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HUMANE MYTH
IN THE MEDIA:
Global Warming & Sustainability



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 HUMANE MYTH GLOSSARY

Abolition
Animal advocacy
Animal husbandry
Animal protection
Animal rights
Animal welfare
Animal welfare industrial complex
Animal-using industries
Co-option
Commodification
Conflict of Interest
Conscience
Conscientious objection
Critical thinking
Cruelty-free
Disillusionment
Doctrine of necessary evil
Happy Meat
Hogwashing
Humane myth
Humane slaughter
Neocarnism
Non-participation and Non-cooperation
Non-violent social change
Open Rescue
Path of Conscience
Plant-based diet
Privilege of domination
Speciesism
Suffering
Sustainable
Utilitarianism
Values-based activism
Vegan


 
Analysis

This article calls to our attention a stunning United Nations report with a message of planetary importance. Science tells us animal agriculture is one of the top contributors to global warming, and that switching away from a diet based on animal products will do more to reduce global warming than switching from a gas guzzling vehicle to a fuel efficient hybrid.

Given this, and given the catastrophic impact global warming is projected to have on the entire ecosystem, you would think it would be easier than ever for animal advocates to make the case for switching to a vegetarian diet. You would think that the large corporate animal advocacy groups would be pooling their resources with the large corporate environmental groups to inform the public that if we are to save our planet, we must begin to seriously reduce the amount of animal products we produce and consume.

Why, instead, are the large animal organizations collaborating with ranchers, grocers and fast food corporations? What is the logic in devoting massive resources toward campaigns that, at best, bring about slight improvements to the way that animals are used and killed, while not challenging the morality of animal exploitation or the sustainability of animal agriculture?

Many of those who are propagating the humane myth by attempting to reform animal husbandry practices say they are doing so because there is no hope of a major change of the status of animals in their lifetime, and so this is the best that can be done. But given social and ecological trends that are projected to spiral out of control over the next few decades, can anyone say for sure what will, or what will not be happening next year, much less ten or twenty years from now?

It can be argued that the uncertainty and instability of these times compels us to think and act boldly; that we are living in an era when environmental changes are going to force our civilization to rethink many long settled traditions; that this is precisely the moment to pour our resources into developing and publicizing a way of living that does the least harm to humans, animals, and the earth.

Is it not time to cut to the chase and offer as many people the information they need to practice the only diet that can sustain our planet's 6 or more billion humans, a diet that does not include animal products?

This humble article poses a challenge to the entire animal advocacy and environmental movements. How will that challenge be answered? It is up to us.

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

-- Buckminster Fuller




 


Vegetarian is the New Prius


It turns out that raising animals for food is a primary cause of land degradation, air pollution, water shortage, water pollution, loss of biodiversity, and not least of all, global warming.

Source: THE HUFFINGTON POST by Kathy Freston   Jan 2007   1/18/2007
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Excerpts:

...

Last month, the United Nations published a report on livestock and the environment with a stunning conclusion: "The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global." It turns out that raising animals for food is a primary cause of land degradation, air pollution, water shortage, water pollution, loss of biodiversity, and not least of all, global warming.

That's right, global warming. You've probably heard the story: emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are changing our climate, and scientists warn of more extreme weather, coastal flooding, spreading disease, and mass extinctions. It seems that when you step outside and wonder what happened to winter, you might want to think about what you had for dinner last night. The U.N. report says almost a fifth of global warming emissions come from livestock (i.e., those chickens Hoover was talking about, plus pigs, cattle, and others)--that's more emissions than from all of the world's transportation combined.

...

Last year researchers at the University of Chicago took the Prius down a peg when they turned their attention to another gas guzzling consumer purchase. They noted that feeding animals for meat, dairy, and egg production requires growing some ten times as much crops as we'd need if we just ate pasta primavera, faux chicken nuggets, and other plant foods. On top of that, we have to transport the animals to slaughterhouses, slaughter them, refrigerate their carcasses, and distribute their flesh all across the country. Producing a calorie of meat protein means burning more than ten times as much fossil fuels--and spewing more than ten times as much heat-trapping carbon dioxide--as does a calorie of plant protein. The researchers found that, when it's all added up, the average American does more to reduce global warming emissions by going vegetarian than by switching to a Prius.

According to the UN report, it gets even worse when we include the vast quantities of land needed to give us our steak and pork chops. Animal agriculture takes up an incredible 70% of all agricultural land, and 30% of the total land surface of the planet. As a result, farmed animals are probably the biggest cause of slashing and burning the world's forests. Today, 70% of former Amazon rainforest is used for pastureland, and feed crops cover much of the remainder. These forests serve as "sinks," absorbing carbon dioxide from the air, and burning these forests releases all the stored carbon dioxide, quantities that exceed by far the fossil fuel emission of animal agriculture.

...

If carbon dioxide is responsible for about one-half of human-related greenhouse gas warming since the industrial revolution, methane and nitrous oxide are responsible for another one-third. These super-strong gases come primarily from farmed animals' digestive processes, and from their manure. In fact, while animal agriculture accounts for 9% of our carbon dioxide emissions, it emits 37% of our methane, and a whopping 65% of our nitrous oxide.

It's a little hard to take in when thinking of a small chick hatching from her fragile egg. How can an animal, so seemingly insignificant against the vastness of the earth, give off so much greenhouse gas as to change the global climate? The answer is in their sheer numbers. The United States alone slaughters more than 10 billion land animals every year, all to sustain a meat-ravenous culture that can barely conceive of a time not long ago when "a chicken in every pot" was considered a luxury. Land animals raised for food make up a staggering 20% of the entire land animal biomass of the earth. We are eating our planet to death.

What we're seeing is just the beginning, too. Meat consumption has increased five-fold in the past fifty years, and is expected to double again in the next fifty.

It sounds like a lot of bad news, but in fact it's quite the opposite. It means we have a powerful new weapon to use in addressing the most serious environmental crisis ever to face humanity. The Prius was an important step forward, but how often are people in the market for a new car? Now that we know a greener diet is even more effective than a greener car, we can make a difference at every single meal, simply by leaving the animals off of our plates. Who would have thought: what's good for our health is also good for the health of the planet!

Going veg provides more bang for your buck than driving a Prius. Plus, that bang comes a lot faster. The Prius cuts emissions of carbon dioxide, which spreads its warming effect slowly over a century. A big chunk of the problem with farmed animals, on the other hand, is methane, a gas which cycles out of the atmosphere in just a decade. That means less meat consumption quickly translates into a cooler planet.

Not just a cooler planet, also a cleaner one. Animal agriculture accounts for most of the water consumed in this country, emits two-thirds of the world's acid-rain-causing ammonia, and it the world's largest source of water pollution--killing entire river and marine ecosystems, destroying coral reefs, and of course, making people sick. Try to imagine the prodigious volumes of manure churned out by modern American farms: 5 million tons a day, more than a hundred times that of the human population, and far more than our land can possibly absorb. The acres and acres of cesspools stretching over much of our countryside, polluting the air and contaminating our water, make the Exxon Valdez oil spill look minor in comparison. All of which we can fix surprisingly easily, just by putting down our chicken wings and reaching for a veggie burger.

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