Chapter 20 – Ethics, Beauty, and Health – Saving the Earth, One Veggie Burger at a Time
By now you’ve learned pretty much everything you need to know about becoming a vegetarian, from ethics to nutrition to meal planning. Just don’t forget one of the biggest reasons that living a vegetarian lifestyle is a wonderful choice: what you eat affects the rest of the world.
Consider the effect of a nonvegetarian society on the planet:
Water and soil damage. Two hundred and sixty million acres of U.S. forests have disappeared, to make room for cropland to farm meat. Producing one pound of beef requires at least 2,500 gallons of water. The manufacture of a single hamburger patty takes enough fossil fuel to drive a small car 25 miles. It takes less water to produce a year’s worth of food for a vegetarian than to produce one month’s food for a nonvegetarian. Factory farms damage the environment in addition to the horrors they commit on the animals that they raise and slaughter. They use large quantities of fossil fuels and fresh water, and pollute the earth in return.
In 2000, the World Commission on Water predicted that the increase in water use in the future due to rising population will “impose intolerable stresses on the environment, leading not only to a loss of biodiversity, but also to a vicious circle in which the stresses on the ecosystem will no longer provide the necessary services for plants and people.” Ideas like that haven’t disappeared nearly a decade later. By 2050, 59 percent of the world population will face some type of water shortage according to a 2009 study by the Stockholm Environment Institute.
Did you know that 85 percent American topsoil—over five billion tons—is lost annually due to the raising of livestock, and twenty-six billion tons of topsoil is lost annually on agricultural land worldwide? In the United States, one-third of the cropland has been permanently destroyed due to excessive soil erosion. By switching to a vegetarian diet, you alone spare an acre of trees every year.
Millions of acres of forests and wetlands have been leveled and drained to create pastures to feed the animals butchered for meat, destroying habitats for wildlife and disrupting the ecological balance. Irrigation of these pastures and croplands uses vast quantities of water, our most precious resource, and the water that runs off these lands takes with it irreplaceable topsoil, turning millions of acres of lush cropland into desert. Along with waste products from factory farming and slaughterhouses, runoff from agribusinesses contributes more pollution than all other human activities combined. The natural waste produced each year by the dairy cows in the 50-square-mile area of California’s Chino Basin, for example, would make a pile with the dimension of a football field. When it rains heavily, dairy manure is washed straight down into the Santa Ana River and into the aquifer that supplies half of Orange County’s drinking water.
A cultural shift toward vegetarianism would mean fewer animals in factory farms and feedlots, far less manure produced, and far cleaner water. It would also mean that our water would be healthier and far less likely to contain dangerous pathogens from animal waste. It would be a major step toward restoring the life-giving waters of our planet. The choices we make directly affect our water supply, both on the earth and in our bodies. Every time you eat plant foods instead of meat, you are helping to reduce water pollution. Each of us is responsible for our own actions.
Depletion of rain forests. Between 1960 and 1985, nearly 40 percent of all Central American rain forests were destroyed to create pasture for beef cattle. That destruction, unfortunately, didn’t end with the passing of the millennium. Experts now suggest the remaining rain forests will be eliminated over the course of the next forty years. As the primary source of oxygen for the entire planet, the survival of the rain forests is inextricably linked with the survival of mankind. The unique flora and fauna found in the rain forests provide ingredients for many medicines used to treat and cure human illnesses, and scientists are continuing to find new medicines as they discover new plants available only in these regions; yet approximately one thousand species go extinct every year due to destruction of tropical rain forests. By destroying the rain forests, we may be destroying the chance to cure AIDS, cancer, or influenza.
Poison in the atmosphere. The burning of fossil fuels creates two-thirds of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide, and two hundred gallons of fossil fuel are burned to produce the beef currently eaten by the average American family of four each year. Burning two hundred gallons of fossil fuel releases two tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere; by switching to a vegetarian diet, you’re cutting back on the amount of pollution in the air. In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a report that global warming was a much more serious issue than they had originally thought, five years previously. Newer reports indicate that the next century is likely to bring about a 2.7 to 11 degree change, causing massive alteration in weather patters and natural global disasters.
Studies have shown that the year 2019 (which is right around the corner!) is the last turning point we can make to fight global warming. After that, the trend would be irreversible, which means complete disaster for mankind! The ice that is normally present in places like Greenland could melt completely. If Greenland ice does melt completely, it will increase sea level worldwide by at least seven meters, which would mean disaster to coastal cities like New York and Boston. The need for change in the way we eat and treat our planet has never been more urgent.
Poison in the workplace. The air inside factory farms contains a dangerous combination of ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, bacteria, and decomposing fecal matter. A joint study by the University of Iowa and the American Lung Association concluded that 70 percent of the workers in indoor facilities on factory pig farms experience symptoms of respiratory illness.
Chronic bronchitis is suffered by over 50 percent of all swine confinement workers, which is three times that of farmers who work in outdoor facilities.
The turnover rate of workers in these conditions is understandably very high, and in some cases, the owners of the factory farms have had to sell their businesses because they themselves were unable to work in their own farms.
Consider this the next time you’re complaining about your job:
The decomposing waste from pigpens is collected in pits below, causing a build-up of hydrogen sulfide. According to the American Lung Association report, “Animals have died and workers have become seriously ill in confinement buildings. Several workers have died when entering a pit during or soon after the emptying process to repair pumping equipment. Persons attempting to rescue these workers have also died.” The pigs living in these conditions breathe those toxic fumes every minute of their short lives. Animals living in these conditions regularly contract pneumonia and other respiratory illnesses—yet another reason why they’re pumped full of antibiotics.
Economics. Raising animals for food is—to put it bluntly—a stupid way to feed a hungry world. Livestock in the United States consume enough grain and soybeans to feed more than five times the nation’s population. One acre of pasture produces an average of 165 pounds of beef; the same acre could produce twenty thousand pounds of potatoes. If Americans reduced their consumption of meat by just 10 percent, it would save twelve million tons of grain annually. That much grain could feed sixty million people each year.