The brainfart factory

I don’t eat the stuff. And for the record, chickens and fish are made of meat. This is not a choice because of personal health either. It is a choice as part of a survival plan for the planet. If you think I am full of bovine excreta, read this report commissioned for the UN and released in 2006. Our livestock are responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions (CO2 equivalents), more than the emissions from transport! The list goes on and on. Water contamination, drug resistant bacteria, pesticides, antibiotic and hormones in the food chain. That cow on the griddle is a major cause of the environmental pickle humanity finds itself in. Let me not get started on what our fish habit is doing to the oceans. So how much difference can a handful of tree hugging vegetarians make?

In spite of how I started this story, I am no radical, and I don’t have moral problems with consuming the flesh of animals. I will eat flesh if I have a real need for it, and if it was sustainably raised, and it led a natural life, and finally, I would have to kill it myself. Perhaps this is where the vegans will consider executing me (Vegans, don’t even think about it, I am made of meat), but it is consistent with survival of Homo Sapiens, with the advantage that you see the sacrifice the animal is making for you. No double standards here. No torture, no brief, brutal existence in a factory farm and sustainable. I just don’t think I could do the killing, so no meat for me.

However, the status quo is just reprehensible. Argue to the contrary is to deny finding after finding on sustainability, and to condone the horrors inflicted on our fellow fauna by the meat industry. This denialism is blatantly robbing the next generations of prosperity. My fellow vegetarians and the vegan community are guilty of evangelism at the very least, and downright dogmatism and fundamentalism at worst. This is no way to swing humanity. Those that are vegetarian for health alone are, in my opinion, rather self absorbed, and send no useful messages. The animal rights activists are shrill, but they do serve an important purpose in exposing the bloodbath.

There is a ray of hope. Today, the emancipation of women is taken for granted (at least in some societies). 100 years ago, women did not have the vote in “modern” democratic western countries. 2000 years ago, women were possessions. While there is still widespread repression of women, particularly in Islamic countries, these women are starting to see what their sisters in the West have achieved and are taking notice, much to the distress of the so-called men in these countries. The moral here is that things can and have changed from an almost axiomatic rule of women as chattel to where we are today: not there yet, but far down the road.

I contend that the same can happen for meat consumption. Small steps, gentle influence and a more accurate costing model for meat and animal products will change things dramatically. Remember that not eating meat for 1 day a week reduces the greenhouse gas equivalents by 2.5% (1/7 reduction in the 18% contribution of livestock, and assuming that no fish is consumed). This is a substantial gain for a small reduction. Reduce meat to something one has for special occasions, and we could render its contribution to greenhouse gas to negligible.

The question is how do we get this right? First step is conciousness raising. Here the internet is brilliant, and it is already doing its job. In modern, urban societies, vegetarianism is normal, but still in the minority, and attitudes are changing fast. All due to a greater awareness of meat’s negative effects on us. This is no different to the gradual acceptance of women as equals to men in these same societies. Being openly vegetarian allows others to more easily accept the life style as there is safety in numbers. Knowlegable and famous vegetarians really help here. There is still a long way to go, but I think there is critical mass. The second step is much harder. The simple fact is that meat is way to cheap given its cost to the planet. Accounting practices do not factor the debt that we a running up against Mother Nature. We will default on the debt if we do not start to cost this debt into the price of everything we do. Only then will the sticker price of meat be high enough to service the debt. And the actual price will make meat eaters squeak so much that they will eat less of it, or even drop it all together. If we default on this debt, mother nature will swat us into a sad fossil record for the next sentient species to learn from.

Added on 27 December 2007:

If the United Nations report was not enough to convince you, the New Scientist has an article corroborating the UN report. If you have $39, you can get the original article here

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 26th, 2007 at 12:22 am and is filed under Ranting again. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.