Meat consumption bad for the environment? (Australia, farm, impact, river)

[Huckleberry3911948]

bottom line we eat too much meat. bad for us, bad for the cows.
ask any cow.

[sterlinggirl]

too late.....

*burp*

[mommabear2]

Originally Posted by arctichomesteader

But that's not a logical conclusion. Saying that meat consumption in general is bad for the environment because certain methods of raising a certain animal is bad for the environment is not logical at all. The logical answer is that meat consumption is not bad for the environment, but certain ways of raising animals for meat is. Other ways of raising meat are not bad for the environment, and we can mention wild animals used for meat...

I never said that meat consumption "in general" is bad for the environment. If I did, feel free to point it out.

I don't think that you are getting the relationship to consumption and the way it is raised. It wouldn't be raised this way if America (and the world) didn't demand cheap meat. I've already explained that though and I don't really feel like repeating myself. There's enough links on this thread that you can check out to contradict your beliefs - the first article in OP is a good place to start.


I thought the UN report was good supportive source on this theory...
"...With increased prosperity, people are consuming more meat and dairy products every year, the report notes. Global meat production is projected to more than double from 229 million tonnes in 1999/2001 to 465 million tonnes in 2050, while milk output is set to climb from 580 to 1043 million tonnes.

Livestock now use 30 per cent of the earth’s entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 per cent of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock, the report notes. As forests are cleared to create new pastures, it is a major driver of deforestation, especially in Latin America where, for example, some 70 per cent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing.

At the same time herds cause wide-scale land degradation, with about 20 per cent of pastures considered degraded through overgrazing, compaction and erosion. This figure is even higher in the drylands where inappropriate policies and inadequate livestock management contribute to advancing desertification.

The livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the earth’s increasingly scarce water resources, contributing among other things to water pollution from animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and the pesticides used to spray feed crops."



So if meat consumption increases then... is still not bad for the environment? Or...???

[mommabear2]

Originally Posted by shadowfax1997

WHile I am not reading nearly 200 posts, I just finished watching "dirty jobs" on tv, and they were at a dairy farm. The farm is self-sufficient energywise. The cow manure is fermented and the mathane collected and used for power the farm. The fertilizer is used to raise feed for the cows.

While cows certainly emit plenty of gases, so do the BILLIONS of people.

Farms have an invested interest in being energy efficient but we are not talking about energy efficiency.

Humans are the worst polluters on the planet no doubt.

[mommabear2]

Here's another article from the NY Times from January 2008, titled "Rethinking the Meat Guzzler."

Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler - New York Times


The article is somewhat long but packed with information.

"To put the energy-using demand of meat production into easy-to-understand terms, Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at the Bard Center, and Pamela A. Martin, an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago, calculated that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius. Similarly, a study last year by the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Japan estimated that 2.2 pounds of beef is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 155 miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days.

Grain, meat and even energy are roped together in a way that could have dire results. More meat means a corresponding increase in demand for feed, especially corn and soy, which some experts say will contribute to higher prices."

[riveree]

Originally Posted by mommabear2

The question was whether or not meat consumption is bad for the environment ...

The fact of the matter is... most American meat eaters consume factor farmed meat - not free range meat , not organic meat (most of us under 30 probably have never tasted free range meat). We willing consume meat that is more taxing on our environment than anything we can grow. So to me, meat consumption is bad for the environment because of the type of meat that America eats.

....and that really is the crux of it .

It's not about what someone prefers to eat, or believes they have to eat. It's not about raising your own pets/food, it's not about what you see when you look out your window (talk about a microcosm ). It's not about whether you don't like one particular link cited (so you write them all off? ).

It's about what factory farmed meat does to the environment. If we are all open to the possibility that we might be contributing to some significant environmental damage each time we purchase meat, then maybe we can make a better choice.

[sterlinggirl]

So you're willing to write it off as that? Factory farmed meat is hard on the environment, and people can't be educated to buy responsibly produced products, so we need to make choices other than meat?

That makes about as much sense as telling people with alternate sexual preferences that their lifestyle is harmful to the planet (which it really is when you think about the spread of aids, hepatitis, and other assorted STDs), and that they should make other choices with their life.

[riveree]

Originally Posted by sterlinggirl

So you're willing to write it off as that? Factory farmed meat is hard on the environment, and people can't be educated to buy responsibly produced products, so we need to make choices other than meat?

Not sure if you're directing that at me (you did not quote me, so I'm not sure), but this is what I said above:

Originally Posted by riveree

If we are all open to the possibility that we might be contributing to some significant environmental damage each time we purchase meat, then maybe we can make a better choice.

I don't have all the answers, no one does, but I also don't think it's an all-or-nothing discussion. Like other complicated issues, it starts with education and open dialogue. Sadly, we're 20 pages deep now and I don't think there's much open dialogue happening .

I don't need "convincing" to know that I need to use less water. I know there are water issues around the world and we all need to be focused on the conservation of water. So I make my efforts wherever I can and I continue to educate myself on the issue and I continue to look for ways I can do better...I make better choices.

I think there is a spectrum of better choices that can be made by people who currently purchase factory farmed meat. I'm so far removed from the meat purchasing and consuming cycle that I can't tell you every gradient of better choice along the path - but there are resources out there that can, and there are other members posting on here that can. Someone may choose to eat meat 3 days a week instead of 6 days a week, someone else may decide to go all the way and go vegan, any effort is better than no effort IF it's agreed that consuming meat is harmful to the environment.

And that's how I understood the original point of this thread to be - is it harmful to the environment and if so, what can we as individuals do about it?

[TexasHorseLady]

I think it was very well stated upthread - eating meat is not harmful to the environment (and if it is, then we need to get rid of all those lions and tigers and bears, oh, my!); factory farming is harmful to the environment. That's likely something we can all agree on, correct?

The link upthread to information on the nutritional value of grass fed versus grain fed beef is a hint as to one kind of choice we can make (which tastes better, too, in my subjective opinion). If we support smaller operations, preferably local, it makes an impact in a variety of ways, including transportation of meat (or other products, including vegetables) long distances to reach us.

[shadowfax1997]

Originally Posted by mommabear2

Farms have an invested interest in being energy efficient but we are not talking about energy efficiency.

i disagree - farms that are energy efficient will have less of an impact on the environment than farms that use electricity from coal/oil powered plants.