How a Vegetarian Diet Can Heal the Environment

There are over 22 billion farm animals in the world today—over three times the human population. Farm animals require an enormous amount of feed, fresh water, medicine and fossil fuel. Over two-thirds of the crops we grow in the US are fed to farm animals. Raising live stock produces greenhouse gases, emits water pollutants from the wastes, and requires ever-more living space, resulting in ecological destruction. A vegetarian diet promotes sustainable agricultural practices and can help heal the environment and preserve it for future generations.

FOSSIL FUELS AND MEAT

Agriculture uses 17 percent of all the fossil fuel in the U.S., with meat production responsible for the majority of that portion. To grow the crops required to feed all the farm animals, large quantities of fossil fuel are required to produce fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, to fuel irrigation pumps, and to run the farm machinery needed to apply the fertilizers and pesticides, plant and harvest the crops. Once the crops are harvested, they are transported to where the animals are being raised. 

The animals are eventually trucked to slaughterhouses, and then their flesh is kept in refrigerators and freezers while being stored and transported to stores. All this takes even more fossil fuel. Just as some people make their transportation choices with fossil fuel conservation in mind, many people are also making their food choices with fossil fuel conservation as a priority. The fact is that getting protein from animals is very costly and inefficient. It takes much more oil to produce a unit of animal protein than it does to produce a comparable unit of plant protein. The same is true of calories: for instance, corn gives 60 times more food energy than beef per calorie of fossil fuel used in production.

ANIMAL WASTE TO GO

There are 9 billion farm animals in the U.S. and 22 billion worldwide, and each year they excrete 130 times more waste than humans do. In 1997, poultry, swine, beef, and dairy facilities produced a total of 291 billion pounds of animal feces and urine. Much of this untreated waste ends up in rivers and streams; it is one of the largest sources of water pollution in the U.S. It often results in massive fish kills. 

Farm animal waste can also contaminate groundwater and raise nitrate levels, creating a serious public health threat—high nitrate levels near large farm animal operations have been linked to miscarriages and cancer. Aquaculture, or fish farming, also generates a lot of waste. Fish waste and uneaten feed smothers the sea floor beneath these farms, generating bacteria that consume oxygen vital to bottom-dwelling species. Disease and parasites can run rampant in densely packed fish farms. The many problems of animal waste are a natural consequence of raising so many animals for food. The volume produced is straining the environment and making future catastrophes inevitable.

GREENHOUSE GASAHOLICS 

According to a recent report published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions, as measured in CO2 equivalence, than all transportation activities. More powerful as a greenhouse gas than CO2, methane is a byproduct of digestion and waste lagoons. 

A switch to a vegetarian diet would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 3,267 pounds per person per year. Raising cattle is also the primary cause of soil erosion in the US, and the clearing of the Amazonian and Central American rainforests, further contributing to global warming and ecological destruction.

The material for this article was taken from The Vegetarian Solution, by Stewart Rose, Vice President of Vegetarians of Washington. The book contains further information and medical references for the many diseases helped by a vegetarian diet.