Environmental Vegetarianism

More and more people are becoming aware of the effects of our actions on the environment. Temperatures and shorelines are rising, our water is becoming dirtier, natural resources are becoming more scarce, our soil is depleting, and so on – the list is long. As people become more aware, the deep-seeded desire to do something positive also increases. One way to do this in a relatively easy way is to simply not eat meat – become a vegetarian. Meat production has severely negative effects on the environment that are wide ranging and far reaching, so the impact of not eating it is felt beyond the kitchen.

Animal Meat and Water Pollution

As the economy develops, meat production has become more centralized. This means raising more animals in a smaller space, limiting overall cost and boosting profits. More animals in a smaller space is an unnatural scenario, though, so the environment has a difficult time adjusting to this. Traditionally, animals for meat have been used as a part of an integrated system of life on small farms. They eat waste, store calories for when plant-based foods are scarce in the cold months, and provide a natural, “free” form of fertilizer in the form of manure. But, when too many animals are shoved together, too much of this waste becomes concentrated, and the land cannot cope with the high amounts of it.

Farmers usually deal with this by storing animal waste in lagoons – open pits of water and animal waste. This is a potentially dangerous way of doing so, as the water leaches from these lagoons, and pollutes underground aquifers, which everyone in the community uses. High levels of nitrates and ammonia become toxic, which causes problems in the neurological system. This is not a theoretical issue – real people have become sick, developed irreversible damage, and been killed by this pollution. This issue is compounded when lagoons overflow during floods and heavy rainfall, causing huge surges of nitrates to pollute whole rivers and lakes.

Animal Meat and Climate Change

The atmosphere is warming at an alarming rate. And, a mere handful of scientists aside, objective analysis seems to prove this. Slowing climate change is absolutely necessary to give us time to adjust to it accordingly with minimal loss of human life.

A 2006 UN report estimates that 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions come from the animal meat industry. Animals must consume large amounts of plant calories in order to bulk up for processing and consumption. For every 16 calories an animal is fed, 1 calorie of meat is produced, so it is inherently inefficient. When animals consume grass for their diets, it works out better, as humans cannot digest these calories themselves. But, most animals are fed grains, which can just as easily be eaten by humans. The grain must be grown, fed oil-based synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and is then shipped many hundreds – even thousands – of miles to animal feed lots. The animals are sheltered in large, air conditioned buildings, are then processed, and then shipped again around the country. All this amounts to the huge amounts of gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

Vegetarians and the Environment

By abstaining from meat, vegetarians drive down the demand for these products, thereby reducing supply. In turn, there is less environmental degradation, because plant-based foods require much less energy to produce. This is the essence of environmental vegetarianism.