Vegetarian Logic

We've all seen the dramatic videos posted by animal rights organizations over the internet, or the "Meat is Murder" slogans plastered on posters and buttons. However, for some people those messages are just a bit too extreme and in-your-face to make sense. There are other reasons to be a vegetarian, however, and they have little to do with animal rights or the morality of eating meat, but environmental protection.

The meat industry harms our environment by polluting the air, water, and atmosphere, depleting resources, and dramatically decreasing the quality and functionality of land. According to Kay Woodward, the pesticides necessary to sustain the meat industry pollute any sources of water near agricultural land and decrease the habitat quality for the organisms that live there (Woodward). The National Resource Defense Council stated in an online publication that meat is transported roughly 1,500 miles before reaching a store or market, creating a substantial amount of greenhouse gases and pollution (NRDC). Mark Reinhardt, author of The Perfectly Contented Meat Eater’s Guide to Vegetarianism, stated in his book that there are 1.2 billion cows currently living in the world, with each individual cow emitting 14 cubic feet of methane, a greenhouse gas, daily (Reinhardt). Resource Depletion caused by the meat industry strips our land of the vital, natural wealth needed to function. The human population exploits the supply of fish found in natural aquatic environments. Every year, humans consume 180 billion pounds of fish (Reinhardt). The water supply and cycle is also subjugated by the meat industry. In the United States, animal agriculture consumes half of all the water used within the country (Reinhardt). In fact, 2000 gallons alone are needed to produce a single steak (Reinhardt). Land suffers a decrease in quality and functionality because of the meat industry. According to the experts who created the documentary Planet Earth: The Future, only ¼ of all land in the world is truly wilderness (Planet Earth: The Future). This means that the other 75% has been developed by people for housing, and mainly agriculture. In the United States, 80% of all farmland grows food to feed not people, but livestock (Planet Earth: The Future). Michael Fox, author of Deep Vegetarianism, found that 85% of wetland reduction in Canada is caused by clearing land for agricultural use (Fox). Together, these factors have caused serious repercussions for the environment.

The pollution pumped into the air and water by the meat industry has devastating effects. The quality of water around agricultural areas has deteriorated, to the point where aquatic habitats can no longer function for wildlife (Woodward). The Queen Conch, a snail native to Florida, used to be a tourist attraction. However, the pesticides used have decreased their population near extinction (Woodward). All of the methane emitted by cattle is contributing to the increase in the temperature of our planet through Global Warming (Reinhardt). In addition to that, the “trucking, shipping and flying” needed to transport meat produces large amounts of harmful green house gases (NRDC). Pollution harms people directly as well. Asian countries consume a substantial amount of fish, mainly from polluted waters, leading to health problems. (Planet Earth) The food chain is perhaps one of the most valuable resources we have to maintain environment well-being, and the meat industry has disrupted it. Habitat destruction caused by the meat industry leads to an unbalanced ecosystem (Woodward). The exploitation of the water cycle by the meat industry leads to droughts, commonly seen in places such as California in the United States (Reinhardt). Agriculture is also the biggest water pollutant, and “most of that can be attributed to animal agriculture” (Reinhardt). The damage done to land quality and functionality is perhaps the most devastating effect of the meat industry. In the Amazon Rainforest, land is being ruined because of cattle grazing. Developing wild areas for agricultural use has negative effects on the environment, such as desertification and deforestation (Fox). Once the trees are removed from the fields, the soil begins to erode because no roots are in place to keep water from flowing (Planet Earth). Eighty acres of tropical rainforest are lost per minute because of extensive cattle grazing (Reinhardt). This is particularly harmful in Latin America, where cattle grazing is the number one cause of rainforest destruction (Fox). The functionality of land is also abused by the meat industry. The United States loses 4.25 billion tons of topsoil every single year due to cattle grazing, leaving land useless (Reinhardt). Scientists have estimated that the earth could safely sustain three billion people; however we have 6 billion people, many of which are starving. Regardless, in the United States, 80% of all of the farm land is used to feed animals, not people (Planet Earth). 95% of oats and 80% of corn grown in the world are used to feed animals, while people starve due to the poor function of developed land (Fox).

While the effects of the meat industry are tragic, there is no reason for them to be permanent. A simple way to mend the problem is to stop the commercialized consumption of meat through vegetarianism. Vegetarianism would lessen the amount of pollution. In terms of fossil fuel usage, plant agriculture is thirty times as efficient as animal agriculture (Reinhardt). Crops grown in season need little, if any, additional water other than what they get from the environment naturally. This reduces resource exploitation. Consuming less meat would allow for land redistribution. Instead of growing nearly all crops to feed livestock, agricultural land could be used to feed people (Planet Earth). If land were redistributed, and the grain used to feed livestock in the United States for a year was instead grown for people, it could sustain 800,000,000 vegetarian diets.(Fox) Hypothetically speaking, if the entire world were to adopt a vegetarian diet, there would be an excess of farmland. Farmland in regions that were once rainforest or wilderness could be allowed to regrow, thus renovating the environment and resources. In Costa Rica, the government pays farmers to allow certain fields to regrow as part of the rainforest as the commercial demand for meat decreases (Planet Earth). As a result, the environment is prospering. Because we don’t live in the hypothetical world described above, it’s safe to assume the entire population of the world will not adopt vegetarian diets. Eating locally grown and produced food lower on the food chain is another option to combat the harm done by the meat industry. By doing this, “we can curb global warming and air pollution, avoid toxic pesticides, and support local farmers” (NRDC). Eating locally grown foods, meat included, knocks out the extensive shipping and transportation that requires so many fossil fuels and releases so much pollution.