Today’s guest post is authored by my sister Jaime McKibben. Jaime’s a student at Chico State, an actress, and self-described health food fanatic. She has studied nutrition and sustainability and advocates vegetarian and vegan diets. She will present a different perspective for many readers of THRILLINGheroics, however it is interesting to see her arguments for sustainable food. She’s just started her own blog, the Vegan Bug, where you can learn more.

Veganism and Sustainability

I’ve been sitting here on the floor of my new house for the past hour or so thinking about this article I’ve been planning to write for some time now, and it crossed my mind; why did both my brother and I end up so interested and involved in sustainability? Sure, I may have learned it from him (or perhaps vice versa) but more likely than that, I believe we learned it from our parents. As kids, our father was a bit fanatical about recycling, making me rummage through my garbage for paper before taking it out to the dumpster. He would hunt me down while I was doing the dishes to tell me to shut the water off during those in-between moments when loading the dishwasher. At one point, the entire family ganged up on me when I went through a let’s-leave-every-light-in-the-house-on stage. Looking back, I can’t help but be surprised that no one ever even mentioned the one most sustainable act a person can undertake: cutting down on meat.

Meat is the single most resource intensive food on the planet. Our land, water, ozone, habitat, and air are all suffering horrifying effects from meat and animal production. To then consider the innumerable number of species and breeds dying out every year makes one wonder why this penchant for meat has become so socially acceptable. Here are a few numbers to think about:

• Fish must travel hundreds, if not thousands of miles while frozen or refrigerated, of which 38% is shipped internationally.
• Meat production requires about 11.5 times as much land, 15.2 times as much water, 13 times more fossil fuels, and 6 times as many biocides as soy production. As far as soy is concerned, meat uses roughly twice the resources for production.
• When we compare meat to pasta, studies have found that meat uses 20 times the amount of land and produces 3 times the amount of greenhouse gas emissions. Also, it created 17 times the amount of common water pollution and 5 times the toxic water pollution.
• 12,000 gallons of water can produce 1 pound of beef or 200 pounds of potatoes.
• A meat-based diet requires 7 times more land then a plant-based diet.

Which bad habit produces more greenhouse gas emissions, livestock production or transportation? Yep, livestock production. In fact, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization it produces 18% more emissions than transport. This isn’t just CO2 either. Of all human-related nitrous oxide output (which is nearly 300 times as potent as CO2), 65% is derived from our production of livestock. The specific product that leads to many, though not all, of these emissions is manure, which then contributes significantly to acid rain.

Perhaps the most basic of all sustainability issues is simply having land to live on. Nearly every growing city in the U.S. has started building upwards because there just seems to be no more room to move outward. Consider that roughly one-third of the Earth’s land is dedicated to livestock. But it still isn’t enough for the meat industry. One of the leading factors in worldwide deforestation is the clearing of forests to open new grazing pastures. An example of this can be seen in Latin America. In the Amazon, 70% of former forests are now grazing lands. Ironically 20% of pastures have been deemed degraded due to compaction, erosion, and overgrazing. This ridiculous cycle of deforestation, degradation, and more deforestation will undoubtedly leave the Earth covered in completely useless land sooner than many people would like to admit.

Now I have a frightening proposition for you. Imagine 120 pounds of wet manure. Not only is this fetid and virulent animal waste, but it is loaded with chemicals, fertilizers, pesticides, hormones, and antibiotics. Now picture this 120 pounds of shit being dumped into the river next door. Disgusting? Disturbing? Unfortunately, that is only one day’s worth of waste from one dairy cow. Multiply that by the thousands of animals in livestock plants every day. Unlike human waste, animal waste does not get treated before being dumped. Sometimes animal waste is dumped into mile-long holes dug into the ground, where it seeps into the land and eventually into the water, but many times it misses the earth altogether and is dumped directly into streams or rivers. Swimming in half of Arkansas’ streams has been prohibited because of the livestock pollution caused by Tyson Foods, just one example of the utterly unsustainable practices of the meat industry concerning our waterways.

By now the negative effects and nearly permanent damage we have done to our planet via livestock production and processing should be clear. But this is not all. The damage of the seafood industry and concerns about species extinction will be discussed in part two. More importantly, ways to stop this cycle, and even reverse it will be proposed. In the meantime, look at what you are eating on a daily basis, consider what the consequences are, and think about the positive impact you could be a part of.

To be continued. Check back for Part II of this article on Friday, and remember to check out Jaime’s great new site the Vegan Bug!

References:

State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA) reports 1996 – 2006
“Soy You Want to Be a Vegetarian?” – Grist.org
TreeHugger’s Green Guides: How to Green Your Meals
“Meat Production’s Environmental Toll” – Toronto Vegetarian Association
“Livestock a Major Threat to Environment” – UN Food and Agriculture Organization Newsroom
“Eat Lesss Meat, Fish and Dairy for the Planet” – 21st Century Girl
“Free-Range at Last, Free-Range at Last” by Robert F. Kennedy – Grist.org