Eco Friendly Living: Eating Less Meat
Eco friendly living includes looking at our food choices and their environmental pollution effects, among other issues. Eating less meat, or no meat at all is one way to make a sustainable choice.
Farm animals outnumber the human population approximately three and a half to one, and meat consumption is predicted to double by the middle of the century. The large amount of gases (methane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide) and bodily waste from industrial animal production facilities, or factory farms, not only contaminate drinking and ground water, but also accelerate global warming.
Carnivore (Meat Eater)
Being the T-Rex of the food chain may make you feel strong and powerful, but you may want to take a second look at your need for meat. Factory farms are the #1 source of global warming! Production of meat AB-uses many natural resources and can cause environmental pollution, not to mention the treatment and quality of life the animals have on these farms.
Consumption of Meat – Impacts
Global Warming Awareness – The ever growing worldwide number of livestock account for 18% of carbon dioxide emissions, 37% methane emissions, (20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide) and 65% nitrous oxide (manure) emissions, which is another powerful greenhouse gas.
Habitat Destruction – animal husbandry destroys habitat and land. The biggest factor to tropical rainforest destruction is raising farm animals and the soy to feed them. This translates to clearing more than two acres of rainforests per second to graze or feed livestock.
Why is this bad? Because rainforests help stabilize the world’s climate by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. We need them to fight global warming! So, not only are we adding more greenhouse gases into the air and the over creation of factory farms, but we are doing it and many times destroying a beneficial resource that can curb global warming.
Water Use – All living things need water. The production of animal foods consumes far more water, land and energy than the growing of crops. It takes eight to ten pounds of grain and soy to produce a pound of beef; 2.4 pounds of the crops to produce a pound of chicken. Similarly, 5,214 gallons of water are required to produce one pound of beef. In contrast, 25 gallons of water are required to produce one pound of wheat.
Factory farms are known sources of ground water contamination. This is quite alarming considering the number of factory farms is increasing worldwide as meat demand increases globally.
Water is already a scarce resource in many parts of the world. If global warming continues on its current path, water will become more valuable than oil (and wars have been fought over oil!). Of course we know water is priceless, without water, there’s no life!
Illness – Having factory farms near densely populated areas can increase the spread of disease. (i.e.: swine flu, bird flu, etc.) Airborne pollution is another environmental pollution problem of factory farms.
Soil – The cultivation of animal feed crops is responsible for the loss of billions of tons of topsoil around the world. It would take 500 yards of “good soil” to replace 1 inch of eroded soil. Because we don’t take the time to care for the land and practice sustainable agriculture, factory farms turn to synthetic fertilizers made from fossil fuels to “replenish” the soil, so they can continue to use an already depleted & contaminated land.
Animals – Happy and free range animals in green pastures is an idyllic image, but not reality. Cows rarely get to come out to graze and chickens get about 1 square foot of space to live in crammed wire cages with at least three other mutilated chickens. Most factory farm animals live an unnatural life, which is far from humane.
When we discovered we could add Vitamins A & D to an animal’s diet; animals on factory farms no longer needed sunlight or exercise. Also, hormones and antibiotics are regularly fed to these animals to “control’ diseases rampant in such unnatural conditions and to make the animals bigger (so there’s more ‘return on investment’). Eating meat means you are ingesting those as well.
Animals are affected in other ways, too. We destroy the land many of them call home to build factory farms. Take, for example, orangutans. Much of their land has been destroyed by factory farms and when they try to adapt and eat plants or set foot on the land where they once lived and thrived…they are killed.
Awareness Gives Us Choices
I’m not sure why this still has not sunk in to much of the world’s population, but exploiting and polluting the land, abusing and killing animals and ourselves in the process is not healthy or sustainable. We need vibrant, diverse and healthy ecosystems for our survival, not factory farms or the propagation of meat diets or animal-based diets.
Factory farms create immense environmental degradation, cruelty and exploitation to non-human animals and risks to human health. One way to fight global warming is by eliminating consumption of meat or at least decrease it. Going meat-free is good for the Earth’s health and it is good for your body and soul!
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