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Environmental Justice
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Saving the Planet, One Meal at a Time
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One of the most astonishing facts about factory farming
is its inefficiency, as most animals consume an enormous
amount of resources relative to their edible output. In
1981, Newsweek shined a spotlight on this issue, stating
that the amount of water required to raise a 1,000-pound
steer could "float a destroyer.1 Officials
within the U.S. beef industry have admitted that 792,000
gallons of water are needed to raise a 1,000-pound steer,
and that may be a low estimate. Researchers at Michigan
State University found that 2,500 gallons are needed to
grow a pound of flesh, which would mean the same steer
actually necessitates 2.5 million gallons of water in
its lifetime.2 Contrarily, only 25 gallons of water
are required to produce one pound of wheat, 1 percent
as much water as is needed for beef.3 Fresh water is becoming an increasingly limited
resource. The World Bank reports that as many as 80 countries
suffer from water shortages, affecting their economies,
agriculture, and the health of their citizens. This report
says that 40 percent of the world's population has limited
or no access to clean water. These numbers are continuing
to rise, and one news report even went as far as to say
that water shortage may be the next cause of a world war.4 The waste of water is obviously significant
to any environmental debate, but also to a larger ethical
one, because depriving a person of a basic human need
is one of the worst forms of violence. While most people
consider violence to be direct and obvious physical harm,
"structural violence" is deprivation of basic
human needs caused by corrupt social structures or institutions.
Considering the huge waste of water caused by raising
cattle and other animals, factory farming is clearly a
source of structural violence. This injustice, however,
can be fought individually on a day-to-day basis. A meat
diet requires 4,000 gallons of water a day, while a vegetarian
diet, on the other hand, requires only about 300 gallons
of water a day.5 This is a difference of about 3,700 gallons
- roughly the amount of water needed to keep 6,000 people
healthy each day.6 Our food choices are clearly critical,
as conversion to a more efficient diet helps to ensure
that all humans have their essential needs met. Factory farming also wastes food. It takes about 16
pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef, meaning
that the amount of food that could feed 16 people instead
goes to a sole individual.7 Surveys show that close to
70 percent (700 million acres) of all crops grown in the
United States go to feeding animals that are raised for
slaughter.8 Only about 6 percent of the land used to produce
beef - 500 million acres (53 percent of U.S. farmland)
- would be needed to feed the same number of vegetarians.9
Taking into account the inefficiency of all types of meat
production, to feed all Americans vegetables instead of
meat would require at the most 12 percent of the 70 percent
of land used to feed livestock.10 From this perspective,
one could argue that more than half of all U.S. food crops
are essentially wasted. The misused resources do not stop here, as the process
of growing all of these crops leads to the use of another
dwindling commodity, oil. Growing crops, cultivating crops,
transporting crops to be processed, processing, transportation
to farms, transporting animals to slaughter houses, transporting
meat, refrigeration, and distribution of meat all depend
on petroleum. Cornell ecologist Dave Pimentel calculated
that 284 gallons of oil are needed to raise a 1,250-pound
cow for slaughter. The United States alone raises and
slaughters over 25 million cows a year, meaning the total
amount of oil used per year is more than 355 million barrels
for cattle production and processing alone.11
Considering the inefficiency of meat production, we are
wasting oil. Fossil fuels are a source of environmental
harm, global warming, and armed conflict. Most people don't feel the air getting hotter
with each bite of their Big Mac, but livestock are in fact
responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions,
which is more than automobiles, according to the Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The hundreds
of millions of cows raised worldwide each year produce immense
amounts of the greenhouse gas methane, which warms the planet
20 times faster than carbon dioxide.12 Deforestation,
also a result of meat production, is responsible for 25
percent of atmospheric carbon dioxide.13 In the
Amazon, 60 percent to 70 percent of deforestation is a result
of livestock production.14 Conversely, plants,
the basis of a vegetarian diet, remove carbon dioxide from
the atmosphere, thus combating global warming. In addition
to this, livestock are responsible for two thirds of all
ammonia emissions, which directly contribute to acid rain
- which pollutes water and harms aquatic animals, forests,
and human health.15 Any of us who have ever walked out in a pasture knows
that farm animals produce astonishing amounts of excrement.
At times, we must wonder, what happens to all of this
waste? Pigs in North Carolina alone produce a staggering
19 million tons of waste a year, which is 5,000 pounds
of waste per human citizen.16 Excrement becomes runoff
during winter and flows into streams and rivers, and the
effects are severe. Pollution in 71 percent of the rivers
studied in Nebraska exceeded the standard for recreation,
aquatic life, agriculture, and drinking supply, and this
pollution can be traced back to the nearby pig farms.
17 The farms on the Delmarva Peninsula in the eastern
U.S. produce about 600 million chickens, but the University
of Delaware calculated that the land can only naturally
cope with the manure of 64 million chickens.18 The
result has been that one-third of the underground aquifers
used for drinking water have dangerously high nitrate
levels, too high for human safety. In the Chesapeake Bay,
the offal has caused an explosion of algal growth, creating
"dead zones" that cannot support fish, crabs,
oysters, or most other aquatic animals.19 Vegetarianism has been proven to be one of the most
peaceful life practices. The base of Gandhian nonviolence
is the Sanskrit term ahimsa, the lack of the desire to
harm, which implies practice towards not only humans but
all creatures. Factory farming, on the other hand, is
one of the most cruel institutions known to humans, as
billions of animals are inhumanely raised and slaughtered
each year. Without going into much detail, this brutality
includes: living spaces hardly larger than a pig's body,
bolts injected into cows' brains, dumping of live chicks
into dumpsters, geese living their entire lives with feed
tubes forced down their throats, and more. As we work
towards a more peaceful world for humans, we cannot accept
this kind of inhumanity towards animals or any kind of
beings. As Leonardo da Vinci has said, "As long as
men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed,
he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap the
joy of love." 20 While the drive to promote vegetarianism as an environmental solution may initially seem complex, it is an effort based simply on love. Whether it is love for animals, the Earth, or all human beings, eliminating or at least reducing factory farming would realize tremendous benefits. Many environmentalists have known that becoming a vegetarian would further their efforts but, to this point, may not have been motivated enough to act. Now, facing the bleak future of the environment, what more reason do they need? John Campbell is a UC Berkeley student who likes eating at Cha-ya, a vegan Japanese restaurant. |
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