It's not that I have a problem with vegetarianism -- I really don't, it's just that the kind of factory farming that wastes incredible resources is the real problem, not eating animals. People are gonna eat meat.

Even if the world as a whole decides to switch over, it's not going to happen quick enough to meet these goals. So why not encourage the reduction of factory farms. Why not encourage people to eat free range and organic and to lessen their indulgence of meat instead of stop it?

Is it because you secretly want the earth made uninhabitable for humans? Maybe it's because you've got this point to prove about going veggie and no amount of moderation is going to stop you from making it.

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I'm not going to eat 500 grams of lentils a day just so that we can cram another 10 billion people onto this planet. At least at the moment we have the choice not to over-use resources, when world population enters 8 digits we may have to ask people to starve to prevent deforestation and pollution problems.

I for one prefer to live in a world of 3 billion people eating meat and living sustainably than a world of 10 billion people who live in an unsustainable economy which needs food rationning to prevent widespread starvation.

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The people of the Lisotribes in north east asia
eat mainly no meat.
At chinese newyear the family hog, during the year on sunday sometimes a chicken, maybe friday some fish.
Although a vegetarian in a hummer is less offensive to global warming then a pedestrian to his daily hamburger a little bit moderation is OK, why not consider meat as something special because it is made from a living creature??

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Vegetarians consistently provide me with the kind of lean, juicy meat my body thrives on.

While you do, of course, have to pay attention to which particular "vegetable" diet they maintain in order to avoid excessivly fatty, or their opposite, woefully malnourished, specimens, Vegetarian Meat is reliably less "gamey" and "tough" than comparable cuts of "non-vegetarian" meat.

Domestication of Vegetarians is also a much more reasonable venture than of "non-vegetarians". Vegetarians being, on the whole much more docile, co-operative, and cognitively "slower", and thus much more apt to respond to the "shepherd/flock" paradigm.

I mean seriously, you could eat your cat, sure. But try repeating this, buying new ones, they'll catch on -believe me I've tried.

Vegetarians NEVER seem to catch on.

Finally once you've gotten them all settled down into their pens, you can use your Vegetarian's Shit As Compost! Grow more "vegetables" to fatten them up for your feastin' pleasure.

Can't do that with "Non-veggies", can you?


So take it from an old feller who's in the Know,

Make the Switch,

Eat ONLY Vegetarians from this day forward,



You'll be helping your Planet, your Country, and your Self.

-matti

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I am tired of vegetarians inferring or coming right out and saying I am cruel for eating meat, if I choose so. I am tired of vegetarians pointing their righteous finger at people who choose to eat meat. Eating meat is not the problem, as other readers leaving comments point out.

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Slaughterhouses are perhaps the most violent places on the planet. Animals are routinely sent kicking and screaming through the skinning and dismemberment process, every one bleeding and dying exactly like they would if they were human beings.

Farms today treat animals like so many boxes in a warehouse, chopping off beaks and tails and genitals with no painkillers at all, inflicting third degree burns (branding), ripping out teeth, and hunks of flesh.

Animals transported to slaughter routinely die from the heat or the cold, or freeze to the sides of the transport trucks or to the bottom in their own excrement. Dairy cows and egg laying hens endure the same living nightmare as their brethren who are raised for their flesh, except that their time on the "farm" is longer. They are still shipped to the slaughterhouse and killed, at a fraction of their natural life span.

There is simply no excuse for anyone who considers herself or himself to be an ethical human being, let alone an "animal lover," to be supporting these kinds of practices, all of which are routine and universal throughout the industries which turn animals into eggs and meat and dairy products.

If I can't watch it happening, I want no part of it. I enjoy watching fields tilled and love picking apples and tomatoes and carrots and other vegetarian products. If slaughterhouses had glass walls, as Paul McCartney is so fond of saying, we would all be vegetarians.

Every time I sit down to eat, I make a decision about who I am in the world: Do I want to add to the level of violence, misery, and bloodshed in the world? Or, do I want to make a compassionate and merciful choice?

There is so much violence in the world, from war torn regions of Africa and Europe, to our own inner cities. Most of this violence is difficult to understand, let alone influence.

Veganism is one area where each and every one of us can make a difference, every time we sit down to eat. I find it empowering that I can make an option for peace and compassion every time I eat, simply by not encouraging violence and misery against animals.

Visit www.Meat.org to see how meat is made.

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Living in a rural area, I find it hard to believe that my carbon footprint will be reduced by eating a veggie burger produced from soybeans grown over a thousand miles away, processed in a plant several hundred miles away and then frozen and distributed in refrigerated trucks to my local store compared to eating a hamburger produced from a grass raised bull calf raised by a farmer 10 miles from my home and processed at a local slaughterhouse 15 miles from my home. Eating local is a viable option for many, eating less is also an option, but the promotion of highly processed foods as being morally and ecologically superior and the failure to recognize as reasonable an alternative such as locally grown meat is silly.

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For vegitarians to capitalize on global warming. People will just tend to associate it with other lefty tangents and turn off the whole issue. Personally I am a flextarian, and it is the scary religious zeal of veggies that turns me off the movement. It is fine though to include eating less meat as one way to reduce CO2 output. I also question those stats. My student did oral reports this week. Several did green design and energy consumption by buildings came in much higer than what the article stated!

p.s. As for it being good for one's waistline, talk to all the fat vegrtarins out there. Like the ones who drop off veggie boards and clubs because the are told they can't exist.

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As an environmentalist, the "People will always eat meat" excuse really hits home with me. Isn't environmentalism about both making personal changes to better the Earth and encouraging others to do so? How is going vegetarian--or encouraging others to go vegetarian--any different than not buying a Hummer, and encouraging others to not buy Hummers. Or buying energy efficient lightbulbs and encouraging others to do so, too? Perhaps people see it as too inconvenient (though anyone who's gone vegetarian in recent years will attest to the fact that it is extremely easy), and so try to justify not doing it by saying its not important. But that's no different than trying to discredit global warming because you really want to continue driving a Hummer, or you really don't want to have to switch your lightbulbs. The science clear. Its time to stop making excuses.

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There are two things wrong with stating that going vegetarian will reduce carbon dioxide emissions. It just doesn't paint the full picture. 1. What about the time-tested way of consuming animals by hunting for them and preparing them over fire? We're always going to need fire, so that doesn't count towards CO2 emissions, and if society ever goes under, everyone who wants to eat will do this at some point. 2. The Islamic way of preparing food from animals requires that it be done quickly, painlessly, and by hand, and there are thus no CO2 emissions resulting from that method. It's like of like point 1, wouldn't you say?

Not to say that vegetarian diets are bad - they're great, and I don't eat much meat myself. I used to be a vegetarian and that was probably the healthiest time of my life. My girlfriend is one herself. So it's definitely a good thing. My point is that this article does not include a fully informed point of view for those who have no trouble with meat (and some who need it for dietary reasons).

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The best part is they taste like chicken!

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Alternet wants to talk about the environmental impacts of diet. Nothing wrong with that. Alternet seems to think the only solution to push is to stop eating meat. Screw you! I hunt deer, pheasant and grouse. I gut and drain them with my own two hands. My friend butchers the deer for me. I can walk to two different lakes and one stream and pull fish out all day. I go to my Amish neighbors, point at a chicken and 15 min later its ready for me to take home and cook. As for the rest of my meat I get most of it from the farmer's market. At least 90% of my diet is obtained locally, including my vegetables. I don't have any problem whatsoever with vegetarians/vegans or whatever else is out there but fuck off if you want to push your lifestyle on me. From an environmental standpoint I have a smaller footprint than most vegetarians or vegans and I eat meat almost every day.

Why not publish an article about the environmental benefits of harvesting local game or eating locally grown food without the vegetarian dogma? You guys are almost as bad as the Jesus pushers.

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Great article, Kathy! Eating delicious vegetarian foods instead of artery-clogging meat, eggs, and dairy products is a win-win-win decision. It makes a world of difference for our planet, our health, and of course, animals. I went vegetarian more than 16 years ago, and it is one of the best choices I've ever made. I encourage everyone to give it a try--like Kathy says, it can be as simple as ordering a veggie burger instead of the kind made from cows. Your body, the earth, and animals will thank you! Check out VegCooking.com to for tasty, animal-free recipes.

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So, one of the simplest and most elemental things you can do to decrease your carbon footprint is to choose a veggie burger over a hamburger.

It saddens me to read this unenlightened comment in the context of an otherwise enlightened article, and reminds me of the long section of veggie burgers for sale at Whole Foods supermarket, a large chain that specializes in making people feel guilt-free about their food choices, while having tragically minimal impact on the actual environment.

The industrial growing of soybeans is more water- and fertilizer- intensive, soil-depleting, pesticide-driven and destructive of the environment, including C02 emissions, than any of the other major industrialized food crops. Industrialized agriculture of our staple food crops, even those not used for the raising of cattle, rank as one of the most destructive single practices for the environment and for C02 emissions on the planet.

This is common knowledge amongst those who follow environmental issues and this fact ought to be at the tip of anyone's fingers who would write an article such as the one above.

To suggest that we replace one environmentally destructive eating habit, industrialized meat, with another, industrialized soy, is folly. There's a well-known statistic that land used to feed one person meat could feed something like 17 people a vegetarian diet. I think a similar statistic could be used to describe industrialized soy production, though I doubt it's as extreme as meat (I don't know the statistic). Eating soy burgers is probably less destructive for the environment than eating meat, but I suspect not so significantly to be worth suggesting as the solution for the problem.

Industrialized soy production needs to be stopped, and replaced with small-scale biodiverse farming practices, if we want to solve our current crises.

Incidentally, I agree with a previous post, that if meat were raised with environmentally conscious practices, it could also be done sustainably. Similarly for soy.

Dan Nissenbaum

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Isn't this the same Kathy Freston who claimed awhile back on Alternet that you couldn't be a Progressive if you ate meat? And isn't she an ex-model who wrote some cockamamie book about "overcoming her insecurities" and is married to some millionaire media mogul?

Listen, Alternet---I know you need contributions and this babe has probably contributed plenty. But don't lower your creditability by giving a forum to some half-assed poor little rich girl Lexus Liberal to promote her near-religious views on vegetarianism.

BTW--I am a farmer and progressive and livestock producer who is going to have steak tonight.

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It's sad that when push-comes-to-shove how many progressives will come up with a long list of lame reasons not to make changes in their life that will undoubtedly do lots of good. Everyone likes to theorize about how others should think or act differently, but the progressives who have credibility are the ones who make changes in their own lives.

The horrific abuse of animals by the meat industry has been documented over and over again by a litany of sources, not just animal rights activists. The environmental benefits of going vegetarian are rock-solid - global warming, the rain forest, water pollution, etc. If you can't go vegetarian all at once, transitioning over several months or a year is great - the more meatless meals you eat the more you help. But let's cut these endless rounds of excuse-making and lame cop-outs; it's wasting a lot of time that we could otherwise be using to fix the problems in our world.

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. . .any part of my lifestyle. I do, in fact.

I know some vegetarians who are all-around environmentalists living lightly on the earth, and I know as many who fly at least once a month (one I know flies around 5 times a month) and who drive long distances a few times a week to wholesome, earth-focused events. Some vegetarians seem very sincere to me, others seem like it's a diet they enjoy and have no trouble with anyway, and it makes a nice rationalization to live, well, high on the hog in every other way.

It often also seems a convenient way to scapegoat everyone else, without looking too closely at oneself. And this is what I think when I see an article that is subtitled with the idea that there is only one legitimate starting place for reducing one's carbon footprint.

I'm certain that if I state here that the unhealthiest times of my life have been when I've tried vegetarianism (the most recent was about 2 months ago), I'll hear that I didn't eat right. I did. Some of us cannot take this diet. It takes me two weeks to feel awful. Although I feel better almost right away when I add meat back into my diet, it takes about two more weeks to feel completely back to normal energy. I already know that the vegetarians won't believe my experience, and will try to interpret and correct it. It won't matter, because someone else's words can't cancel another person's daily experience. Especially in the fall, I crave red meat, and feel, when I eat it, that something has been righted and that my body has gotten exactly what it needs.

The wisest comment I've heard on this was a former vegetarian who returned to eating meat after about 2 years (that is a very common occurance, and one that seems as though would be rare if this diet suited every blood type). She said that she feels closer to the earth when she eats meat. Me, too. Closer, with more reverance, not less. And no one else's experience will be able to override mine, or hers.

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Great piece! I've been vegan for ten years and not only is my health better, but I can rest easy knowing I'm not causing harm to others -- or the planet!

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A vegan diet is the best way to reduce global warming--and help billions of animals. And it's so easy. I've been a vegan for many years and vegan foods are delicious and easy to be find. Thanks for spreading the word about this important issue on AlterNet!

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I usually notice a central issue missing from discussion of vegetarianism. Inequality, poverty, and our ultra-fast-paced "convenience" lifestyle all but demand that some people eat meat, even to the detriment of their health and the planet's health.

Industrially produced meat is a very "yang" food that has a drug-like influence on the body, playing an analogous role to caffeine, bright lights, or any other form of hyperstimulation intractably embedded into our current modern culture. People at a disadvantage - poor people, stigmatized people - will gladly sacrifice health in order for the short-term gain this stimulus provides. Meat becomes an addiction that drives our society in much the way the other stimulations do.

Eating a vegetarian diet is therefore the privilege of those who benefit from the inequality and are able to afford it - not just financially, but in terms of time, space, and access to the food.

There are, of course, poor and disadvantaged people who are vegetarians, just as there are poor and disadvantaged people who are happy, able to find a decent workplace, and who overcome impediments to live a good life. In fact, I believe that "wealth is poverty" and just as much a trap for many people.

It's also possible to replicate the high-energy, high-stimulus "yang" quality of meat in vegetarian food. This is exactly what is done with veggie burgers - and I don't think it's a coincidence that veggie burgers are highly destructive of the environment, just as meat it (as I mentioned in a previous post).

A real vegetarian diet - not a fake meat diet - takes more time and consciousness than a thoughtless meat diet. A real healthy lifestyle cannot coexist with the high-paced, competitive lifestyle of our modern culture, which demands the addictive drug effects of industrially-produced meat, caffeine, sugar, constant noise and visual stimulus, and every other possible energetic cattleprod it is possible to fit into a small space.

We need to slow down the pace of society and eliminate the hideous, growing inequality of modern civilization. Then it will be possible - and natural - for many people to eat vegetarian diets.

I think that any discussion about vegetarianism failing to recognize this central point is self-serving.

Dan Nissenbaum

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Aw, looks like Kathy Freston has hurt some meat-eaters' feelings. Hey kids, the truth hurts, but that doesn't make it any less truthful. Bottom line--a vegetarian diet is better for the planet than a meat-based diet. No amount of childish attacks on vegetarians and their mothers will change that.

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Kudos on this wonderful article.

The bottom line is that the world is heading toward an unprecedented catastrophe due to global waeming and other environmental threats, including rapid species extinction, deforestation, growing water shortages, and many more, and a switch toward plant-based diets is an essential part of the many things that need to be done in response.

This is an increasingly consensus view of climate scientists.

For more information, please see my over 130 articles at JewishVeg.com/schwartz.

If you would like to help spread the message, please contact me and provide your mailing address at mail@JewishVeg.com and I will be happy to have a free DVD of our new movie A SACRED DUTY: APPLYING JEWISH VALUES TO HELP HEAL THE WORLD sent to you.

A key question is should we believe the thousands of climate scientists of the Intergovernmnetal Panel on Climate Change and the almost daily evidence of global warming effects or the relatively few nay sayers.

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Americans which practically worship meat. Take a look at one of those sit down chain ads- the loving detail, frequently delivered in slow motion, the perfect grill marks, the running juices, the happy smiles of contented bellies. Yeah, the UN is gonna have a really easy time selling America on vegetarianism.

On the other hand, if we follow the lead of a few pioneering ranchers, Texas may be where America gets most of its energy- wind energy. That's a very real possibility. Hopefully we won't do the stupid thing and keep the beef supply constant, just cramming more and more cattle into smaller feed lots. I think superbacteria might come to our rescue in the end and eliminate the feedlot mentality forever.
that's what it takes for America to change its mind about something: total destruction and ruin.

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Its pretty amazing the people stuff will come up with to rationalize their behavior. I'm referring to the comments in the forum. It starts to sound a little bit like skepticism around global warming.

"I question the statistics the UN put out."

"People will always eat meat."

"Vegetarian diets CAN be just as unfriendly to the environment as meat diets."

"Some vegetarians are hypocrits, or are sanctimonious, even hostile."

"They use their high-horse of vegetarianism to justify other excessively wasteful habits."

"Look at all the comments on this forum of people who eat meat and think vegetarianism is stupid."

"Some people can't handle a vegetarian diet, and lots of vegetarians go back to eating meat because..."

"In some places in the world, one cannot live healthily on a vegetarian diet."

If you said one of the following things, consider the fact that you are choosing consciously or not, to have your head in the sand.

Saying, vegetarians do this or that, people do this or that, is a logical fallacy called appeal to common practice. It doesn't actually have anything to do with the facts the UN is presenting. Its just a convenient way of feeling better about your choices in life.

The rest just seems like biased armchair analysis, framing of reality in a way that, again, makes it easier to keep doing what you're doing.

If you think you see a flaw in the argument for vegetarianism, at least do a little research and come to a reasonable conclusion about it.

Its a personal decision, not one the hive mind is going to make all at once. You're an individual, not someone else's brain or intestinal tract.

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If you choose a Veg diet good for you. As for me, I have friends who are accomplished cooks, who are vegetarians, and I can say without equivocation that I have NEVER had a meal that had no meat in it that was as tasty or satisfying as one that included meat. Ever.

As for tofu, the very fact that one has to always state enthusiastically "it tastes great, really" always skeaves me. The experience is never as good as the speaker claims, and is the dish in question is usually barely edible.

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Control Of Methane Emissions Would Reduce Both Global Warming And Air Pollution

Methane's Impacts On Climate Change May Be Twice Previous Estimates

And most importantly:
Charting the World's Protein Shift - Check out Fig. 2 and see how much more meat per capita N. America consumes vs. the rest of the world.

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The role of meat is another inconvenient truth we cannot avoid.

Please visit the following two sites on this vital issue.

Meat Eating and Global Warming
www.ivu.org/members/globalwarming.html

Eco-Eating: Eating as if the Earth Matters
www.brook.com/veg

[Animals] were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites or women for men.
Alice Walker

The time will come when people such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of people.
Leonardo da Vinci

Animals raised for food endure great suffering in their housing, transport, feeding and slaughter.
J Motavalli, So You're an Environmentalist; Why Are You Still Eating Meat?

I feel very deeply about vegetarianism and the animal kingdom. It was my dog Boycott who led me to question the right of humans to eat other sentient beings.
Cesar Chavez, United Farm Workers

I encourage the Tibetan people and all people to move toward a vegetarian diet that doesn't cause suffering.
Dalai Lama

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
Mohandas Gandhi

The human appetite for animal flesh is a driving force behind virtually every major category of environmental damage now threatening the human future: deforestation, erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice, the destabilization of communities, and the spread of disease.
World Watch, July/August 2004

Nothing will benefit health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.
Albert Einstein

There is a direct relationship between eating meat and the environment.
Andrea Gordon, If You Recycle, Why Are You Eating Meat?

If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is just stop eating meat. That's the single most important thing you could do.
Paul McCartney

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Unless one grows all the fruits, vegetables, etc. one comsumes or purchases exclusiviely from the Amish, even organic "farmers," acturally agribusinessmen, use large, petroleum consuming farm implements. The soil is cultivated by guys driving tractors, the produce is delivered to the "organic" grocery by guys driving trucks, and the it is refrigerated by electricity generated in coal-fired plants, at least in most locales to this date.

As Michael Pollan observes in The Omnivore's Dilemma:
As in so many other realms, nature' logic has proven no match for the logic of capitalism, one in which cheap energy has always been a given. And so, today, the organic food industry finds itself in a most unexpected, uncomfortable, and, yes, unsustainable position: floating on a sinking sea of petroleum. p 184

And a word about the Amish. They do consume many of the animals they raise, no vegetarians they. And they are businessmen after all and know their fruits are vegetables are prized by we "English" (the Amish term for all non-Amish.) So they will hire a trusted "English" or "black-bumper" Mennonite friend to deliver said produce, but a modern conveyence such as a gsoline-powered van or pickup truck, into the nearest town for resale.

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Here's a link to a article from Rolling Stone Magazine. Check out the great cover photo! Yikes!

http://tinyurl.com/y77kvm

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Thanks for the great article.

Although you can dispute the actual numbers, it is common sense to realize that it takes more grains, water, land, and energy resources to produce animal flesh and animal products than it does to produce plants. Up to 1/2 of US water supplies and 1/3 of our energy resources are used for animal agriculture. And using more energy (fossil fuels) releases more global warming emissions.

Animal agriculture is also responsible for the production of large amounts of methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases.

Every meal presents an opportunity to make a difference. For those who care about their children and grandchildren and the future of our planet, it shouldn't be too hard to abandon destructive habits and acquired tastes and instead opt for the veggie burger.

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Grass Roots complained about "self-righteous" vegetarians trying to dictate what he eats.

But is it "self-righteous" to confront people about morally objectionable behavior? Of course not! Society does it every day when we enforce laws that prohibit murder, stealing, fraud, polluting the environment, etc. And we do it in our personal relationships as well, when we ostracize liars and cheaters from our circle of friends, for example.

Most people accept that some things are morally wrong, and it is perfectly proper for society and individuals to judge others and impose legal or social penalties for moral lapses.

Moral issues are usually issues that affect or harm others, it is not simply a matter of personal choice. Meat-eating IS a moral issue in the same way that cheating, stealing, lying, and polluting the environment are all moral issues.

And as grassroots suggests, people don't like to be confronted with their moral lapses and they may call those who confront them "self righteous" as he does. But if someone were beating their wife, stealing from the employer, or throwing litter out the car window, most of us would speak up about it, I hope and not care if the thieves, litterers, or wife-beaters call us self-righteous.

Vegans should quit feeling guilty about speaking up. In fact, they have a moral obligation to speak up. Moral issues are not left "to each his own" like a choice between chocolate and vanilla ice-cream.

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Eating a vegetarian diet is the single most important thing you can do to protect the environment (by eating low on the food chain)and your health (by not consuming the flesh of dead animals who've been pumped up with antibiotics to keep their diseased bodies alive long enough to grow before being slaughtered).

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The problem with going vegetarian is that most of what you end up eating is soy-based. There are many health concerns that have been raised concerning soy that need to be investigated further. It has long been known that soy raises estrogen levels - women even eat large quantities of soy as a form of hormone replacement therapy. What happens when men eat that stuff? Or kids? Lots of people think that soy has something to do with the early puberty that girls are experiencing, and the declining height of males in the US. Personally, I tried to go vegetarian once and ate a lot of veggie burgers and tofu to compensate for meat proteins. I got a swollen prostate at age 32 and an inexplicable layer of subcutaneous fat. When I stopped eating soy, everything returned to normal, my body got leaner, and I even gained several pounds of pure muscle without making any changes in my exercise routine. Vegetarianism IS NOT as healthy as its rabid adherents claim - and, no, our tribal ancestors DID NOT EAT VEGETARIAN DIETS. When I went to India, I noticed immediate differences in size, stature, and strength between meat eaters (Muslims and Christians) and vegetarians (Hindus). It's sad that 6 billion humans eating like humans are devouring all the fish in the ocean and turning vast acreages into lakes of feces produced by our animals. BUT WE ARE HUMAN BEINGS - nature did not design us to be vegetarians, and we can't simply decide to go against millions of years of evolution. Don't fall for the Ghandi (a devout Hindu) inspired vegetarian rhetoric. You'll destroy your body and ruin your quality of life.

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The evidence that animal agriculture is having a devastating impact on our environment is hard to ignore. I wish people wouldn't get so angry and defensive about this and realize it's not an all or nothing issue -- if everyone just made an effort to cut back on their meat eating, that would have a huge impact.

I know "tofu-phobia" is pervasive but look at it as an eating adventure and just do some experimenting to find things you enjoy. It's really easier than it ever has been to find satisfying plant-based substitutes for just about anything.

Chooseveg.com is a great resource full of excellent recipes and tips.

I think that everything is interconnected and the same things that are good for our environment and our health, are also good for the animals of the world. And really "food" animals are no different than our companion animals. They just want to enjoy the life that was given to them and not to suffer. Even animals on small farms experience mutilations such as castration without anesthetic and eventually...the terror of the slaughterhouse.

"Animal liberation is also human liberation. Animal liberationists care about the quality of life for all. We recognize our kinship with all feeling beings. We identify with the powerless and the vulnerable – the victims, all those dominated, oppressed and exploited. And it is the non-human animals whose suffering is the most intense, widespread, expanding, systematic and socially sanctioned of all." Henry Spira

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Cows are a major source of methane.

EAT MORE BEEF!!

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This seems such a simple argument...vegetarianism has no detrimental effects, only positive! It helps the environment, the animals and your own personal health. It's shocking to me how people are able to justify all their ingrained habits and get so defensive! As if talking about doing the right thing is a personal affront.

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A U.N. report from just this past November found that a full 18 percent of global warming emissions come from raising chickens, turkeys, pigs, and other animals for food. That's about 40 percent more than all the cars, trucks, airplanes, and all other forms of transport combined (13 percent). It's also more than all the homes and offices in the world put together (8 percent).

Please post a link. What kind of assumptions do you have to make to draw this conclusion? That if you quit eating meat then your food consumption wouldn't generate any global warming emissions? That the manufacture of automobiles and aircraft doesn't contribute to global warming emissions? That the construction of roadways and airports doesn't contribute to global warming?

I need more evidence than this to convince me to quit eating the 3 or 4 nonvegetarian meals I eat per week.

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Come on everyone!! Get down with vegetarianism! It's the best thing you can do to save the planet right now. Forget pushing for impeachment of a president who is ignoring international environmental protocols, not to mention committing war crimes daily and drawing us into yet another ME conflict. Oh Joy!!

Don't stop driving your polluting cars or demand better fuel efficiency standards! Heavens no - don't even dream it. Don't worry about emissions from coal-fired power plants - here or in China. Let's not address the fundamental economic motivators that are directly related to pollution. Try curbing your consumption of Chinese crap and the world will invariably be a greener place. Naaaaaw - we couldn't ask anyone to do that. Just so you know, China will be overtaking the US as the world's greatest polluter sometime early next year and your dollars are making it possible. Congrats!

Here's a fascinating article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/world/asia/26china.html

Please don't make any of the necessary changes in your life. Don't use public transportation, or god forbid, sit your fat ass on a Schwinn. Don't stop eating bananas from Panama or kiwis from New Zealand or Chile. Oh wait - it's ok to eat fruit that has steamed its way up the Pacific Coast from Chile, right? Yeah, that's environmentally sound.

By all means, maintain your smug and arrogant demeanor cuz you're doing all you can to save the planet!! But please don't stop being a hypocrite and self-righteous prick. Don't do that.

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"Global hunger could be directly attributed to meat-eating." -- Chrissie Hynde

Half the world's population does not receive an adequate amount of food to eat. Ten to twenty million die annually of hunger and its effects. The Institute for Food and Development Policy reports that, "Forty thousand children starve to death on this planet every day," or one child every two seconds.

The livestock population of the United States today consumes enough grain and soybeans to feed over five times the entire human population of the country. We feed these animals over 80% of the corn we grow, and over 95% of the oats. Less than half the harvested agricultural acreage in the United States is used to grow food for people. Most of it is used to grow livestock feed.

Ronald J. Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, in his 1977 book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, pointed out that 220 million Americans were eating enough food (largely because of the high consumption of grain-fed livestock) to feed over one billion people in the poorer countries.

The world's cattle alone, not to mention pigs and chickens, consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people--nearly double the entire human population of the planet. It takes 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef. According to Department of Agriculture statistics, one acre of land can grow 20,000 pounds of potatoes. That same acre of land, if used to grow cattlefeed, can produce less than 165 pounds of beef.

In his book, The Hungry Planet, Georg Bergstrom points out that protein-starved underdeveloped nations export more protein to wealthy nations than they receive. He calls this "the protein swindle." Ninety percent of the world's fish meal catch, for example, is exported to rich countries. One-third of Africa's peanut crop winds up in the stomachs of European livestock. Half the world's cereal crop is fed to livestock and the United States annually imports one million tons of vegetable protein from Third World nations--just to feed its farm animals.

Bergstrom writes: "Sometimes one wonders how many Americans and Western Europeans have grasped the fact that quite a few of their beef steaks, quarts of milk, dozens of eggs, and hundreds of broilers are the result, not of their agriculture, but of the approximately two million metric tons of protein, mostly of high quality, which astute Western businessmen channel away from the needy and hungry."

Jeremy Rifkin, author of a dozen influential books and President of the Foundation on Economic Trends, says in his 1992 book Beyond Beef:

"Cattle and other livestock are devouring much of the grain produced on the planet. It need be emphasized that this is a new phenomenon, unlike anything ever experienced before.

"Contrary to popular belief, the poor are getting poorer each year...Increased poverty has meant increased malnutrition. On the African continent, nearly one in every four human beings is malnourished. In Latin America, nearly one out of every seven people goes to bed hungry each night. In Asia and the Pacific, 28 percent of the people border on starvation, experiencing the gnawing pain of a perpetual hunger."

"In the Near East, one in ten people is underfed. Chronic hunger now affects upwards of 1.3 billion people, according to the world Health Organization--a statistic all the more striking in a world where one third of all the grain produced is being fed to cattle and other livestock. Never before in human history has such a large percentage of our species--nearly 25 percent--been malnourished

"The transition of world agriculture from food grain to feed grains represents an...evil whose consequences may be far greater and longer lasting than any past examples of violence inflicted by men against their fellow human beings."

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I am not kidding when I say that I find that most people who eat meat for three meals a day generally overweight, ugly, and sometimes very hostile. Humans have never eaten as much meat as after industrialization. It is wasteful and is destroying the human body.

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That is why we see so many people getting so defensive, protecting their dear addiction to the bitter end, despite all the evidence that it damages the environment, damages our health, and harms our fellow sentient creatures!
I'll admit, when I quit 20 years ago out of concern for my fellow animals, I liked the flavor and did have cravings, just like one would crave a cigarette, but I did the right thing and quit killing and harming the environment more than was necessary. It is an addicition, no doubt, but we have nothing to lose by confronting the animal instincts that lead to our destructive behaviour. There's nothing much better than having the self respect that comes with knowing that I don't kill or rape the land for my own pleasure.

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If you could save the environment, save your health, and save animals by going vegetarian, why wouldn't you? This is a win-win-win situation.

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I don't doubt that compared to the average American's factory-farmed meat-heavy diet, vegetarianism is the better option. But is it truly the most sustainable?

I would like to see the estimated greenhouse gas emissions when considering a diet that is omnivorous but local. I am not convinced that eating avocados, bananas and peanuts shipped in from thousands of miles away is more sustainable than eating local, pastured beef, poultry or pork. The truth is, if we were eating as locally as possible, vegetarianism would not be realistic or even possible in most parts of the country, or world.

What are the the other implications of being vegetarian? One would need to heavily rely on the free market--vegetables grown in Florida, Mexico, fruit from California and Guatemala, all picked by native or migrant workers being paid pennies for their labor. Is that sustainable?

In my neck of the woods--Southeastern Michigan--I could not eat both vegetarian and locally year round and eat a well-balanced diet. Home gardening, preserving some of my own food, shopping at Farmer's Markets, getting a CSA share during the growing season, and being a member of a local Farmer's cooperative that sells raw dairy products, grass-fed beef, poultry and pork are all ways that I reduce the impact my diet has on the environment. I am not convinced that the average vegetarian diet beats mine in terms of global warming prevention, and I'd love to see the numbers that prove it.

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Yet another 'veggiecentric' thinker blinded from even mentioning other options. While you have a valid point, there are other ways that reduce energy use MUCH further.
Every city slicker argues that it is impossible for them to hunt. But you're dead wrong- in fact you owe it to your ecosystem to reduce deer populations that have been squeezed to the outskirts of urbania, and there competing for reduced resources with to large a population. So yes, 'oil-raised' meat products are bad, but natural animals that need to be managed (your city messed up the ecosystem).
Are people afraid to be labelled a redneck or something? Instead I'll label you self-righteous city-centric brocolli heads that waste oil and resources.
And if you don't live in the city, you're in the driver's seat to put oil-free food on the table...
So the next soy powered article should have less of the tunnel vision....

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I've been a reader of Alternet for a while now and it seems that no topic generates more defensive and hostile commentary than vegetarianism. I remember a review a while back of the book "The Bloodless Revolution" on this site, about the history of vegetarianism, caused people to write scathing comments about how preachy vegetarians were, that they have no right to tell you not to eat meat because they're all a bunch of self-serving narcissists, and how the vegetarian diet is against nature and will kill you, and so on. Perhaps not that extreme, but hopefully you see what I'm getting at. I see the tradition continues here...I think the 'eating vegetarians' person has posted that comment on every one of the vegetarian articles. I'm glad to see that joke never gets old for him or her.

I am a vegetarian but I can see why people who eat meat get defensive about it. It's certainly something we can all have an opinion about, since we all eat food, and criticizing someone's diet can get very personal. I am surrounded by people who eat meat; family, friends, at the office, but I wouldn't think of criticizing their diets because doing so would alienate them.

I'm not sure articles like this really help the cause of vegetarianism either, because, as others have pointed out, meat production is not the only agricultural practice that can affect the carbon footprint. We need to also think about sustainable produce farming, since the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers does a lot of damage to the environment as well.

Overall, I think the point of this article is that we live in a capitalistic society that has industries where it is often hard to affect change because the practices are so well-established, and the best way in this case to do so is the way it is often done - with our wallets. If people continue to demand certain products - in this case, sustainably-grown meat and produce - then that alone will affect change. But it is a long uphill battle, and advocating vegetarianism is a very simplistic solution.

I'm a vegetarian because killing animals is immoral and because I believe I have a healthier diet. Perhaps it would be best for the vegetarians and non-vegetarians who read Alternet to get together on something we call agree upon; that Dick Cheney is a jerk.

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Half the water consumed in the U. S. goes to irrigate land growing feed and fodder for livestock. Huge amounts of water are also used to wash away their excrement. In fact, U. S. livestock produce twenty times as much excrement as does the entire human population, creating sewage which is ten to several hundred times as concentrated as raw domestic sewage. Animal wastes cause ten times as much water pollution than does the U. S. human population; the meat industry causes three times as much harmful organic water pollution than the rest of the nation's industries combined.

Meat producers are the number one industrial polluters in our nation, contributing to half the water pollution in the United States. The water that goes into a thousand-pound steer could float a destroyer. It takes twenty-five gallons of water to produce a pound of wheat, but twenty-five hundred gallons to produce a pound of meat. If these costs weren't subsidized by the American taxpayers, hamburger meat would be $35 per pound!

The burden of subsidizing the California meat industry costs taxpayers $24 billion annually. Livestock producers are California's biggest consumers of water. Every tax dollar the state doles out to livestock producers costs taxpayers over seven dollars in lost wages, higher living costs and reduced business income. Seventeen western states have enough water supplies to support economies and populations twice as large as the present.

Overgrazing of cattle leads to topsoil erosion, turning once-arable land into desert. We lose four million acres of topsoil each year and eighty-five percent of this loss is directly caused by raising livestock. To replace the soil we've lost, we're destroying our forests. Since 1967, the rate of deforestation in the U. S. has been one acre every five seconds. For each acre cleared in urbanization, seven are cleared for grazing or growing livestock feed.

One-third of all raw materials in the U. S. are consumed by the livestock industry and it takes three times as much fossil fuel energy to produce meat than it does to produce plant foods. A report on the energy crisis in Scientific American warned: "The trends in meat consumption and energy consumption are on a collision course."

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I think the many angry posts here show there is something that makes meat eaters VIOLENTLY defend their right to keep eating meat.
They are defending their addiction just the way an alcoholic or drug addict would.

First of all-veggie food is not 'weird'.
You 'meat eater' types eat it all the time.

Grilled cheese sandwiches and french fries-is a vegetarian meal.
Mac and Cheese-is a vegetarian meal.

Now...if you add some veggies to the mac and cheese and use low fat milk-that is a pretty healthy meal as well. Whole wheat noodles-even better.

Add some grilled bell peppers and oinions to the grilled cheese sandwhich-and cut up some fresh potaotes and oven bake those french fries...pretty healthy meal.

There all all kinds of products that tase like meat but are veggie. It is true-Veggie burgers and such ARE highly processed..but you can make your own- from beans and steak sauce and ketchup and oinions and rice and all kinds of things.
Keep trying till you find one you like! Find a brand you like and copy the ingredients on the label..My boys will not eat any with mushrooms. (What is with men and mushrooms?)

Now on to the food itself --organic cheese and milk from happy cows and goats is best. I have a goat-you can too...at least try to buy local.

I make up a big batch of chilli for my die-hard meat eating friends. I tell them I put in some hamburger just for them..it is a lie. It is crumbled seasoned tofu. I have YET to have anyone say--"HEY!-this is not real meat-I can tell". Instead they gobble it down and thank me!
(Guys drinking beer and and eating chili and rice while watching T.V.-I mean- come on-)

Regarding the local and processed aspects.
I have a garden. I have a goat. I have free range chickens. I don't eat my animals-they die of old age. Old animals still have a purpose. My old goats and old chickens still give me great manure for manure tea for my organic veggie garden. The old goats are still great bush eaters.
My old chickens still eat bugs.
I do eat my chicken's eggs-try organic free range eggs just once. You will be amazed at the difference from corporate farmed eggs. They are bright orange, the beautiful brown shells are hard, and the taste is amazing.

And milk and cheese-so simple and then
protein is not a problem.
I eat lots of fruits and veggies. I work in my garden. I ride my horse. I grind and make my own whole wheat bread. I eat my own cheese and eggs and milk. I swim in the nearby lake.

I know it is harder in the city. We need to break up these big huge cities into small towns.
Do what you can-work towards doing better.
People don't need to eat meat!

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Eating humans would be the BEST thing to do by this logic.
Quit having babies is the best answer followed by inventing a better battery.

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Significant environmental damage results from livestock agriculture, often driving many other species into extinction.

The Steller's sea cow once inhabited the coastal waters of the Commander Islands in the Bering Sea. Their meat was considered a delicacy by Russian sealers, who decimated the entire species by 1768.

The Labrador duck has been extinct since 1875. This species formerly inhabited the coastal regions of northeastern Canada. The extinction of the passenger pigeon was caused by the American westward expansion in the second half of the 19th century. As passenger pigeons became a popular food item, the numbers of this species rapidly diminished. Millions were slaughtered each year and shipped by railway cars to be sold in city markets. Another bird to become extinct because of its use as food was the heath hen, which became extinct about 1932.

The pacific sardine lives along the coasts of North America from Alaska to southern California. Sardines, once a major part of the California fishing industry, are now considered to be "commercially extinct." Another species classified as "commercially extinct" is the New England haddock. Ecologists have also been concerned about the significant reduction in finfish, the Atlantic bluefin tuna, Lake Erie cisco, and blackfins that inhabit Lakes Huron and Michigan
.
More than 200,000 porpoises are killed every year by fishermen seeking tuna in the Pacific. Sea turtles are similarly killed in Caribbean shrimp operations. Some animals are killed because, as carnivores, they compete with the human predator for the right to kill other animals for food, including wild game and domesticated species raised by livestock ranchers. Alaskan hunters are eager to reduce the wolf population in their state because this animal is a predator of moose.

Cougars, coyotes and wolves are considered a menace to the cattle and sheep industries, and livestock ranchers have engaged in a large-scale campaign to exterminate them. Two species of wolves are now endangered, and very few wolves can be found in the United States except in Alaska and northeastern Minnesota. The relatively small number of eagles in the U.S. is largely due to the destruction of this species by livestock ranchers, particularly those in the sheep business.

Herbivorous animals that inhabit rangeland areas are also killed by the livestock industry because they compete with cattle arid sheep for food. Large numbers of kangaroos are being exterminated in Australia, while in the United States livestock ranchers seek to destroy wild horses, wild burros, deer, elk, antelope and prairie dogs.

An ever-increasing amount of beef eaten in the United States is imported from Central and South America. To provide pasture for cattle, these countries have been clearing their priceless tropical rainforests. In 1960, when the U. S. first began to import beef, Central America was blessed with 130,000 square miles of rainforest. But now, less than 80,000 square miles remain. At this rate, the entire tropical rainforests of Central America will be gone in another forty years.

These tropical rainforests are among the world's most precious natural resources. Amounting to only 30 percent of the world's forests, the rainforests contain 80 percent of the earth's land vegetation, and account for a substantial percentage of the earth's oxygen supplies. These forests are the oldest ecosystems on earth and have developed extreme ecological richness. Half of all species on earth live in the moist tropical rainforests. But these jewels of nature are being rapidly destroyed to provide land on which cattle can be grazed for the American fast-food market.

The current rate of species extinction is 1,000 species a year; mostly due to the destruction of rainforests and related habitats in the tropics.

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I believed all the vegetarian propaganda when I became a vegetarian at the age of 20. No one told me of the potential health risks. It is really irresponsible to promote vegetarian diet without warning of it's well known risks.

Many people do not thrive on a strictly vegetarian diet and this is well documented by many nutritionists and doctors- people who actually see the results of the diet.

Many, many people have to abandon vegetarianism due to health issues. That is a fact. All vegetarians, please don't just read pro-vegetarian info, look at all sides before you make the choice.

And if you want to be vegetarian for your world view of what is moral- then be aware that you could be sacrificing your health.

For a good discussion of the issue please read "The Yoga of Eating" by Charles Eisenstein.

And please do not be so arrogant as to think you know better what kind of diet is best for another based on yourself. We are biochemically individual and some can handle vegetarian diet and some simply cannot.

I think it's wrong for Alternet to cover this issue unevenly. Please have writers who are actually knowedgeable on the topic of health concerns of the vegetarian diet.

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Apparently, some of you are new to the work of self-help "life coach" & newly minted Vegetarian Missionary, Kathy Freston. I can understand your enthusiasm- She's really FUN!!!

Kathy thinks everyone should drive a Prius, because Leo does. To her credit, she does realize that a few of us can't afford to :-(

Kathy has trouble understanding how the world produces & transports foods. Or perhaps, more accurately, that there exists a world outside of the 1st, where people often starve in their attempts to provide the 1st with food.

Kathy, like a frighteningly large segment of the Vegetarian/Vegan population, would appear to have little working knowledge of the sources of her food. She seems to think that these vegetable just materialize with no footprint of their own, & at no detriment to anyone. As so many of you have said, "win, win"!

Kathy, to her credit, does discourage newly converted Vegans from actively inspecting a restaurant's kitchen to make sure that no microscopic trace of meat has ever touched anything that has touched your food. Wise move, Kath.


I eat some meat. Roughly 90% of the meat I eat is raised in a manner that is as ecologically sound as possible, & trucked under 50 miles (usually less than 20) to get to my stomach. It is butchered with skill & consideration for the animal. I've met some of the producers, & their care for the animals & the process is beyond reproach. I don't want a medal, but I want a little respect.

You may eat only vegetables. Great! But, wait, you don't get a medal, either. Unless you can answer the following questions to my satisfaction; Where do they come from? Who grows them? Are those people paid a decent wage? Treated humanely?

What are the transport costs, the environmental impacts, involved with shipping your varied plant diet around the planet? You may live in a temperate zone, so do some research- Would you be able to get all the nutrients you needed if you limited your diet to only locally available, seasonal produce? I'll save you a little work by stating that if you compare the percentage of local produce in the store I work at with the percentage of local meat, meat would win (& that is in a temperate zone).

Yes, I would be willing to look my food in the eye & kill it, if that needed to be done, although I'm not unhappy that other people currently do that for me.

Would you be willing to grow your entire diet? Just a hint, even a small garden is a wholly consuming & back-breaking endeavor.

Organic is not the whole answer. Vegetarian/Vegan is not the whole answer.
No one is saying that meat is, either.
The answer is Local, Seasonal, Fresh, Small, Slow.
&, yes it can include meat.

& no, it cannot include the giddy likes of Kathy Freston.

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I challenge the author to try it out, and report back on the affects to the climate.

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I don't know about this carbon footprint and the eco thing on not eating meat. However, if you feel you want to go vegie but don't quite have the fortitude for it, you can find some other encouragement besides just this eco thing. Just visit a slaughterhouse. Just see how it is done and how it happens. If your a meat eater and don't like the preachie vegies, that is fine. But, even so, isn't it good to know how your food is prepared and where it comes from? Again, just visit a slaughter house. See how it is done. Enough said.

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I've been vegetarian since 1982. I attended my first anti-vivisection protest in the spring of 1985, as anti-apartheid demonstrations rocked the UC San Diego campus. I first got interested in promoting vegetarianism in mainstream society after reading John Robbins' Diet for a New America (1987). Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, it makes veganism seem as mainstream as recycling.

Half the water consumed in the U.S. goes to irrigate land growing feed and fodder for livestock. Huge amounts of water are used to wash away their excrement. U.S. livestock produce twenty times as much excrement as does the entire human population; creating sewage which is ten to several hundred times more concentrated than raw domestic sewage.

Animal wastes cause ten times more water pollution than does the U.S. human population; the meat industry causes three times as much harmful organic water pollution than the rest of the nation's industries combined. Meat producers are the number one industrial polluters in our nation, contributing to half the water pollution in the United States.

Joanna Macy, author of Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age, depicts America moving towards a vegan diet in her foreword to Diet for a New America:

"The effects on our physical health are immediate. The incidence of cancer and heart attack, the nation's biggest killers, drops precipitously. So do many other diseases now demonstrably and causally linked to consumption of animal proteins and fats, such as osteoporosis.

"The social, ecological, and economic consequences, as we Americans turn away from animal food products, are equally remarkable. We find that the grain we previously fed to fatten livestock can now feed five times the U.S. population; so we have become able to alleviate malnutrition and hunger on a worldwide scale...

"The great forests of the world, that we had been decimating for grazing purposes, begin to grow again. Oxygen-producing trees are no longer sacrificed for cholesterol-producing steaks.

"The water crisis eases. As we stop raising and grinding up cattle for hamburgers, we discover that ranching and farm factories had been the major drain on our water resources. The amount now available for irrigation and hydroelectric power doubles.

"Meanwhile, the change in diet frees over 90% of the fossil fuel previously used to produce food. With this liberation of water energy and fossil fuel energy, our reliance on oil imports declines, as does the rationale for building nuclear power plants..."

Joanna Macy admits, "This scenario is wildly, absurdly utopian. It is also clearly the way we are meant to live, built to live." What could possibly make it a reality? "It is this very book!"

Paul McCartney says, "If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is just stop eating meat. That's the single most important thing you could do. It's staggering when you think about it. Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot: ecology, famine, cruelty. Let's do it! Going veggie is the single best idea for the new century."

The number of animals killed for food in the United States is 70 times larger than the number of animals killed in laboratories, 30 times larger than the number killed by hunters and trappers, and 500 times larger than the number of animals killed in pounds.

If Americans reduced their meat consumption by just 10 percent, it would release enough grain and soybeans to feed over 60 million people.

When I first read Diet for a New America, I thought it could have the same kind of impact on mainstream American society that Frances Moore Lappe's Diet for a Small Planet had in the '70s.

John Robbins spoke before the United Nations in 1994, where he received a standing ovation.

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This article is total masturbation with no payoff at the end. Christ. Can I get a job writing fluff articles for Alternet? I promise I can do a better job than this, drunk, high, and half asleep.

Carbon footprint....If you're taking this enire concept seriously, please do yourself a favor and don't. Invest the time to actually think about something that makes sense, not a buzzword.

http://www.addictedtoaggravation.com/

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To stop further degradation, in addition to eating a plant-based diet we should all STOP eating prepared, fast food. Buy food in its most elemental form and COOK. I eat an almost exclusively organic diet and am amazed at the junk food in the aisles just like going to a large food chain store. I often try to think about what these stores would be like if there was no market for these highly processed(even organic) products. Maybe the stores would be smaller and use up fewer resources. The possibilities are mind-boggling

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Cows are supposed to eat grass- not grain. There is vast difference nutritionally between the two.

I do not eat any factory farm raised, grain fed animals. Only grass fed, pastured animals. So in terms of the issue being discussed, this difference is relevant. There is not just one thing called "meat"- it's not all the same.

There used to be many million more animals on the planet, herds of buffalo, gazelles, antelope and caribou. Do you really think that they were contributing to global warming?

It's not meat per se that is an environmental problem- it's how it's produced. And there are many other types of food that have negative effects on the world.

Do you ever eat sugar? Then watch this video and see the horrific working conditions of Haitian sugar cutters.

www.enlita.com/videos/big_sugar


To those who promote vegetarianism as an environmental issue- please open your minds and look more broadly. It's a very attractive and simplistic idea that you should just give up meat, but it's really not the right diet for everyone.

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'Livestocks Long Shadow'. I've read it, all 700 something pages.

Generally, they take what they need to push the vegan agenda and forget to mention a few tidbits.

1. One of the best things we could do to help some countries, especially sub-saharan Africa, to alleviate "food insecurity"- starvation isn't PC- is to give people goats and the knowledge for them to be able to graze responsibly. In an increasing number of places, depending upon animals that can graze what little can grow due to aridity is a much better option than to try and crop it with annuals.

2. It isn't livestock that are doing the damage but societies application of them. There are not herds of bovines-really methane breating aliens in disguise- plotting to make the Earth uninhabitable for us so they can take over. Yes, cows hock deep in shit, eating corn and soy is a bad thing for all concerned. Cows on pasture, maintaining grasslands that sequester arbon and build topsoil, meat and milk that is truly a life giving food, and living breathing people having a lifestyle that is wholesome, meaningful and engaging...these are beautiful things that most of us wish for but too few of us actually attain.

3. Much of the land of the Earth is not suitable for cropping with annuals and as time goes on, even what is suitable for agriculture is becoming less so. There are many places where people either depend upon ranching for their livelyhoods or they can't live there. I don't hear many vegans calling for humans to abandon the places where annual cropping is inappropriate.

4. Much of the negative effects attributtable to livestock are due to industry. If we moved away from trying to compartmentalize living, breathing, living dynamic process' into factories, most of the problems such as pollution, soil erosion, contamination of waterways, undue suffering of people and animals, would cease to exist.

I could go on but I'll stop there. Once again, ol' Kath has tried to polarize a complex topic into an us or them situation. If all of us could resist the temptation to paint the world in black and white terms and acknowldege the rainbow then maybe humanity will have a chance.

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As Bernard Shaw said: " Animals are my friends. I don't eat my friends."
Nothing to do with environmental issues, but simple moral choices.

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Try subbing one or two meals a week with a veggie protein. Look into The Vegetarian Epicure, Diet For A Small Planet and others.

Vegetarian cuisine can be elegant, delicious, nutritious and far more interesting than meat & potatoes. Don't make it a burden: have fun with experimenting.

:)

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If people knew how animals are slaughtered these days, most would never eat animal meat again.
Regarding chickens: they are lined up and hung by their feet while alive. Then a chain-saw cuts across them all, cutting off their necks, hundreds at a time. If they miss... too bad.
If anyone ever had a chicken they loved and valued, they would know that the chicken is suffering, because it has an awareness and recognizes its owner when it is called by its name.
I am not mentioning cattle here, because its killing is another, very sad story.

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" If you want to decrease you carbon footprint, you can start with your dinner plate.
I think the issue of leaving a personal footprint should go beyond worrying about leaving a carbon footprint of one's own. Worrying about personal trivia does not lead anywhere.
The issues go beyond pollution of the environment; they lead to morals and ethics.

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Learn some grammar and spelling. And logic, while you're at it.

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So long as you knee-jerkers can't stop jumping in
with the same old longwinded reactions to an
alternative viewpoint, why would Alternet stop?
They're a media outlet with advertising, and
they know you're paying attention.

If you don't find the evidence interesting or
compelling, move on. Likewise if you can't take
"go veg" articles also as support for just eating
less meat (seems to be considered an _opposing_
viewpoint by many, for some reason I can't fathom).
Believe it or not, the suggestion
to go veg is not meant as an insult, and further
believe that some people actually read such
articles and decide to go veg instead of going
nuclear.

There are plenty of other articles talking
about organic food production or eating locally
on Alternet. But if you don't like the mix of
available articles on sustainable food choices,
that's unlikely to be Alternet's fault.

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Too bad that by myopically focusing on global warming this column didn't point out that beef is BY FAR the most ecologically harmful meat one can consume for reasons so numerous and involved that I won't go into them here, other than to repeat the fact that the cattle industry has done more environmental harm to the western U.S. than any other industry (think about that considering other hideous industries like mining and logging).

People should not be eating meat daily nor consuming farmed animals. If you're going to eat meat, stick to wild meat like fish, don't consume wild meat from endangered animals or that's fished in an ecologically destructive manner, and don't eat it more than once or twice per week. Lowering one's meat consumption and sticking to wild meat is both a much healthier way to eat and is much better for the planet. A vegan diet would be ecologically superior, but a small human population eating an occasional wild animal won't hurt anything.

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John Stuart Mill wrote: "The reasons for legal intervention in favor of children apply not less strongly to the case of those unfortunate slaves--the animals."

A rational case exists for the rights of preborn humans. The case for animal rights is stronger and more readily apparent. Animals are highly complex creatures, possessing a brain, a central nervous system and a sophisticated mental life.

Animals actually suffer at the hands of their human tormentors and exhibit such "human" behaviors and feelings as fear and physical pain, defense of their children, pair bonding, group/tribal loyalty, grief at the loss of loved ones, joy, jealousy, competition, territoriality, and cooperation.

Dr. Tom Regan, the foremost intellectual leader of the animal rights movement and author of The Case for Animal Rights, notes that animals "have beliefs and desires; perception, memory, and a sense of the future, including their own future; and emotional life together with feelings of pleasure and pain; preference and welfare interests; the ability to initiate action in pursuit of their desires and goals; a psychophysical identity over time; and an individual welfare in the sense that their experiential life fares well or ill for them, logically independent of their utility for others and logically independent of their being the object of anyone else's interests."

Dr. Regan has pointed out that the animal rights movement is a part of (rather than apart from) the human rights movement. The campaign for animal rights is secular social and moral progress. The crusade to abolish every kind of animal exploitation and cruelty--including killing animals for food or "sport"--can in no way be equated with religious "dietary laws," "sacred cows," or various forms of "ritual slaughter."

The animal rights movement is comparable to the abolitionist movement that ended human slavery, the women's rights movement, the labor movement, and the various campaigns against poverty, racism, drunk driving, child abuse, rape and nuclear power. A number of the early American feminists, including Lucy Stone, Amelia Bloomer, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, were connected with the 19th century animal welfare movement. Together with Horace Greeley, the reforming, anti-slavery editor of The Tribune, they would meet to toast "Women's Rights and Vegetarianism."

With the power of the religious right and a Republican president has come concern in liberal circles for the separation of church and state. On the abortion issue, Catholics, fundamentalists and "born-again" Christians appear to be imposing their morality upon the rest of our secular society. The animal rights movement, however, is a secular and nonsectarian campaign, comparable to women's rights or civil rights.

In his 1975 book, Animal Liberation, Australian philosopher Peter Singer writes that the “tyranny of human over nonhuman animals” is “causing an amount of pain and suffering that can only be compared with that which resulted from the centuries of tyranny by white humans over black humans.”

Singer favorably compares animal liberation with women’s liberation, black liberation, gay liberation and movements on behalf of Native Americans and Hispanics. He optimistically observes: “...the environmental movement...has led people to think about our relations with other animals in a way that seemed impossible only a decade ago.

"To date, environmentalists have been more concerned with wildlife and endangered species than with animals in general, but it is not too big a jump from the thought that it is wrong to treat whales as giant vessels filled with oil and blubber to the thought that it is wrong to treat (animals) as machines for converting grains to flesh.”

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This author presented an excellent case regarding the environmental consequences of our diet, but there is another important point: What gives us the right to take another beings life?
When I see a fellow animal, with flesh, an apparent consciousness very similar to mine, that avoids pain and fights for survival for themselves and their offspring just as I would, who appear sad at times, or scared, or even happy, I see a fellow life that I have no right to extinguish. I say this especially because meat is a luxury item. There is nothing in meat that we can't obtain from grains and legumes.

It's kind of like the golden rule: I wouldn't like anybody killing me and consuming my flesh for their personal pleasure, so, although it tastes good, I make the conscious decision to not kill my fellow creatures for which all evidence indicates experience a very similar consciousness to mine.

Really. How we in good consciousness justify this?!?

In addition, one must consider, although it is a big step to not eat grain-fed animals, and range-fed is better on the environment, wildlife habitat is still destroyed to raise these animals. Organic, range-fed or not, it still takes a lot more land (~10X for cattle) to produce a pound of plant protein than animal protein. The natural predators are wiped out and all the land is fenced off so people can eat a luxury food. Could you imagine if the world became more sensitive toward non-human animals, the land that would be freed up for wildlife habitat? It would be amazing! The animals deserve an existence also, and our diets have robbed more of this habitat than anything else. I'd like somebody to tell me why this would not be a good thing, really.

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In his 1975 book, Animal Liberation, Australian philosopher Peter Singer writes:

A liberation movement is a demand for an end to prejudice and discrimination based on an arbitrary characteristic like race or sex. The classic instance is the Black Liberation movement...

When a majority group--women--began their campaign some thought we had come to the end of the road. Discrimination on the basis of sex, it was said, was the last form of discrimination to be universally accepted and practiced without secrecy or pretense, even in those liberal circles that have long prided themselves on their freedom from prejudice against racial minorities.

A liberation movement demands an expansion of our moral horizons. Practices that were previously regarded as natural and inevitable come to be seen as the result of an unjustifiable prejudice.

In comparison with other liberation movements, Animal Liberation has a lot of handicaps. First and most obvious is the fact that the exploited group cannot themselves make an organized protest against the treatment they receive (though they can and do protest to the best of their abilities individually).

We have to speak up on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves. You can appreciate how serious this handicap is by asking yourself how long blacks would have had to wait for equal rights if they had not been able to stand up for themselves and demand it. The less able a group is to stand up and organize against oppression, the more easily it is oppressed.

The principle of the equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality among humans; it is a prescription of how we should treat humans. Thomas Jefferson saw this...He wrote...to the author of a book on the notable intellectual achievements of Negroes in order to refute the then common view that they had limited intellectual capacities:

"...whatever be their degree of talent it is no measure of their rights. Because Sir Isaac Newton was superior to others in understanding, he was not therefore lord of the property or person of others."

If possessing a higher degree of intelligence does not entitle one human to use another for his own ends, how can it entitle humans to exploit nonhumans for the same purpose? In a forward-looking passage written at a time when black slaves had been freed by the French...Jeremy Bentham wrote:

"The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been witholden from them but by the hand of tyranny.

"The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor.

"It may one day come to be recognized that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate.

"What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they SUFFER?!"

The capacity for suffering and enjoyment is a prerequisite for having interests at all, a condition that must be satisfied before we can speak of interests in a meaningful way. It would be nonsense to say that it was not in the interests of a stone to be kicked along the road by a schoolboy. A stone does not have interests because it cannot suffer. A mouse, on the other hand, does have an interest in not being kicked...because it will suffer if it is.

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First, I am not and will never be a vegetarian. But I do eat fruits, vegetables as well as meat, dairy, grains and poultry products. The environmental damage caused by raising these various farm animals mentioned in the UN report is based on Factory Farming. The typical Free Range animal does NOT significantly contribute to global warming. Humanity contributes more than any free range animal. Beef for example is a grazer (grass only), the grains and other products that are not normal to this animals diet cause the problems associated with the increase in Green House "Gases". If these animals are the cause of 18% of the green house gas emissions, what are we to do with the Millions of Free Range animals that graze the plains of Africa and other areas of the world? Are they to be banned/destroyed for the sake of humanity??

A world of Vegetarians would do more damage to the earth's environment. We are already loosing an alarming amount of the worlds Necessary Rain Forests that are being burned to grow Soy. Soy will not generate oxygen or clean the air. A Rain forest does this but we are destroying this as well as our own personal little worlds through mass consumption.

This is my own personal point of view but, it is also a point of view that many scientists around the world have already stated. The UN statement is misleading and not facts set in stone. Our body is Omnivouros and a stricly vegetarian diet is not the healthiest choice. A sensible diet consisting of fruits, vegetables and Healthy Grass fed (Free Range) meats will do the human body the greatest good.

God Bless All

goat64

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having known maaaany vegans in my life,I must sadly report that ALL are dead......some very young and some in the middle of their life. some were macrobiotic eating only whole grains and teas, and some were vegitarians who only ate things without a face,no fish, no poultry,some ate cheese some didn't,but no matter they are all dead,some from malnutrition, some from different types of cancer, all suffered from lack of an immune system that was functioning on a high level. so sorry to say this but this has been my experience over the last 55 years.

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