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
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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Foer, Jonathan Safran. 2009. Eating Animals. New York: Little, Brown and
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Fox, Michael Allen. 1999. “The Contribution of Vegetarianism to
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Gardner, Gary and Brian Halweil. 2000. Overfed and Underfed: The Global Epidemic
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a Processive Cosmos. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
———. 2009. “Trusting in the ‘Efficacy of Beauty’: A Kalocentric
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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.
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