis that moral judgments are emotionally based can explain why they vary across cultures and resist transformation through reasoning, but this is not enough to prove that moral relativism is true. An argument for relativism must also show that there is no basis for morality beyond the emotions with which we have been conditioned. The relativists must provide reasons for thinking objectivist theories of morality fail.

Objectivism holds that there is one true morality binding upon all of us. To defend such a view, the objectivist must offer a theory of where morality comes from, such that it can be universal in this way. There are three main options: Morality could come from a benevolent god; it could come from human nature (for example, we could have evolved an innate set of moral values); or it could come from rational principles that all rational people must recognize, like the rules of logic and arithmetic. Much ink has been spilled defending each of these possibilities, and it would be impossible here to offer a critical review of all ethical theories. Instead, let’s consider some simple reasons for pessimism.

The problem with divine commands as a cure for relativism is that there is no consensus among believers about what God or the gods want us to do. Even when there are holy scriptures containing lists of divine commands, there are disagreements about interpretation: Does “Thou shalt not kill?” cover enemies? Does it cover animals? Does it make one culpable for manslaughter and self-defense? Does it prohibit suicide? The philosophical challenge of proving that a god exists is already hard; figuring out who that god is and what values are divinely sanctioned is vastly harder.

The problem with human nature as a basis for universal morality is that it lacks normative import, that is, this doesn’t itself provide us with any definitive view of good and bad. Suppose we have some innate moral values. Why should we abide by them? Non-human primates often kill, steal, and rape without getting punished by members of their troops. Perhaps our innate values promote those kinds of behaviors as well. Does it follow that we shouldn’t punish them? Certainly not. If we have innate values – which is open to debate – they evolved to help us cope with life as hunter-gatherers in small competitive bands. To live in large stable societies, we are better off following the ‘civilized’ values we’ve invented.

Finally, the problem with reason, as we have seen, is that it never adds up to value. If I tell you that a wine has a balance between tannin and acid, it doesn’t follow that you will find it delicious. Likewise, reason cannot tell us which facts are morally good. Reason is evaluatively neutral. At best, reason can tell us which of our values are inconsistent, and which actions will lead to fulfillment of our goals. But, given an inconsistency, reason cannot tell us which of our conflicting values to drop, and reason cannot tell us which goals to follow. If my goals come into conflict with your goals, reason tells me that I must either thwart your goals, or give up caring about mine; but reason cannot tell me to favor one choice over the other.

Many attempts have been made to rebut such concerns, but each attempt has just fueled more debate. At this stage, no defense of objectivism has swayed doubters, and given the fundamental limits mentioned here (the inscrutability of divine commands, the normative emptiness of evolution, and the moral neutrality of reason), objectivism looks unlikely.

Living With Moral Relativism

People often resist relativism because they think it has unacceptable implications. Let’s conclude by considering some allegations and responses.

Allegation: Relativism entails that anything goes.

Response: Relativists concede that if you were to inculcate any given set of values, those values would be true for those who possessed them. But we have little incentive to inculcate values arbitrarily. If we trained our children to be ruthless killers, they might kill us or get killed. Values that are completely self-destructive can’t last.

Allegation: Relativism entails that we have no way to criticize Hitler.

Response: First of all, Hitler’s actions were partially based on false beliefs, rather than values (‘scientific’ racism, moral absolutism, the likelihood of world domination). Second, the problem with Hitler was not that his values were false, but that they were pernicious. Relativism does not entail that we should tolerate murderous tyranny. When someone threatens us or our way of life, we are strongly motivated to protect ourselves.

Allegation: Relativism entails that moral debates are senseless, since everyone is right.

Response: This is a major misconception. Many people have overlapping moral values, and one can settle debates by appeal to moral common ground. We can also have substantive debates about how to apply and extend our basic values. Some debates are senseless, however. Committed liberals and conservatives rarely persuade each other, but public debates over policy can rally the base and sway the undecided.

Allegation: Relativism doesn't allow moral progress.

Response: In one sense this is correct; moral values do not become more true. But they can become better by other criteria. For example, some sets of values are more consistent and more conducive to social stability. If moral relativism is true, morality can be regarded as a tool, and we can think about what we’d like that tool to do for us and revise morality accordingly.

One might summarize these points by saying that relativism does not undermine the capacity to criticize others or to improve one’s own values. Relativism does tell us, however, that we are mistaken when we think we are in possession of the one true morality. We can try to pursue moral values that lead to more fulfilling lives, but we must bear in mind that fulfillment is itself relative, so no single set of values can be designated universally fulfilling. The discovery that relativism is true can help each of us individually by revealing that our values are mutable and parochial. We should not assume that others share our views, and we should recognize that our views would differ had we lived in different circumstances. These discoveries may make us more tolerant and more flexible. Relativism does not entail tolerance or any other moral value, but, once we see that there is no single true morality, we lose one incentive for trying to impose our values on others.

Standing in Livestock’s ‘Long Shadow’: The Ethics of Eating Meat on a Small Planet

By Brian G. Henning

Ethics & the Environment; Fall 2011; Vol. 16 (2)

A primary contribution of this essay is to provide a survey of the human and environmental impacts of livestock production. We will find that the mass consumption of animals is a primary reason why humans are hungry, fat, or sick and is a leading cause of the depletion and pollution of waterways, the degradation and deforestation of the land, the extinction of species, and the warming of the planet. Recognizing these harms, this essay will consider various solutions being proposed to “shrink” livestock’s long shadow, including proposed “technical” or “market” solutions, a transition to “new agrarian” methods, and a vegetarian or vegan diet. Though important and morally relevant qualitative differences exist between industrial and non-industrial methods, this essay will conclude that, given the present and projected size of the human population, the morality and sustainability of one’s diet are inversely related to the proportion of animals and animal products one consumes.

In 2007, 275 million tons of meat (1) were produced worldwide, enough for 92 pounds for every person (Halweil 2008, 1). On one level, this fourfold increase in meat production since 1960 might be seen as a great success story about the spread of prosperity and wealth. President Herbert Hoover’s memorable 1928 campaign pledge to put “a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage” has, at least for many in the developed world, largely been realized. This juxtaposition of chickens and cars is appropriate in a way that Hoover did not intend: in an important sense, the same industrial processes that have put a “car in every garage” now make it possible to “put a chicken in every pot” or a burger on every plate. What has made it possible to realize the “prosperity” in Hoover’s promise is the industrialization of food production, and livestock are no exception. By applying some of the same principles that organized Henry Ford’s assembly lines to agriculture (combined with the economically distorting effects of vast agricultural subsidies and other environmental and economic externalities), once-expensive food items—such as beef, pork, and chicken—are now within the reach of billions of people; indeed, they are often cheaper than fresh fruits and vegetables.

On Hoover’s measure, then, the shift to intensive, industrial methods

of livestock production have been wildly successful. Thanks in large part

to the adoption of intensive methods, worldwide more than 56 billion

animals are slaughtered each year; an average of 650 animals are killed

every second of every day (Halweil 2008, 2). At eight times the size of the

human population, livestock cast a very long shadow indeed. A primary

contribution of this essay is to provide a survey of the human and environmental

impacts of livestock production. We will find that, considering

both the direct and indirect effects, the overconsumption of animal meat is

now a (if not the) leading cause of or contributor to both malnourishment

and obesity, chronic disease, antibiotic resistance, and the spread of infectious

disease; the livestock sector may now be the single greatest source of

freshwater use and pollution, the leading cause of rainforest deforestation,

and the driving force behind spiraling species extinction; finally, livestock

production is among the largest sectoral sources of greenhouse gas emissions

contributing to global climate change.

Recognizing the inefficient and environmentally destructive nature of

intensive livestock production, this essay will consider various solutions

being proposed to “shrink” livestock’s long shadow, including “technical”

or “market” fixes, a transition to “new agrarian” methods, and the movement

to a vegetarian or vegan diet. Though important and morally relevant

qualitative differences exist between industrial and non-industrial

methods, this essay will conclude that, given the present and projected

size of the human population, the morality and sustainability of one’s diet

are inversely related to the proportion of animals and animal products

one consumes.

Meat, nutrition, and public health

Humans now derive, on average, one-third of their daily protein and

17 percent of their energy (calories) from animal sources (Steinfeld et al.

2006, 269). Yet, as one would expect, these averages mask great differences

in meat-eating patterns, from a low of 6.6 pounds of meat consumed

per person annually in Bangladesh (Fiala 2008, 413) to a high of

273 pounds per person annually in the United States (Steinfeld et al. 2006,

269). The way that people interact with livestock also varies greatly. While

many wealthy people only interact with animals when they are on their

plate, raising livestock is the primary livelihood of one billion (36%) of

the world’s poorest individuals (those who live on less than $2 US per

day) (Steinfeld et al. 2006, xx and 268). Reflecting this complex reality,

livestock production methods vary considerably, from small-scale operations

using extensive, pasture methods, to large-scale operations using intensive,

industrial methods. While several decades ago the geographical

distribution of these methods, extensive and intensive, would largely have

corresponded to developing and developed nations respectively, this is no

longer the case, with extensive methods increasingly being championed by

environmentally conscious consumers in developed nations and developing

nations seeking to meet rising demand and achieve economies of scale

through the adoption of intensive methods.

Despite these seemingly divergent trends, 80 percent of the considerable

growth in the livestock sector worldwide is from industrial livestock

production (278). The vast majority of the billions of animals raised for

food each year are not wandering the barnyard of a bucolic farm leading

long, relatively carefree lives until the day of slaughter. Most livestock

today, in both developed and developing nations, are raised using

intensive methods in what the industry calls “concentrated animal feeding

operations” (CAFOs, pronounced KAY-foes).(2) As Peter Singer recognized

decades ago in Animal Liberation, animals are no longer raised; they are

produced in modern factory farms where specially bred stocks of animals

are maintained in confined spaces and quickly fattened to slaughter

weight through a high-protein diet, often of corn or soy.(3) Rather than

being raised by many skilled farmhands, a large herd or flock can easily be

 “managed” by low-skilled (read low-wage) workers who maintain feeding

machines, occasionally remove dead or dying animals (“downers”),

and scrape waste into vast “lagoons.” Cows, pigs, sheep, and chickens are

no longer unique and valued (albeit instrumentally) members of an integrated

farm community, they are protein conversion machines; low-value

protein (e.g., corn or soy) goes in and high-value protein (animal flesh)

comes out.

Yet, at the heart of our global food supply is an insidious paradox.

“Today our food supply is nothing less than cornucopian, favoring the

world with unprecedented quantities and varieties of food. Yet more people

and a greater proportion of the world today are malnourished—hungry,

deficient in vitamins or minerals, or overfed—than ever before in

human history” (Gardner and Halweil 2000, 10). Taken on a global scale,

it is estimated that poor nutrition, whether through hunger or overeating,

“easily account[s] for more than half of the global burden of disease”

(35). Many policy makers and health professionals are rightly focused on

the introduction of fat, salt, and sugar (often in the form of corn derivatives)

involved in the industrial processing of our food products, whereas

the over-consumption of animals and animal products receives comparatively

little attention. Yet, by contributing to the spread of antibiotic resistant

infections, the spread of infectious diseases, and the occurrence of

chronic diseases, the mass production and overconsumption of meat now

constitutes one of the single greatest threats to public health. Let us briefly

consider each of these three factors in turn.

In CAFOs cattle are often crammed into feedlots shoulder to shoulder

knee deep in their own excrement, pigs are kept in confined sow crates

with little room to move, and chickens are frequently kept in poorly ventilated

sheds with less than a sheet of paper’s worth of space in their overcrowded

cages. Because of the intense confinement and unclean spaces

found in CAFOs, producers are “forced” to give their herds and flocks

large doses of antibiotics in hopes of avoiding the rapid spread of disease

(and the attending loss of profit). Indeed, half of all antibiotics produced

worldwide are now administered to livestock (Steinfeld et al. 2006, xx

and 273). This routine, preventive use of antibiotics in industrial livestock

production is increasingly recognized as exacerbating what some are calling

an “epidemic” of antibiotic resistant infections (Spellberg 2008). As

within the human community, the overuse of antibiotics is facilitating

the evolution of more antibiotic resistant infections, threatening both the

human and non-human population with treatment-resistant strains and

further burdening already taxed health systems.

Secondly, the proximity of CAFOs to population centers is quickly

becoming a strong vector for the spread of infectious disease to the human

population. As the British medical journal The Lancet reports, this is a

particular challenge for officials in developing nations where the siting

of CAFOs close to population centers is facilitating “the emergence of

zoonotic infections, including various viral haemorrhagic fevers, avian influenza,

Nipah virus from pig farming, and BSE [“mad cow” disease] in

cows and its human variant” (McMichael et al. 2007, 1261). The World

Bank goes so far as to claim that the “extraordinary proximate concentration

of people and livestock poses probably one of the most serious environmental

and public health challenges for the coming decades” (cited in

Halweil 2008, 2).

Beyond antibiotic resistance and facilitating the spread of infectious

diseases, the overconsumption of meat is now a leading cause of obesity

(with its attendant health affects) as well as a leading cause of many

chronic or noncommunicable diseases, both in developed and developing

nations.(4) Indeed, the majority of those living in the developed world and

a growing number of individuals in developing nations receive far more

nutrition from animal sources than is healthy. Despite persistent claims

to the contrary, there is little debate among doctors and nutrition experts

that one can have a healthy plant-based diet.(5) For instance, contrary to

the protein myth surrounding a vegetarian diet, on average both vegetarians

and non-vegetarians consume more than the recommended daily allowance

(RDA) of 56 g of protein. For instance, the average meat-eating

American consumes 77 g of animal protein and 35 g of plant protein daily

for a total of 112 g, twice the RDA for protein suggested by the United

States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Yet, the average vegetarian

consumes 89 g per day (Pimentel and Pimentel 2003, 661s).

As the average person now derives one-third of his or her daily protein

and 17 percent of daily calories from animal sources (Steinfeld et al.

2006, 269), health professionals are increasingly recognizing the link between

high intakes of meat and the rise of non-communicable or chronic

diseases. A diet high in animal-sourced foods contributes significantly to,

among other things, hypertension, heart disease, certain types of cancer,

diabetes, gallstones, obesity, stroke, and food-borne illness (Gardner and

Halweil 2000, 41–42; Steinfeld et al. 2006, 269). With an estimated 66

percent of Americans reported as being overweight or obese,(6) the costs of

treating the effects of obesity continue to escalate. According to the Centers

for Disease Control, in 2000 the total cost of obesity in the United

States was estimated to be $117 billion, which accounts for nearly 10%

of the nation’s health care tab. (7)

Given that half the world is malnourished and that more than half

of all disease is linked to poor diet (Gardner and Halweil 2000, 43), it is

no exaggeration to claim that we are in the midst of a nutritional crisis, a

crisis that is largely of our own making. What is often overlooked is the

ethical significance of the overconsumption of animal products and the

role that it plays in this global nutrition crisis. It is a sad testimony to the

great disparity in wealth that exists in the world that, perhaps for the first

time in human history, there are more overfed (about 1 billion) individuals

than malnourished (about 800 million) (Steinfeld et al. 2006, 6). What is

important to note in this context is the sense in which these two figures

are related.

A Protein Factory In Reverse

Though industrial livestock production has dramatically increased

production, this economic efficiency has come at the price of dramatic

ecological inefficiency: animals now detract far more from the total global

food supply than they provide (270). Because only a small portion of

the total energy consumed by an animal is converted into edible biomass,

each movement up the trophic pyramid away from primary producers

results in a significant loss of energy. According to the USDA, the ratio

of kilograms of grain to animal protein is 0.7 to 1 for milk, 2.3 to 1for

chicken, 5.9 to 1 for pork, 11 to 1 for eggs, 13 to 1 for beef, and 21 to

1 for lamb (cited in Bellarby et al. 2008, 36). In other words, it takes 21

kg of edible grain (or 30 kg of forage) to yield 1 edible kg of lamb and

13 kg of edible grain (or 30 kg of forage) for one kg of beef. Yet a 13:1

protein ratio for beef seems efficient compared to a more comprehensive

energy analysis that includes all “inputs,” such as fertilizers and pesticides,

required to produce a kilogram of beef. According to one study,

to produce one calorie of beef requires 40 calories of fossil fuel (40:1),

compared to 14:1 for milk and 2.2:1 for grain (Baroni et al. 2007, 285). If

animals are now seen by the meat production industry as protein conversion

machines—converting “low value” grain or forage into “high value”

animal protein—then they are very inefficient machines. Indeed, as Francis

Moore Lappé aptly put it, they are more nearly “a protein factory in

reverse” (1991 [1975], 70).

With a full third of the annual global harvest of grains being fed to

livestock, the scale of lost edible nutrition is as staggering as it is morally

unacceptable. “At present, the US livestock population consumes

more than seven times as much grain as is consumed directly by the entire

American population” (Pimentel and Pimentel 2003, 661s). Indeed, the

grain fed to US livestock alone could feed all of the world’s 800 million

malnourished individuals (Ibid.). While concerns regarding dependency,

distribution and corruption are justified, in a world with increasingly

stressed ecosystems, a rapidly growing human population, and political

unrest caused by high food prices, it is difficult to morally justify this

profligate use of edible nutrition. As high as the human costs in terms of

health and lost nutrition are, much of livestock’s long shadow falls on the

Earth’s water, land, and air.

Water Pressure (8)

For those of us fortunate enough to live in wealthy nations where

sanitation and indoor plumbing are taken for granted and where fresh

water is available in seemingly limitless quantities, it is hard to fathom

the idea that, worldwide, one in six people do not have access to fresh

water and more than twice that number, 2.4 billion people, lack access to

adequate sanitation facilities (United Nations Environment Programme

[UNEP] 2003). It is no exaggeration to say there is a growing freshwater

crisis. Worldwide, humans use three times more water today than in 1960

(Houghton 2009, 188). John Houghton—the founding chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—notes that in many areas the use of freshwater far exceeds the replenishment rate.

The demand is so great in some river basins, for instance the Rio

Grande and the Colorado in North America, that almost no water

from them reaches the sea. Increasingly, water stored over hundreds

or thousands of years in underground aquifers is being tapped for current

use and there are now many places in the world where groundwater

is being used much faster than it is being replenished; every

year the water has to be extracted at deeper levels. For instance, over

more than half the land area of the United States, over a quarter of

the groundwater withdrawn is not replenished and around Beijing in

China the water table is falling by 2 m[eters] a year as groundwater

is pumped out. (188)

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization

(FAO), “The world is moving towards increasing problems of freshwater

shortage, scarcity and depletion…” (Steinfeld et al. 2006, xxii). By the

year 2025, the FAO estimates that 64% of the world’s population may

live in “water-stressed” basins (Ibid.).(9) And by 2050 the number of individuals

living in severely stressed water basins is projected to rise from 1.5

billion to 3 to 5 billion (Houghton 2009, 193). While it is certainly true

that the rapid growth of the human population is behind many of these

figures, how freshwater is used has as much or more to do with this crisis

than just how many people use it. What many often neglect is the key role

that agriculture, and livestock in particular, play in both the depletion and

degradation of freshwater supplies.

“Domestic” use of water accounts for only 10% of freshwater consumption

while agriculture accounts for 66–70% of global freshwater

usage, making it the single largest user of freshwater.(10) Hidden in this

percentage of water used for agriculture is the amount dedicated to livestock

production, which currently accounts for more than eight percent of

global water use (Steinfeld et al. 2006, xxii). For instance, according to a

study by the National Geographic (2010), it takes 1,799 gallons of water

to create one pound (0.5 kg) of beef, 576 gallons for one pound of pork,

468 gallons for one pound of chicken, and 216 gallons for one pound of

soy beans. Overall, it is estimated that producing one kilogram of animal

protein requires 100 times more water than producing one kilogram of

grain protein (Pimentel and Pimentel 2003, 662s).

The negative implications of livestock production are not limited to

the grossly inefficient use of increasingly scarce freshwater. Livestock production

also has far-reaching impacts on both the replenishment and quality

of freshwater stocks.(11) In the United States, livestock produce ten times

more waste than the human population (Singer 2002 [1975], 168) but,

unlike human waste, which must be cleaned in waste treatment facilities,

livestock effluent is collected in vast lagoons that often leak into aquifers

and waterways. As Schlosser and Wilson vividly describe it, “Each steer

deposits about 50 pounds of urine and manure every day. Unlike human

waste, this stuff isn’t sent to a treatment plant. It’s dumped into pits—gigantic

pools of pee and poop that the industry calls lagoons. Slaughter-house

lagoons can be as big as 20 acres and as much as 15 feet deep, filled

with millions of gallons of really disgusting stuff” (2006, 166). To further

illustrate the sheer volume of livestock waste, Schlosser and Wilson go

on to note that the two cattle feedlots outside Greeley, Colorado produce

more in animal waste than the humans in the cities of Denver, Boston,

Atlanta, and St. Louis combined (167).

The problems with animal waste polluting aquifers and rivers are further

compounded by the agricultural practices used to create the crops

fed to animals. While global figures are not available, the FAO reports

that “in the United States, with the world’s fourth largest land area, livestock

are responsible for an estimated…37 percent of pesticide use…and

a third of the loads of nitrogen and phosphorus into freshwater resources”

(Steinfeld et al. 2006, xxii). These pesticides and fertilizers make their way

into the groundwater and run off into waterways, polluting freshwater

sources and weakening or destroying already stressed marine ecosystems.

Given the vast quantities of manure, pesticides, and fertilizers generated

by intensive livestock production, we can begin to understand why the

FAO finds that the livestock sector “is probably the largest sectoral source

of water pollution, contributing to eutrophication, ‘dead’ zones in coastal

areas, [and] degradation of coral reefs…” (Ibid., italics added).(12) Even before

the explosion and sinking of a deepwater drilling rig off the coast of

Louisiana (April 2010) dumped millions of gallons of oil into its waters,

the “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico was bigger than the state of Massachusetts

(Venkataman 2008).

In a world with already fragile marine ecosystems and increasingly

scarce freshwater, we can ill afford to continue raising animals by such

methods. Indeed, given that eating meat is nutritionally unnecessary(13) and

detracts more from the global supply of food than it provides,(14) not only is

the inefficient and wasteful use of increasingly scarce freshwater ecologically

unsustainable, it is morally unacceptable to continue to preference

the acquired taste of meat over the need for life-giving freshwater. Unfortunately,

the impact of industrial livestock production is not limited to the

quantity and quality of freshwater or the damage done to fragile marine

ecosystems. The impacts of livestock production on the land and the flora

and fauna that depend on it are equally severe and unsustainable.

 Land degradation, deforestation, and the sixth great extinction

For millennia, agricultural production has been the driving force

behind what is euphemistically referred to as “land conversion.” As the

human population races toward an estimated nine billion people by midcentury,

the dimensions of this “conversion” are massive. Nearly a third

of the Earth’s land surface has already been cleared to make way for a

global farm and the rate of clearing is accelerating (Steinfeld et al. 2006,

xxi, 5, and 271–72).

Though few people connect the steak on their plate to deforestation

in the Amazon, the link is now undeniable. “In the Amazon, cattle ranching

is now the primary reason for deforestation” (Steinfeld et al. 2006,

272). Indeed, the ever-expanding demand for beef is the single greatest

contributor to deforestation worldwide. “In Latin America where the

greatest amount of deforestation is occurring—70 percent of previous

forested land in the Amazon is occupied by pastures, and feed crops

cover a large part of the remainder” (xxi). Moreover, after a brief period

of decline, the rate of deforestation for pasture land is once again

increasing, reaching an annual rate of more than 13 million hectares

(over 32 million acres) a year, “an area the size of Greece or Nicaragua”

(UNEP 2003). Not only is the rate of clearing unsustainable, but also the

way that these cleared lands are subsequently being “cultivated” is of

great concern.

The FAO reports that, worldwide, 20 percent of all pastures and

rangelands and nearly 75 percent of those in “dry areas” are being degraded,

“mostly through overgrazing, compaction and erosion…” (Steinfeld

et al. 2006, xxi). In the United States, nearly all (90%) of crop land is

being depleted thirteen times faster than the natural replacement rate of

one ton per hectare per year (Pimentel and Pimentel 2003, 662s). Overall,

in the United States, livestock are responsible for an estimated 55 percent

of soil erosion (Steinfeld et al 2006, 273). In some parts of the world the

conversion of forest and grasslands to pasture or feed crops is depleting

the land causing “desertification.”(15)

In hastening the destructive spread of deserts across ever-larger portions

of the globe, livestock production is threatening not only livestock

and agriculture, but the remaining, already-stressed ecosystems.(16) As

farmers and ranchers clear forested land and draw ever-larger checks on

the non-renewable stores of fossil energy to fuel our global farm, we are

pushing many species to extinction.

There is wide consensus among biologists that the present rate of

extinction is 50 to 500 times the normal “background rate” revealed by

the fossil record (Woodruff 2001, 5471). It is because of this that some

claim that we are in the midst of the sixth great extinction in the history

of our planet. Though many environmental philosophers recognize

the seriousness of rapid anthropogenic species extinction, few note that

the production of meat may now be “the leading player in the reduction

of biodiversity, since it is the major driver of deforestation, as well as

one of the leading drivers of land degradation, pollution, climate change,

overfishing, sedimentation of coastal areas and facilitation of invasions by

alien species” (Steinfeld et al. 2006, xxiii, italics added). To adapt a memorable

phrase from Peter Singer: we are quite literally gambling with the

future of millions of forms of life on Earth for the sake of hamburgers.(17)

Cooking the Planet

In considering responses to global climate change, what has largely

been lost in all of the “green” talk about fuel efficient cars and compact

fluorescents, windmills and photovoltaics, is the fact that the food we

eat contributes more to global climate change than what we drive or the

energy we use. Worldwide, emissions from agriculture exceed both power

generation (McMichael et al. 2007, 1259) and transportation (Steinfeld et

al 2006, xxi; Pelletier and Tyedmers 2010a, 2), contributing as much as a

third of all greenhouse gas emissions (Bellarby et al., 2008, 5).(18) The portion

of these emissions dedicated to livestock production is substantial,

constituting approximately 18 percent of global anthropogenic greenhouse

gas (GHG) emissions (Steinfeld et al. 2006, xxi; Halweil 2008, 2;

Pelletier and Tyedmers 2010a, 2). Beyond the unstated taboo against publicly

criticizing the morality of various food choices, part of the reason that

the livestock sector is often omitted or ignored in discussions of global

climate change may be that it is responsible for a relatively small portion

of direct global carbon dioxide emissions (9%), primarily from the burning

of biomass (deforestation) to create feedcrops or pasture. However, a

closer analysis reveals that meat production has a much larger role in the

emission of methane (CH4), a potent heat-trapping gas.

Whereas carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have increased

by more than a third over pre-industrial levels, the concentration

of methane has more than doubled in the last two centuries (Houghton

2009, 20, 50). Methane is formed through anaerobic breakdown of organic

matter. Thus, there are “natural” sources of methane, the most

important of which are wetlands and termite mounds. The major anthropogenic

sources are coal mining, leakage from natural gas pipelines and

oil wells, rice paddies, biomass burning (burning of wood and peat), and,

most important for present purposes, waste treatment (manure) and enteric

fermentation (bovine flatulence) (Houghton 2009, 50).(19) Though still

present in the atmosphere in far smaller amounts than carbon dioxide

(1.775 parts per million (ppm) vs. 380 ppm), methane plays a disproportionate

role in global warming, contributing 21 percent of all anthropogenic

warming (35). The reason for this has to do with differences in the

molecular properties of atmospheric methane.

Unlike carbon dioxide, which is gradually “taken up” by land biota

or the ocean,(20) methane is chemically broken down in the atmosphere,

lasting an average of only twelve years.(21) This relatively short lifecycle is

offset by the fact that methane is far more potent at trapping heat than

carbon dioxide. Indeed, molecule-for-molecule, methane traps twentythree

times as much heat as carbon dioxide. Taking this differing global

warming potential into account, we can calculate the overall footprint of

livestock production in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent. According

to a recent study, “to produce 1 kg of beef in a US feedlot requires the

equivalent of 14.8 kg of CO2. As a comparison, 1 gallon of gasoline emits

approximately 2.4 kg of CO2. Producing 1 kg of beef thus has a similar

impact on the environment as 6.2 gallons of gasoline, or driving 160 miles

in the average American mid-size car” (Fiala 2008, 413). Overall then,

factoring in both direct and indirect emissions and the differences in lifecycle

and potency of different gases, the livestock sector is responsible for

nearly a fifth (18%) of all GHG emissions worldwide. It would seem that

the chickens in our pots are more responsible for global climate change

than the cars in our garages.(22)

This realization is alarming as the effect of even the relatively small

amount of warming (0.6oC ± 0.2 oC) in the twentieth century is already

being felt, particularly in northern latitudes, where the effects are amplified.(23) 
In the coming decades these changes will accelerate with the rising

temperature. Though there will be regional winners and losers, generally

those least responsible for causing the heat trapping gases (the developing

nations) are expected to be most severely affected by the changing climate,

including melting icecaps and glaciers, rising sea levels, shifting weather

patterns, more intense storms, drought, desertification, species extinction,

salinization of freshwater, spread of infectious disease, and millions of

environmental refugees.

In sum, we have found that livestock cast a very long shadow indeed. The

mass consumption of animals (and the intensive, industrial methods that

make them possible) is a primary reason why humans are hungry, fat,

or sick and is a leading cause behind the depletion and pollution of waterways,

the degradation and deforestation of the land, the extinction of

species, and the warming of the planet. The urgency of this realization becomes

even more apparent when considered in light of the rapidly accelerating

rate of meat consumption, which is expected to more than double

by 2050 from the 1990 level of 229 million tons per year to 465 million

tons (Steinfeld et al. 2006, xx). As the FAO notes, the “environmental

impact per unit of livestock” must be halved just to maintain the current

level of environmental damage, which is itself already environmentally

unsustainable (ibid.).

Even in its characteristically guarded manner, the FAO is surprisingly

direct: “Better policies in the livestock sector are an environmental requirement,

and a social and health necessity” (4). Given that livestock’s

“contribution to environmental problems is on a massive scale…its potential

contribution to their solution is equally large. The impact is so

significant that it needs to be addressed with urgency. Major reductions in

impact could be achieved at reasonable cost” (xx). Let us transition, then,

to consider how, according to the FAO, livestock’s long shadow might be

shortened.

Efficiency, technology, and the market

The FAO suggests the following specific measures to mitigate the environmental

impact of livestock production.

• Agricultural subsidies—Governments should commit to the

gradual elimination of “often perverse subsidies,” which too

often “encourage livestock producers to engage in environmentally

damaging activities” (xxiii-xxiv).

• Overgrazing—The impact of grazing can be mitigated

through the institution of grazing fees (pricing the commons),

and restricting livestock access to waterways, which

reduces erosion, sedimentation, and pollution (xxi).

• Freshwater—Irrigation water should be properly priced.

Livestock access to waterways and riparian areas should

be strictly limited. Producers should utilize irrigation practices

and technology that reduce loss of freshwater through

evaporation and leakage (xxii).

• Manure—Research and implementation of integrated manure

management practices should be accelerated, including

biogas digestion and methane capturing systems. This technology

has the benefit of capturing heat trapping methane

as an energy source, reducing water pollution, and creating

high-quality fertilizer that can return nutrients to the soil

(279).24

• Soil conservation—Soil erosion and degradation can be

mitigated through already known practices, such as avoiding

bare fallow, the appropriate use of fertilizers, “silvopastorlism,”

and controlled exclusion from “sensitive areas”

(xxi).25

• Decentralization—Zoning laws should be created or

changed to site CAFOs away from population centers. This

will mitigate infectious disease vectors and “bring waste

generated into line with the capacity of accessible land to

absorb that waste” (279).

• CAFOs—Developing nations should accelerate the transition

to intensive, industrial livestock production to increase

resource efficiency and decrease environmental damage per

unit of livestock (278).

The FAO suggests that industry and political leaders worldwide

should urgently consider implementing these changes to how animals are

raised for food. For centuries the price (if they are priced at all) of water,

land, and feed have not reflected their actual scarcity. The failure to internalize

the cost of these “externalities” has led to artificially low prices

and the “overexploitation and pollution” of the global commons (xxiii

and 277). From an economic perspective, better “internalizing” costs will

allow market forces to moderate demand; paying the “true cost” of meat

will make it more expensive, which in turn is likely to result in a reduction

in consumption and production. The elimination of agricultural subsidies

and the pricing of water and pastureland would help to reduce the ongoing

destruction of the commons. Given the entrenched nature of global

subsidies schemes around the world, the political viability of this route is

in doubt.

From the perspective of ethicists and activists concerned with animal

welfare, the FAO’s most controversial recommendation is likely to be

that nations should hasten the transition to CAFOs. In its report the FAO

claims that the environmental problems caused by industrial livestock

production are not from their “large scale” or “production intensity,” but

from their “geographical location and concentration” (278). For instance,

the FAO argues that raising animals in concentrated animal feeding operations

(CAFOs), rather than using pasture-based methods, will decrease

deforestation for pasture, thereby reducing a major source of greenhouse

emissions caused by the livestock sector.(26)

I will evaluate the sustainability of adopting the FAO’s suggestions

more fully in the final section. Presently I note that, as important as many

of the FAO’s suggested changes are, it is misleading to suggest that they

would significantly mitigate livestock production’s high cost to animals,

human health, and the environment. For instance, while increasing the

intensity of livestock production would likely decrease deforestation for

pasture, it would do nothing to reduce (and may in fact increase) deforestation

for feedcrops. Further, increasing the industrial production of

livestock would result in a corresponding increase in the loss of edible

nutrition, use of freshwater, spread of antibiotic resistant disease, and increase

in disease caused by the overconsumption of animals.

As Pelletier and Tyedmers conclude in their analysis of the FAO report:

“Given the magnitude of necessary efficiency gains, it would appear

highly unlikely that technological improvements alone will be sufficient

to achieve the objective of maintaining the proportional contribution of

the livestock sector to cumulative anthropogenic contributions to these issues…”

(Pelletier and Tyedmers 2010a, 3). As I will argue more fully in the

final section, even if all of the FAO’s recommended measures were implemented,

meat production practices would remain woefully unsustainable.

As Pelletier and Tyedmers put it, there is a “profound disconnect between

the anticipated scale of potential environmental impacts associated with

projected livestock production levels and the most optimistic mitigation

strategies relative to these current, published estimates of sustainable biocapacity”

(2).

In focusing exclusively on reforming livestock production methods

and refusing to recommend explicitly the reduction of meat consumption,

the FAO’s report gives the false impression that current meat consumption

practices can indefinitely continue, if only methods were made more “efficient”

by applying industrial techniques.(27) Unfortunately, as I will show,

these market-based “technical fixes” would do little more than slow the

bleeding of a gaping, infected wound. Indeed, in a telling passage the FAO

seems to recognize this, noting that “by applying scientific knowledge and

technological capability” we can at best “offset” some of the damage.

“Meanwhile, the vast legacy of damage leaves future generations with

a debt” (Steinfeld et al. 2006, 5). Recognizing that current industrial agricultural

and livestock production methods are unsustainable, some are

calling for more dramatic changes to the way animals are raised.

Let them Eat Grass

 A raft of largely popular books decrying the industrialization of food

production has reached a new high-water mark, led most vocally and

eloquently by the journalist Michael Pollan.(28) Unlike the philosophers and

activists of an earlier generation who, inspired by the work of Peter Singer

and Tom Regan, fought against industrial farming because of the excessive

suffering caused to animals, this “new agrarian farming movement”

is focused more on the human and environmental costs of industrialized

food production.(29) Though the movement is diverse, it is largely characterized

by a return to more “natural” methods of producing food and raising

animals, including local, organic produce and free-range animals. Thus,

there is a hue and cry for a movement away from CAFOs, not necessarily

because of the pain and suffering that they undeniably cause to the animals,

but because of the human and environmental damage they inflict.

While a complete analysis of the new agrarian movement is not possible

here, it is important to consider whether and how a move away from

intensive, factory farming and toward extensive, pasture-based methods

would address the significant human and environmental harms currently

caused by livestock production.

First, although perhaps not its explicit intention, new agrarian methods

would dramatically improve the lives of livestock. As philosophers and

animal activists have rightly noted for decades, intensive factory farming

methods (especially in the United States) are unimaginably cruel. There

is little dispute that most of the animals raised in CAFOs lead short lives

of intense suffering. “The crucial moral difference,” Pollan rightly notes,

“between a CAFO and a good farm is that the CAFO systematically deprives

the animals in it of their ‘characteristic form of life’” (2007, 321).(30)

Animals should be returned, Pollan argues, to their rightful evolutionary

role as members of a complex farming community symbiotically related

in complex webs of interdependence.(31)

The new agrarians argue that the elimination of CAFOs would not

only be good for the animals themselves, it would also be good for humans.

First, the widespread adoption of new agrarian methods would reduce the

spread of treatment resistant infections by eliminating the preventive use

of antibiotics. Second, by eliminating the confined, unsanitary conditions

of CAFOs and their close proximity to population centers, pasture-based

livestock production would reduce the risk of spreading infectious diseases

from livestock to the human community. However, the most significant

benefit to human health would probably come from the reduction of meat

consumption caused by dramatically higher meat prices. Presumably, the

methods advocated by the new agrarian movement would entail much

smaller herds and flocks which, combined with the proposed elimination

of agricultural subsidies, would dramatically increase the price of meat

(and other industrially processed foods). This decrease in supply and increase

in price of meat would likely result in a reduction in consumption,

which would have significant benefits for human health. As The Lancet

found in its recent study, a “substantial contraction” in meat consumption

should benefit human health “mainly by reducing the risk of ischaemic

heart disease…, obesity, colorectal cancer, and, perhaps, some other cancers”

(McMichael et al. 2007, 1254). In this way, proponents of the new

agrarian movement argue, meat would remain a part of the human diet,

but it would play a noticeably smaller role.

This return to a more “traditional diet” was first championed by the

Rachel Carson of the food movement, Francis More Lappé (1991 [1971],

13). Animal flesh has been part of homo sapiens’ diet for millions of years,

but until recently it has always played a minor role. This evolutionary

perspective on meat eating is also at the heart of Pollan’s discussion in

his acclaimed The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Pollan takes issue with animal

welfare advocates who equate the domestication and raising of animals

with “exploitation” or “slavery,” arguing that this portrays a fundamental

misunderstanding of the relationship between humans and livestock.

“Domestication is an evolutionary, rather than a political, development”

Pollan writes. “It is certainly not a regime humans somehow imposed on

animals some ten thousand years ago” (2007, 320). Rather, Pollan argues,

the raising of animals for food and labor is an instance of human predation

and, as such, it is an instance of “mutualism or symbiosis between

species” (Ibid.). The suggestion, then, is that humans should see the raising

and consuming of animals not as a regrettable moral failing but as an ecologically

vital part of our evolutionary heritage. “Indeed,” Pollan argues,

“it is doubtful you can build a genuinely sustainable agriculture without

animals to cycle nutrients and support local food production. If our concern

is for the health of nature—rather than, say, the internal consistence

of our moral code or the condition of our souls—then eating animals may

be the most ethical thing to do” (327).

Overall, then, advocates of the new agrarian movement argue that,

compared to the dominant industrial model, the organic, pasture-based

methods are better for the animals raised, for the humans who eat them,

and for our shared natural environment. As a comparative judgment, I am

in agreement with this claim. The methods of the new agrarian movement

are in many ways an improvement over the industrial livestock practices

encouraged by the FAO and used by the majority of producers around

the world.

Further, advocates of the new agrarian movement are right to note

that vegetarians and vegans should not presume that the elimination of

meat automatically makes their diet environmentally sustainable. The

more industrial the agricultural processes involved in producing one’s

food, whether meat or plants, the greater the ecological impact. Ecologically

speaking, a vegetarian diet based on heavily processed meat substitutes

made out of plants that were raised in monoculture on formerly

forested lands using large quantities of pesticides and fertilizers may be

more ecologically destructive than eating a grass-fed cow.

Thus, I join those in the new agrarian movement in recognizing that

the act of eating (whether plants or animals) is a fundamentally ecological

act. The consumption of one organism by another is perhaps the most

basic form of ecological relation. Through the act of consumption, the

other literally becomes part of one’s being. Indeed, it is important to recognize

that every organism destroys others that it might live and thrive;

such destruction is at the very heart of the act of living. As Alfred North

Whitehead once noted “Life is robbery…” (Whitehead 1978 [1929], 105).

Every organism takes from others to sustain itself. This view is consistent

with an appropriate, ecological view of our world. Ecologically speaking,

the destruction of life is a vital part of the flow of energy through natural

systems. And yet while life does indeed involve robbery, as Whitehead

rightly recognized, “the robber requires justification” (105). As moral

agents, our robbery of life must be justified.

Given the ecological standpoint adopted here, the morality of one’s

diet is not merely determined by what is eaten, but also how what is eaten

is produced. That is, the question is not whether one’s diet is environmentally

destructive, but how destructive it is. While there are important,

morally relevant differences between plants and animals, vegetarians and

vegans should not be seduced into thinking that their hands are clean because

they don’t eat animals. Once we appreciate the embedded nature of

our ecological existence, we realize that no living being has “clean hands.”

Every living organism must destroy others in order that it might sustain

itself. Humans are no exception. It is not possible for humans—or any

other living being—to sustain themselves without destroying other beautiful

and complex forms of life. Such a moral position resists the temptation

to reduce the moral life to simplistic binary states of “good” and “bad.” In

the final analysis, there are only ameliorative grades of better and worse

relative to that ever-evolving moral ideal. In a world replete with beautiful

and unique achievements of life, our aim as moral agents should be

to avoid destroying or maiming another being unless such destruction is

necessary in order to achieve the most robust, rich, and beautiful result

possible.(32) The act of eating is an inherently moral act; our robbery of life

must be continually justified.

Yet is pointing, as Pollan and Lappé do, to the evolutionary basis of

our meat consumption a sufficient moral justification of continuing the

practice? No. Explaining the genesis of a practice is not yet to give its

moral justification. Indeed, Pollan himself makes this point. “Do you really

want to base your moral code on the natural order? Murder and rape

are natural, too. Besides, we can choose: Humans don’t need to kill other

creatures in order to survive; carnivorous animals do” (2007, 320). Given

that humans don’t need to kill other creatures in order to survive or even

thrive, we need to morally justify the choice. Beyond the evolutionary

argument, the moral weight of the argument for continuing to eat animals

would seem to rest on the claim that truly sustainable agriculture requires

the use of livestock to complete the nutrient cycle. Yet is this the case? To

conclude that such methods are better than industrial methods is not yet

to have shown they are good. Is in fact eating meat “the most ethical thing

to do”?

In his recent essay Vasile Stãnescu has noted that there is an often unrecognized

“dark side” to Pollan’s and Kingsolver’s new agrarian model.(33)

By creating “an idealized, unrealistic, and, at times, distressingly sexist and

xenophobic literary pastoral…” the new agrarian movement encourages

“traditional” gender roles and national or regional identities over against

foreign workers and food (Stãnescu 2010, 10). While there is no necessary

connection between the adoption of pasture-based livestock production

and a nostalgia for supposed “traditional ways,” Stãnescu is right to question

whether, embedded within the call to return animals to the land, is

also a call to return women to the kitchen and men to the range.

However, Stãnescu’s critique goes beyond questioning the narrative

that underlies the new agrarianism. He also notes that the problem with

the new agrarian model is that “it is simply factually untrue” (12). Given

the world’s current and projected rate of meat consumption, he argues

that it is doubtful whether it is physically possible to raise livestock via

pasture-based methods. “[L]ocally based meat, regardless of its level of

popularity, can never constitute more than either a rare and occasional

novelty item, or food choices for only a few privileged customers, since

there simply is not enough arable land left in the entire world to raise

large quantities of pasture fed animals necessary to meet the world’s meat

consumption” (Stãnescu 2010, 14–15). This brings us finally to the crux

of the issue: is it in fact possible to feed sustainably the present and projected

human population on a diet based significantly on the consumption

of animals?

A More Sustainable Diet

The human population will soon pass the seven billion mark.(34) Over

the next forty years (by 2050), the United Nations estimates that at least

two billion more humans will be born.(35) Those billions of people will

need significant quantities of freshwater and food. If present trends are

any indication, much of this food will be in the form of animal products.

Assuming the wide adoption and continued improvement of livestock

production methods as suggested by the FAO’s report, what are the likely

environmental impacts of a future with nine billion meat eaters? Is the

FAO right that livestock production can be made sustainable through the

intensification of livestock production? Or are advocates of the new agrarianism

right that the only form of sustainable agriculture is one based on

pasture-raised animals? On our increasingly small planet, what form of

diet is the most ethically responsible and environmentally sustainable?

To help answer these crucial questions, I turn to a recent study of the

FAO’s report by Pelletier and Tyedmers. In their study they use “simplified

but robust models to conservatively estimate” the likely environmental

impacts in 2050 of different dietary scenarios for meeting the USDA

recommendations for protein consumption (2010a, 3). The “FAO projection

scenario” represents the status quo baseline of projected increases

in animal product consumption, which as we have seen is expected to be

double that of 1990 levels (Steinfeld et al. 2006, xx). In the “substitution

scenario,” less efficient ruminant products (cows, sheep, goats, milk) are

replaced by monogastic products (chickens, turkeys, eggs). Finally, Pelletier

and Tyedmers consider the anticipated environmental impact of a

“soy protein scenario,” in which the recommended daily allowance (RDA)

of protein is derived entirely from soy protein sources (vegan diet).

This study is particularly useful for our purposes because each of these

scenarios is then compared against recent estimates of “environmental

boundary conditions” for sustainable greenhouse gas emissions, reactive

nitrogen mobilization,(36) and anthropogenic biomass appropriation. These

boundary conditions are defined as “biophysical limits which define a safe

operating space for economic activities at a global scale” (Pelletier and Tyedmers

2010a, 1–2). For instance, citing work by Allison, et al., Pelletier and

Tyedmers suggest that—if warming this century is to be limited to two degrees

Centigrade, which is required to avoid the most severe environmental

disruptions projected by the IPCC—annual per capita greenhouse emissions

must be limited to one metric ton (2).(37) On the other hand, Pelletier and Tyedmers

use Bishop, et al.’s estimate that humanity can “sustainably appropriate

9.72 billion tons of net primary production annually without undermining

the biodiversity support potential of global ecosystems” (2010b, 3).38

Although far from a complete account of sustainability, Pelletier

and Tyedmers’ study provides a helpful model for evaluating whether

human activity is sustainable with regard to these three critical areas. All

of human activity—including not only food production, but also energy

production, manufacturing, transportation—must fall within these “environmental

boundary conditions” if humanity is to avert “irreversible

ecological change” (2010a, 3).

The results of Pelletier and Tyedmers’ study are staggering. While recognizing

that their models still embody “considerable uncertainty,” they

find that “by 2050, the livestock sector alone may either occupy the majority

of, or considerably overshoot, current best estimates of humanity’s safe

operating space in each of these domains” (2).(39) Specifically, by 2050, in

order to meet FAO projected livestock demand (FAO scenario), livestock

production will require 70% of the sustainable boundary conditions for

greenhouse gas emissions, 88% of sustainable biomass appropriation, and

294% of sustainable reactive nitrogen mobilization (2). Thus, according

to these conservative estimates, if humans consume animal-sourced proteins

at the rates projected by the FAO, livestock production alone will

consume the majority of or exceed entirely the sustainable boundary conditions

in these three critical areas.

Note that, since they are limited to direct greenhouse gas emissions

and direct appropriation of biomass, these figures are, if anything, likely

to be overly conservative. If indirect emissions and biomass appropriations

are included, for instance by including the effects of land-use conversion,

then it is likely that the sustainable boundary conditions for both

GHG emissions and biomass appropriation would also be exceeded (Pelletier

and Tyedmers 2010b, 3). In modeling the likely direct emissions and

biomass appropriation, Pelletier and Tyedmers provide an important response

to the widely touted work of Pitesky, Stackhouse, and Mitloehner,

which takes issue with several of the FAO’s conclusions.(40) Relevant here

is the claim that increasing the intensity of livestock production in developing

nations would alleviate the need for deforestation and would be

sufficient to make livestock emissions sustainable. However, Pelletier and

Tyedmers’ model demonstrates that this reasoning is likely to be mistaken.

Even with the widespread use of the most “efficient” livestock production

methods, livestock production would use an unsustainable portion of the

environmental boundary conditions for carbon dioxide emissions, nitrogen

emissions, and, especially, biomass appropriation.

What if, instead of relying on ruminant sources of protein (beef,

sheep, goat, and milk), humans derived their protein from more efficient,

monogastric sources (chicken, turkey, and eggs) as in the substitution scenario?

(41) According to Pelletier and Tyedmers, if poultry products were

consumed instead of ruminants, “anticipated marginal CO2-e emissions

would rise by 22% and biomass appropriation would increase by 15%

relative to year 2000 levels.… However, relative to the FAO projections

scenario, substituting poultry for marginal ruminant production would

reduce greenhouse gas emissions by only 13%, biomass appropriation by

5%, and reactive nitrogen mobilization by 8%” (Pelletier and Tyedmers,

2010b, 3). Thus, overall, the substitution scenario would only yield an

aggregate reduction in impacts of 5–13% over that of the FAO projection

scenario, suggesting that the sustainability of a diet of mainly monogastric

animals is also doubtful.

What if all humans obtained their recommended daily intake of protein

from plant (in this case soybean) sources as in the soy protein scenario?

Creating the 457,986 thousand tons of soy beans (ibid.) necessary

to feed the projected nine billion humans in 2050 would no doubt have

a considerable impact on the environment. However, relative to the FAO

scenario for 2050, it would represent a 98% reduction of greenhouse gas

emissions, a 94% reduction in biomass appropriation, and a 32% reduction

in reactive nitrogen mobilization. Thus, the entire human population

could, in principle, meet its protein needs from plant sources and only

contribute 1.1% of sustainable greenhouse gas emissions, 1.1% of sustainable

biomass appropriation, and 69% of sustainable reactive nitrogen

mobilization (ibid.). Thus, a plant-based diet is not only more healthful

than the other diets,(42) it is also the most sustainable form of diet.(43)

Thus, even under the most optimistic scenarios for technological improvements

in livestock efficiency, nine billion humans could not continue

to eat animals at the current and projected rates and avoid catastrophic

environmental harms. “As the human species runs the final course of rapid

population growth before beginning to level off midcentury,” Pelletier and

Tyedmers (2010a) write, “reining in the global livestock sector should be

considered a key leverage point for averting irreversible ecological change

and moving humanity toward a safe and sustainable operating space” (3).

In the end, the more animal products one consumes, the more destructive

one’s diet is to the environment. Though important and morally relevant

qualitative differences exist between industrial and non-industrial

methods, given the present and projected size of the human population,

the morality and sustainability of one’s diet are inversely related to the

proportion of animals and animal products in one’s diet. Thus, if we are

to ensure adequate food and water for all humans without exceeding the

Earth’s capacity to support life, we must find the courage to address directly

the morality of eating meat on an increasingly small planet.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The title of this work was inspired by the report of the Food and Agriculture

Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Henning Steinfeld et

al., Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options, Food

and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2006, http://www

.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM. The author wishes to extend

his sincere thanks to the generous blind reviewer, whose comments

and suggestions have greatly improved this essay, and to Suzie Henning

and David Perry for their keen copyediting skills.

NOTES

1 Although “meat” should be inclusive of all forms of animal flesh, including

aquatic, following standard usage in this field, the term “meat” will largely

refer to beef, pork, chicken, and lamb.

2 According to Halweil (2008), “Factory farms account for 67 percent of poultry

meat production, 50 percent of egg production, and 42 percent of pork

production” (2).

3 See Singer 2002 [1975].

4 Cf. “Worldwide the number of overweight people (about 1 billion) has now

surpassed the number of malnourished people (about 800 million). And a

significant part of the growth in obesity occurs in the developing world. For

example, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there are 300

million obese adults and 115 million suffering from obesity-related conditions

in the developing world” (Steinfeld et al. 2006, 6).

5 Cf. “It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately

planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful,

nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention

and treatment of certain diseases” (“Position of the American Dietetic Association:

Vegetarian Diets” 2009, 1266).

6 Cf. “Results from the 2005–2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination

Survey (NHANES), using measured heights and weights, indicate that an

estimated 32.7 percent of US adults 20 years and older are overweight, 34.3

percent are obese and 5.9 percent are extremely obese” (Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention 2008).

7 Cf. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2010; Gardner and Halweil

2000, 8.

8 This appropriate heading was used in a recent issue of the National Geographic

focused on water use (National Geographic 2010).

9 See also, “The extent to which a country is water stressed is related to the

proportion of the available freshwater supply that is withdrawn for use…”

(Houghton 2009, 188).

10 See Houghton 2009, 188 and Steinfeld et al. 2006, 5. According to Pimentel

and Pimentel, “in the Western United States, agriculture accounts for 85% of

freshwater use” (Pimentel and Pimentel 2003, 662s).

11 Cf. “Livestock also affect the replenishment of freshwater by compacting soil,

reducing infiltration, degrading the banks of watercourse, drying up floodplains

and lowering water tables. Livestock’s contribution to deforestation

also increases runoff and reduces dry season flows” (Steinfeld et al. 2006,

xxii).

12 This quote continues, “The major sources of pollution are from animal

wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and

pesticides used for feedcrops, and sediments from eroded pastures.”

13 Cf. note 6.

14 Cf. “In simple numeric terms, livestock actually detract more from total food

supply than they provide. Livestock now consume more human edible protein

than they produce. In fact, livestock consume 77 million tonnes of protein

contained in feedstuff that could potentially be used for human nutrition,

whereas only 58 million tones of protein are contained in food products that

livestock supply” (Steinfeld et al. 2006, 270).

15 Cf. “Desertification…is the degradation of land brought about by climate

variations or human activities that have led to decreased vegetation, reduction

of available water, reduction of crop yields and erosion of soil” (Houghton

2009, 197).

16 Cf. “The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)

set up in 1996 estimates that over 70% of these dry lands, covering over 25%

of the world’s land area, are degraded and therefore affected by desertification”

(Houghton 2009, 197).

17 Cf. “We are, quite literally, gambling with the future of our planet—for the

sake of hamburgers” (Singer [1975] 2002, 169).

18 Cf. “The total global contribution of agriculture, considering all direct and

indirect emissions, is between 8.5–16.5 Pg CO2-eq, which represents between

17 and 32% of all global human-induced GHG emissions, including land use

change…” (Bellarby 2008, 5).

19 For a breakdown of methane emission by source, see Houghton 2009, 53,

table 32.

20 Although the shorthand of one century is often used for the lifetime of carbon

in the atmosphere, the actual lifecycle is more complicated because reservoirs

“turnover” at a wide range of timescales, “which range from less than

a year to decades (for exchange with the top layers of the ocean and the land

biosphere) to millennia (for exchange with the deep ocean or long-lived soil

pools)” (Houghton 2009, 37).

21 Cf. “The main process for the removal of methane from the atmosphere is

through chemical destruction. It reacts with hydroxyl (OH) radicals, which

are present in the atmosphere because of processes involving sunlight, oxygen,

ozone and water vapour. The average lifetime of methane in the atmosphere

is determined by the rate of this loss process. At about 12 years it is

much shorter than the lifetime of carbon dioxide” (Houghton 2009, 50).

22 Cf. “With rising temperatures, rising sea levels, melting icecaps and glaciers,

shifting ocean current and weather patterns, climate change is the most serious

challenge facing the human race. The livestock sector is a major player,

responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2

equivalent. This is a higher share than transport” (Steinfeld et al. 2006, xxi).

Pitesky, Stackhouse, and Mitloehner have rightly noted that the FAO’s comparison

of the livestock and transportation sectors is potentially misleading

because it is “based on inappropriate or inaccurate scaling of predictions”

(Pitesky et al. 2009, 33). However, Pitesky, Stackhouse, and Mitloehner do

not dispute that livestock production accounts for 18% of global greenhouse

gas emissions. Rather, their claim is first that the FAO’s comparison of the

livestock and transportation sectors is misleading because, whereas both direct

and indirect emissions are included for the livestock sector, only direct

emissions are counted for the transportation sector. Secondly, they note that

while it is true that the livestock sector has a larger footprint than transportation

in many developing nations, it is not true of the United States (and

most developed nations) where livestock account for only 2.8% of emissions

(4). Thus, Pitesky, Stackhouse, and Mitloehner rightly note that a more precise

formulation would be to say that “agriculture is considered the largest

source of anthropogenic CH4 and N2O at the global, national, and state

level…while transport is considered the largest anthropogenic source of CO2

production”(11).

23 For instance, a June 2009 report of the Government Accountability Office

(GAO) found that 31 native villages face “imminent threats” from “growing

impacts of climate change in Alaska.” At least twelve of these villages have

elected to relocate entirely (United States Government Accountability Office

2009).

24 The immediate viability of manure management systems is questioned by

Fiala, who claims that “this technology is a long way from being used in the

US and Europe, let alone the rest of the world, this is not likely to be a solution

in the near future” (Fiala 2008, 418).

25 Silvopasture is the practice of combining forestry and animal husbandry to

enhance soil preservation and animal welfare. For more on silvopastoralism

see Sharrow 1999, 111–126.

26 Cf. “Expansion of livestock production is a key factor in deforestation, especially

in Latin America where the greatest amount of deforestation is occurring—

70 percent of previous forested land in the Amazon is occupied by

pastures, and feedcrops cover a large part of the remainder” (Steinfeld et al.

2006, xxi).

27 In its otherwise comprehensive and detailed analysis, the FAO makes only

one brief reference to the role of meat consumption. “While not being addressed

in this assessment, it may well be argued that environmental damage

by livestock may be significantly reduced by lowering excessive consumption

of livestock products amoung wealthy people” (Steinfeld et al. 2006, 269).

28 See, for instance, Schlosser 2001; Schlosser and Wilson 2006; Pollan 2007,

2009; Kingsolver 2007; Petrini 2007; Foer 2009; Fairlie 2010.

29 I will use the phrase “new agrarian movement” to refer to the loose collection

of popular writers and scholars who seek to move society away from

industrial food production. This phrase is inspired by the book series created

by The University of Kentucky Press, Culture of the Land: A Series in the

New Agrarianism. (See http://www.kentuckypress.com/newsite/pages/series/

series_agrarianism.html.) My thanks to Lee McBride for bringing this to my

attention.

30 Pollan 2007, 321.

31 On the symbiosis between livestock and humans, see Pollan 2007, 321f.

32 For a more developed defense of this kalocentric or beauty-centered position,

see Henning 2005 and 2009.

33 Kingsolver 2007. See also, James E. McWilliams, Just Food: Where Locavores

Get it Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly (Little, Brown and

Company 2009).

34 See United States Census Bureau 2010; UN 2011.

35 Contrary to its earlier projections, the United Nations is no longer expecting

the human population to stabilize midcentury at nine billion people. According

to its most recent estimates, the human population is projected to continue

to climb past ten billion people by 2100. See UN 2011.

36 Cf. “Nitrogen is essential to all life forms and is also the most abundant element

in the Earth’s atmosphere. Atmospheric N, however, exists in a stable

form (N2) inaccessible to most organisms until fixed in a reactive form (N-).

The supply of reactive nitrogen plays a pivotal role in controlling the productivity,

carbon storage, and species composition of ecosystems… Alteration of

the nitrogen cycle has numerous consequences, including increased radiative

forcing [i.e., climate change], photochemical smog and acid deposition, and

productivity increases leading to ecosystem simplification and biodiversity

loss” (Pelletier and Tyedmers 2010a, 1).

37 In 2000 the average American contributed twenty metric tons of carbon dioxide

(CDIAC).

38 Net Primary Production (NPP) is defined as “the net flux of carbon from the

atmosphere into green plants per unit time.… NPP is a fundamental ecological

variable, not only because it measures the energy input to the biosphere

and terrestrial carbon dioxide assimilation, but also because of its significance

in indicating the condition of the land surface area and status of a wide range

of ecological processes” (DAAC 2010).

39 The researchers admit the speculative nature of their models, but also note the

conservative nature of the presuppositions made. Cf. “Modeling the future is

fraught with uncertainties, and we would be remiss to present our estimates

as definitive. We have endeavored to err on the side of caution in developing

what we believe to be conservative forecasts of some of the potential future

environmental impacts of livestock production. For example, it would be impressive,

indeed, were all livestock production globally to achieve resource

efficiencies comparable to those reported for the least impactful contemporary

systems in industrialized countries, effectively reducing global impacts

per unity protein produced by 35% in 2050 relative to 2000—as we have

assumed here” (Pelletier and Tyedmers 2010a, 2).

40 For additional discussion of Pitesky et al., see also note 22 and 43.

41 This is in fact the suggestion of the article responding to Pelletier and Tyedmers

by Steinfeld and Gerber 2010.

42 This is confirmed by the American Dietetic Association (2009): “The results

of an evidenced based review showed that a vegetarian diet is associated with

a lower risk of death from ischemic heart disease. Vegetarians also appear to

have lower low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure,

and lower rates of hypertension and type 2 diabetes than nonvegetarians.

Furthermore, vegetarians tend to have a lower body mass index and lower

overall cancer rates” (1266).

43 Note that this responds to Pitesky, Stackhouse, and Mitloehner’s claim that

the FAO’s report is incomplete because it “does not account for ‘default’ emissions.

Specifically, if domesticated livestock were reduced or even eliminated,

the question of what ‘substitute’ GHGs would be produced in their place has

never been estimated” (35). Pelletier and Tyedmers’ analysis demonstrates

that a plant-based diet is likely to be the only sustainable way of feeding the

current and projected human population.

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Notes on contributors

Greta Gaard serves on the Editorial Board of ISLE: Interdisciplinary

Studies in Literature and Environment, and the Executive Board of the

Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE). Her

publications include Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature (1993), Ecological

Politics: Ecofeminists and the Greens (1998), Ecofeminist Literary

Criticism (1998), and The Nature of Home (2007). Author of over fifty

articles, Gaard is currently co-editing a volume on Feminist Ecocriticism

with Serpil Oppermann and Simon Estok. E-mail: greta.gaard@uwrf.edu

Benjamin Hale is Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department and

the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

He is currently co-editor of the journal Ethics, Policy & Environment

and has published papers in journals such as The Monist, Metaphilosophy,

Public Affairs Quarterly, Environmental Values, Science, Technology, and

Human Values, among others. His book, The Wicked and the Wild: Why

You Don’t Have to Love Nature to be Green, will be appearing from the

University of Chicago Press in Fall 2012. E-mail: bhale@colorado.edu

Brian G. Henning is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Gonzaga University

in Spokane, WA. His work includes the award-winning book The

Ethics of Creativity: Beauty, Morality and Nature in a Processive Cosmos

and the article, “Trusting in the ‘Efficacy of Beauty’: A Kalocentric Approach

to Moral Philosophy” in this journal. His scholarship and teaching

focus on the interconnections among ethics, metaphysics, and aesthetics,

especially as they relate to the ethics of global climate change. E-mail:

henning@gonzaga.edu

Sheila Lintott is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Bucknell University.

She works in feminist philosophy, philosophical aesthetics, and

environmental philosophy.