Livestock rearing accounts for 14.5 per cent of the world’s human-caused emissions, nearly half of that coming from growing and shipping the corn and soy that most of the animals eat. (UN Food and Agriculture Organization). A typical meat-eater’s diet is responsible for almost twice as much global warming as that of a vegetarian and almost triple that of a vegan (“Climatic Change”). And cutting your meat intake in half could cut your carbon footprint by more than 35 per cent (study by Oxford University)
Particularly damaging to the planet, according to the National Academy of Sciences, is beef. It results in five times more greenhouse gas emissions than pork or chicken, while requiring 28 times more land and 11 times more irrigation. There is also the issue of cows and their natural habits.
As a clincher, the World Health Organization has just announced that processed meats, such as bacon, sausages and hot dogs, can cause cancer, and that meats including beef, pork, veal and lamb are “probably carcinogenic”. A group of 22 scientists reviewed the evidence linking red meat and processed meat consumption to cancer, and concluded that eating them regularly increases the risk of colorectal cancer. They class processed meat in the same category as tobacco smoking and asbestos, not equally dangerous, but bad for you in quantity (reported in The Lancet).
When US Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack and health and human services secretary Sylvia Burwell, suggested to the House Agriculture Committee a while ago that Americans should eat less meat for the sake of the environment, Republicans went ballistic. You’ve guessed it: the agricultural lobby at work. So difficult to get simple, intelligent things done. (Excerpted from a New Scientist article, October 2015).
Epicurus enjoyed a Mediterranean diet, I have no doubt. I must say, so do I. Epicureans for wine and pasta!
I think its very unfair for you to characterise Republican opposition to vegetarianism, or at least reduced meat-eating, on the basis that they are blindly doing the bidding of the Agricultural lobby. Many animal farmers would suffer if meat comsumption was significantly reduced, becuase meat is a higher value product. The reason why Democrats do so poorly in rural areas is becuase they are insensitive to the needs of farming: cheap energy, fewer regulations, the right to own a rifle to protect against pests, etc.. Of course none of this negates the need to combat climate change, if which farm animals are a contributor towards. But its important to take people’s objections into consideration, rather than dismissing them out of hand as products of some sinister agricultural lobby.
Fair comment. I dare say there were Democrats from rural areas who joined in the protests as well, and those who protested were doing their jobs for their farming constituents. I plead guilty to being un-Epicurean (e.g unbalanced ). The thing is , though, that farmers in the US and in Europe get big subsidies from the taxpayers (e.g people like me), and we are thus encouraging the expansion of the beef industry. Only makes sense when one realizes how powerful the agricultural lobby is, along there with guns and military equipment etc. I have actually lobbied Congress myself, but if your cause is not deemed very important vote-wise you see only a junior staffer. Waste of time unless there are votes in it?.