Government involvement with subsidies and assistance programs for the meat, fish, and dairy industries must come to a halt. If financial support is given to any agricultural industry, it should be to all those crops grown in organic fashion for us to consume. Our government should also be involved in supervising the establishment of proper food education in our school systems, from kindergarten through high school. This could begin by removing all milk and dairy advertisements, and replacing the antiquated and misleading Food Pyramid and food guidelines as established by the USDA with some form of a new pyramid that reflects the revisions established by the PCRM. Promotion should be allowed only for those food choices that are factually healthy for us and for our planet.
There is a perception that our natural resources have no monetary value attached so they can easily be used to create short-term gains by logging forests, misuse of water, wasting land, killing marine wildlife, and polluting. At some point in time, just prior to the enactment of laws against consuming meat, we will need to place an economic value on these resources that have been used so heavily but so freely by the livestock and fishing industries. Specifically, an ecotax, or price, as proposed earlier, should be established and attached to each and every resource that is destroyed or used during the animal-for-food production process. That means that every bit of land, water, and resource used; pollution created; fish species caught inadvertently or that has become endangered; and ancient tree that is cut in the rainforest must be accounted for. Most rainforest trees are over one hundred years old and come with endemic species and diverse ecosystems that are lost as well. What should that price be? And with water, what dollar amount should be placed on the billions of gallons used by the livestock industry, especially when it is from glacier water that could be used by humans directly and that is not readily renewable? When the fishing industry clears a seamount or other area of the ocean of marine life that eliminates communities and destroys the complex ecosystems that have been in place for hundreds of years, what should they pay? Although these resources are essentially priceless and irreplaceable in our lifetime, there must be a form of ecotax in the thousands of dollars for their use, in order to encourage more accountable and sustainable ecological practices.
If I intentionally drove my car off the road and through someone’s front yard, destroying every plant, animal, and structure they owned, shouldn’t I be responsible for at least paying the cost to replace those items lost? In actuality, it should be my duty to completely restore everything, alive or otherwise, back to its original condition and to do so immediately. That should be the case with the fishing and livestock industries. It is unacceptable—economically, philosophically, or otherwise—for a business to use any resource at will and to wipe out species of plants or animals.
The United Nations Committee on Livestock, Environment, and Agricultural Development has stated: “Ultimately, reaching a sustainable balance of demand for livestock and the capacity of ecosystems to provide goods and services in the future will require adequate pricing of natural resources.” An ecotax should be levied upon all those that take or destroy our planet’s resources, and in turn, this tax should be translated into the final asking price of the product.
In addition to the ecotax, there is reasonable justification to go one step farther by imposing a health-risk tax. This would be the cost a business would have to pay to produce and offer for sale any food item that is associated with a risk for developing chronic disease. Recent estimates place our health care cost burden per year, due to various food choices, at over $100 billion.163 Because all animal products contribute to the risk of developing the four most prevalent chronic disease conditions, it makes sense that those businesses that offer these food items should help pay for the medical and hospital bills to which it contributes. It is very well documented that the Tarahumara Indians, Seventh-Day Adventists, and other groups of individuals who have eaten only plant-based foods their entire lives do not suffer from adult onset diabetes, triple bypass heart surgery, or colon cancer. Obviously, if all food items made from animal products carried with them this proposed health-risk tax, which is a true reflection of the economic damage created, no one could afford to produce or buy them. This would then help solve the global depletion problem and also vastly improve our health care system, by stimulating less costly health insurance to the consumers who subscribe to consistent, enlightened food choices. It would solve many issues that we, as a civilization, have failed thus far to properly address.
Education must take place in other countries as well. Initial emphasis should be placed on those countries where demand for meat is escalating and also in those countries where indiscriminate destruction of resources occur to support demand for livestock or fish products. A change in demand for animal products is most dramatic in Asia, where consumption of livestock products by humans has increased by 140 percent.164 Although strong cultural hurdles exist, education of these people to the detrimental effects that animal products have on our planet and to their own health should be the starting point. Equally challenging but necessary is the education of native people in rainforests, where clear-cut logging and erosive, non-sustainable agricultural techniques occur at rampant rates to support the livestock industry and the Western demand for meat. It is mandatory that they understand that the rainforests are invaluable as one of the earth’s treasures and, as such, are certainly worth much more economically to them, long-term, by keeping them intact and protected. Global and local education for rainforest economics must be established. It must be understood, for instance, that rainforest land that is converted to cattle operations yields $60 per acre to the landowner for harvested timber, and then the land is worth $400 per acre.165 However, this same land can produce more than $2,400 per acre if the naturally growing fruits, flowers, and medicinal plants are harvested in a renewable and sustainable manner.166 Land used in this fashion would be worth substantially more than $2,400 per acre, if it were also used for ecotourism. This could easily be accomplished by combining preservation, sustainable harvesting, and education with controlled tourism. It is vital for local societies to recognize and understand the greater value of natural ecosystems for retaining biodiversity. This would then serve as the impetus toward adequate policy enactment and ultimate preservation, rather than continued destruction.
Once these things are in place, evolution to a more enlightened and healthier route is possible. However, the reality is that this process would require an elongated period of time, during which we would witness continued depletion. Because further global depletion of some category could be devastating, legislation—or a combination of the two—would be the more predictable approach.
So, yes, legislation that bars the raising of animals for food and eating of meat will happen, because it is inevitable that resources such as water, land, food, and energy will be depleted from raising livestock and harvesting fish, to the point where our lives will be affected on a daily basis. Water may very well be the first resource to be affected.
As an example, more than half of the available freshwater supply in the United States is used to grow feed for livestock. Because of this and the fact that this water is nonrenewable, water tables in the Midwest and Great Plains are quickly being depleted, while surface water in the western states is running on borrowed time. Shortages are beginning to occur and will become commonplace, especially in western states. Although consumers in all of these states have been forced occasionally to ration water, they have not been told that the reason they are running out of water for showering or drinking is because most of it has been or is being pumped off for livestock—to grow their feed, for them to drink, or in the slaughtering process.
Soon, a city or municipality somewhere will find itself with a water shortage that cannot be blamed solely on drought. Beyond the narrow view of enforcing rationing, policy-makers for that area will be forced to take a closer look at just where all the water is going. This will inevitably reveal that the
vast majority of the water is going to livestock, which then will lead to exposing the reality of our food choices and the true impact on our planet.
Laws may be enacted initially that ensure less use of animals for food, as it would be asking too much of our population to eliminate it entirely. Eventually, however, we will come to the conclusion that only food of plant-based origin can be allowed. Even though this is needed right now, it may take years for the proper wheels to be set in motion for accomplishment.
When logically discussing solutions to the global depletion situation, there are always questions posed by those concerned about the effect these solutions would have on various aspects of life, especially with the point that everyone should just stop eating meat, effective today. The three concerns that are the most common are:
1. What happens to all the animals that are currently being raised for meat if we just stop eating them?
2. What would happen to all those people who make their income by doing something with the livestock or fishing industry? It would be devastating economically.
3. Why can’t we just produce and eat organic, grass-fed (pastured) livestock, because isn’t this method sustainable?
Regarding the first concern—what happens to all the animals?—a phased-in scenario would occur. There is no likelihood whatsoever that everyone in the world would stop eating meat on one given day. Therefore, a steady decrease in demand would result in steadily fewer and fewer animals raised and fish caught or farmed, until we would be at zero production, which would equate to a near zero environmental footprint from a food production standpoint, with the establishment of sustainable systems.
With regard to the second concern—what would happen to all the people who make their income …?—this is no different than what has happened with changes over time in technology or with our economy forcing industries that have operated for over one hundred years to either adapt by reinventing themselves or terminate. This would not be the first time it has happened, as we have seen this with countless industries. Most recently, microfiche, various filing systems, and the typewriting businesses had to move over with the advent of computers, and the newspaper industry had to close numerous companies that had been in business since the 1800s, due to advancement of media and advertisement mechanisms like the Internet. This is called progress. And it would be called proper progress if these newer industries also cleaned up our planet.
The third concern requires a more in-depth response. Let us consider sustainability as it relates to our food choices. What is it? And exactly who is it that determines what human practices are sustainable? Along my many journeys, I have found that most often, those who use the term “sustainable” are those who truly do not know what is sustainable and, more important, what is not. They simply are not aware of all the variables that need to be factored in when determining true sustainability. It’s extremely unfortunate that these same individuals or institutions are placed in a position where public opinion is influenced; even policy-making is based on their opinions. Many examples of this are found routinely in the United States and around the world.
One such example involves the policies with regard to whale killing adopted by a few Caribbean islands. In 2008, St. Lucia was one of six islands that voted to lift the 1986 International Whaling Commission (IWC) ban on hunting whales, which essentially allows Japan to use St. Lucia’s surrounding waters to kill whales again commercially or for “scientific research” purposes. In exchange for the use of their waters, Japan subsidizes St. Lucia and five other Caribbean island countries by funneling in $100 million to the economies of these island nations.167 Japan, Norway, and Iceland now kill collectively three thousand whales annually.168 Most are still slaughtered by using the painful and inhumane penthrite grenade harpoon technique developed in the 1800s, which is an important topic of discussion in and of itself. During my last conversation with officials of St. Lucia, I asked how they could possibly allow hunting in their waters of these very intelligent, sensitive, and social beings, and I encouraged the officials instead to further invest in the growth of whale watching and ecotourism. Chief Fisheries Officer of St. Lucia, Ignatius Jean, responded with hostility, stating, “We allow harvesting of whales in a sustainable manner … and both industries [whale killing and whale watching] can coexist in our waters.” This is an interesting statement from the one person who influences the policies made to allow the taking of another life off the shores of the island, as no one actually knows the real population numbers of sperm whales.169 Nor does anyone know the sperm whales’ social, feeding, breeding and migratory traditions that have been established for thousands of years.170 We will not realize that this hunting practice is not sustainable until the whales are all gone, as has happened with many other whales and other species. Additionally, how sensible is it to think that a highly intelligent and acutely sensitive creature like the sperm whale would feel comfortable and cooperative with whale-watching boats nearby on any given afternoon, when that same morning its entire pod was attacked and its mate was viciously killed right next to him by a Japanese whale-hunting boat. The reason many whales have become extinct and others are now endangered is because those individuals who influence public opinion or decisions and policies on sustainable practices actually do not have all the answers and thereby miscalculate. In the case of species such as the whale, it is a double miscalculation that results in not only loss of strict numbers but also in the individual act of allowing humans to take the life of another living, peaceful, and innocent being. I believe the rule to follow is that nature has a balancing equation of its own that we humans are incapable of fully comprehending, and that whenever we get involved in this equation by creating subtractions (of land, animals, or other resources), it most likely will generate an irreversible imbalance somewhere—whether or not we are capable of measuring this imbalance. With whales, as with our inanimate resources, even baseline projections of availability are disputable, let alone all those tangible and intangible variables that our human interferences affect along the way.
As it becomes more apparent that our current method of producing livestock is unhealthy for one reason or another, the attention will be turned invariably toward grass-fed, “organic,” or essentially pastured animal production. This is already justified as being the healthy alternative to our current practices, as it is purported to be “fully sustainable.” Again, who is in the supervisory position to proclaim that this would be sustainable and thereby will misdirect public perception? Why is this endorsed by highly publicized and influential individuals?
This thinking is wrought with many misconceptions that can, for the most part, be grouped as follows:
• That killing and eating any animal is healthier for us than eating plant-based foods, whether or not those animals have eaten pasture
• That somehow transferring the production of animals for food to another mode can be accomplished in a fully sustainable fashion, meaning without the loss of land, water, air quality, or any other resource
Let’s look more closely at these misconceptions. The small local farm and grass-fed livestock movement is quickly gaining momentum, in part because of the promotion by various organizations and authors and lecturers, such as Michael Pollan, Mark Bittman, Joel Salatin, and Jonathan Safran Foer. On its surface, this movement appears to be a remedy for much of what they convey as a concern for a healthier diet. After all, modifying our demand for meat to be raised in small farms and on pasture, according to them, accomplishes many things:
• Creates a more “sustainable” way for this type of food to be produced
• Less contribution to pollution
• Provides a “healthier” type of meat
• Breaks down the economic monopoly of our current large agro-businesses in support of the local and small farmer
• Establishes a more humane way for animals to be still used for food
Growing food on a small farm was partially sustainable a hundred years
ago—“partially” because at that time, we really did not have a precise method of evaluating the exact effect this style of farming had on individual ecosystems throughout the world. And certainly, eating quantities of animal products was most likely not sustainable to people’s health. My grandparents and great-grandparents lived and “sustained” themselves on a small farm. They grew just enough food, some of it animals, to eat off of their own land—as did 37 percent of the U.S. population in 1910, and as did 80 percent of the population in 1870. Today, less than 2 percent garner their income from agriculture, yet the vast majority of our food (84 percent of the total value of food production per year) is now produced by large agro-businesses, which comprise 12 percent of all farming operations in the U.S. (Economic Information Bulletin # EIB-66, 72 pp, July 2010).
On the surface, then, transforming our current agro-business systems to be more local small-farm–oriented is on the right track for many reasons—but not if these systems include raising animals for food. Reduction of the waste (fossil fuel, time, money, etc.) that occurs in transportation, processing, and packaging could be accomplished by becoming more local farm-dependent. Local, small, family farms would also benefit economically, especially if governmental incentives were provided for them. But these incentives should be provided only if they produce food that is the most sustainable for our planet—which would have to be plant-based foods. Raising pastured livestock may seem to be sustainable locally regarding use of resources, but upon closer examination, it is not. And certainly it is not sustainable on a global scale, where more and more people will need to be fed with less land and fewer of our natural resources. Additionally, it is not sustainable for our own health.
Upon closer examination, we can see exactly how grass-fed livestock would affect each of the various areas of global depletion. Land use would simply increase dramatically. We already know how inefficiently we currently use land to raise livestock. And regardless of whether we use mob grazing, juvenile grass growth rotational pasturing, or any other technique to improve land quality while raising grass-fed livestock, it would still require between two and twenty acres of land to support the growth of one cow, depending on which area of the country or world is involved.171 I found these figures consistent, whether discussing the topic with the more than thirty experts I contacted in agricultural academic institutions or with the many farmers who have been working with grass-fed livestock for the past few decades. Now, on a global scale we will need to multiply the two to twenty acres per cow times the billion that are currently raised in CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations, or factory farms), and you will quickly see that there is not enough land on earth—or even two earths—to support this. It would require well beyond the 30 percent of all the land mass on earth that livestock are using now.
Comfortably Unaware Page 11
