The REAL Inconvenient Truth
Every choice that we make, whether large or small, impacts the planet on which we live every day. This is especially the case for the food we choose to consume. The following short video begins with a few simple questions about the current state of our planet. “6.7 billion people live here, 60 billion livestock live here. Where is all the food coming from to feed them? Where is their waste going? At what ecological expense?” It’s a relevant question, seeing how the livestock industry is one of the most ecologically damaging sectors currently existing on our planet. The video also raises another pertinent fact: 1.1 billion people in our world do not have access to clean and safe drinking water, yet it takes 20,000 liters of water to make just 1 pound of beef. Let that one sink in for a moment.
People are dying from an insufficient amount of available clean drinking water, yet we are using millions of liters of clean water to raise livestock to feed the people fortunate enough to afford eating meat. It seems like a backwards concept when really thought about. Another imperative piece of information regarding livestock reveals that 18% of greenhouse gases come from the consumption of meat and dairy. This is the number 1 cause of pollution today. To put this into perspective, only 13% of greenhouse gases are caused by global transportation, “Stop global warming, don’t eat the planet!” the video boasts. We are fishing the oceans and seas 250 times faster than the natural breeding cycles. It’s simply not sustainable, but will we wait until it’s too late to fix the problem? The video ends with a question that everyone must ask themselves at some point, “what are you personally doing to change the world?”
You have the choice, right now, to make a massive impact for the future of our planet and our children simply by changing a few things in your diet. “Eat consciously, don’t eat the planet, save the human, go veggie!” Whether you choose a vegetarian diet or not, consider at least cutting down your meat intake drastically. Meat isn’t a required part of our diet and cutting it out can make a big impact on our planet.
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Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_production
While I appreciate the tone and import of your article, I always get a little perturbed when statistics are used poorly. Saying, “18% of greenhouse gases come from the consumption of meat and dairy. This is the number 1 cause of pollution today. To put this into perspective, only 13% of greenhouse gases are caused by global transportation.”
Only 13%? The implication is that this is not so important, because of the point you wish to emphasise.
“To put this into perspective,” your statement is like saying that because more people die from eating peanuts than die from smoking crystal meth, peanuts are more dangerous.
If you would like to adjust your figures to reflect the number of people who consume meat or dairy, and those who transport themselves or things around the world, you will see the vast difference between the impact of a person’s consumption of meat and dairy, and that of flying.
I am not trying to diminish your article – I agree that the cattle industry causes a lot of pollution (but do you include the transportation of beef,milk and cattle in the costs of the food industry, the transportation industry, both or neither?), but if you’re going to use statistics, please put them in perspective. Thanks.
Get hold of the Worldwatch institute report which says it is 51%. It’s online.
Great Article Jeff!
I dream of the days the earth population will stop consuming meat and dairy. Apart from being a cruel and brutal practice, it does indeed costs the earth a great deal. The problem is that the majority of the earth population, including people who do not have enough to eat, are still convinced that we need meat and dairy to survive when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. The industry and the institutions do their very best to maintain this system of beliefs.
I have and keep on having to sop up reactions from people when I say I am vegan that on a good day may make you smile, but on a bad day will trigger your not so good side of the personality.
But there are also a lot of people that are beginning at least to wake up and become aware of the truths you are describing. So Thank you again for tackling this vital issue.
Alex
What a load of jingoistic propaganda! A bunch of city kids talked onto making a video with no references, no source data, just opinions and made-up stuff. I bet not a single one has ever been on a farm, ranch or fishing boat.
Jeff, you’re a city boy aren’t you? A farm kid or even a rural kid wouldn’t say the things said in your article or the video. You and the video producer have no clue how biology works.
Jeff says: “6.7 billion people live here, 60 billion livestock live here. Where is all the food coming from to feed them? Where is their waste going? At what ecological expense? ” It’s a relevant question, seeing how the livestock industry is one of the most ecologically damaging sectors currently existing on our planet.
Mixing apples and oranges here Jeff, leading with both humans and livestock but ending with only livestock. How about the human industry?
If the conclusion we are to draw is that livestock are the most damaging, I say horse pucky! Babies, cities and government are.
Babies, cities and governments produce nothing but waste and consume huge amounts of food, fiber, energy and minerals. Consider the energy needed to make all that concrete and steel just to carry the food in and sewage out of cities. Where does the sewage go? Hopefully it is spread on farm fields as fertilizer and not cooked in a sewage plant and trucked to the landfill.
Human reproduction is not a benign activity. If people didn’t think it their right to make babies none of this would be an issue. But the growth of government and cities relies on an ever increasing population, so it’s unlikely they will consider population control as a way to deal with the issue of food and water. Some very smart people say otherwise, and I agree that the best gift people can give to the next gen is a good education: Then they can solve their own problems.
It’s pure fantasy that we are eating fish 250x faster than they reproduce or we would have been out of fish a hundred years ago. Do the math.
All mammals need protein. Ask a pediatrician what they think of vegan pregnant ladies.
The Wiki reference Jeff gives admits it makes assumptions that are not real: A cow does not drink 16,000 gallons of water per pound of body weight, and in dryland farming areas cows are more efficient than food crops.
A pound of soy protein takes more water to produce than a pound of beef protein.
How much water does it take to produce a pound of fish flesh?
There is no shortage of water on the planet. Few people are dying from lack of it. Purity is an issue tho and may be what Jeff meant. Desalinized, treated, and filtered seawater and urine takes some work to get. Solar stills easily desalinate seawater and urine, and it is easy to filter ditch water with a barrel filled with gravel, sand and critters living at the top to digest stuff in the feedstock.
Water is the ultimate renewable resource and there is no choice but to recycle it. The wiki article referenced admits it is misleading because some areas get more rain than needed, others less, but the assumption is that all water is delivered and then stockpiled as waste. How misleading is that?
Animal waste is not more toxic than human waste. Either one is fertilizer for the next crop.
Not mentioned is gasohol, a true scourge on the earth that uses tractor diesel fuel to convert food into mogas with a net loss of energy.
Or solar panels that are ugly, use rare earths and toxic compounds to produce a short-lived generator only when the suns shines but not too hot or it quits working, and has no storage. How much carbon goes into the production of solar panels, their mounts, inverters, cabling and switch gear?
Or windmills that are noisy, ugly and dangerous when they disintegrate. They also have no storage and stop producing when the wind is too weak or to strong. How much carbon goes into the concrete footings, steel towers and fiberglass blades?
How many ‘spinning reserve’ coal powered generators are needed to back up solar and wind for cloudy or windless conditions?
How many acres of solar panels or miles of windmills equal one 1000 megawatt coal or nuclear power plant? (about 10,000 and 100 respectively)
The best alternative is energy conservation, passive solar construction, solar water heating and good insulation. http://www.amazon.com/Green-Illusions-Secrets-Environmentalism-Sustainable/dp/0803237758/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405884949&sr=1-1&keywords=green+illusions&dpPl=1
The same goes for food and reproduction.
Trouble with this kind of propaganda though it usually fails to factor in inconvenient truths such as we can’t eat grass. Also livestock can use land which wouldn’t be suitable for other types of food production e.g. hilltops grasslands. Also livestock play an important role in replacing nutrients in the soil.
Even the water usage and requirements of livestock seems a somewhat erroneous argument because much of this water would fall as rainfall on the land which the cattle graze and livestock doesn’t graze on land where there is insufficient water particularly if there’s no grass lol It’s also worth noting shortage of drinking water isn’t a result of a shortage of water globally but down to distribution both natural (i.e. rainfall) and artificial (transportation, pipes etc), and also the collection and storage of water and has very little to do with livestock or people eating meat. lol
I suppose the other thing is if meat production were truly unsustainable why would it have been part of the natural order and balance of nature for millions of years and why would efficient farming methods attempt to work with this natural order if it were actually a better idea to build a load of chemical factories to make fertilisers or take huge areas of land e.g. hilltop grasslands out of food production entirely.
Nothing wrong with choosing to be vegetarian, but I don’t think these propaganda arguments, far from being an inconvenient truth they don’t even qualify as BS given BS actually serves a purpose in helping to grow food.
Bottom line is the world needs LESS people, just one of the many things that needs to be done to control the ecosystem. I’m always burnt by he single cause factor types out there, many things are involved in a complex system, but the issue of population control never seems to arise due to what every reason, be it political correctness, religion, etc…
Go vegan first and foremost for justice and nonviolence since using animals as resources is morally unjustifiable. We torture and murder more nonhumans in 4 days than all humans killed in wars, genocides, plagues and murders throughout human history. Go vegan then for the planet since animal agriculture is destroying it. Here’s a good vegan resource http://www.VeganismIsNonviolence.com/becoming-vegan Being vegan is easier, it’s better for us, for the planet and most importantly, it’s the morally right and just thing to do.
http://www.savoryinstitute.com/