“If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian.”
-Sir Paul McCartney
Consider this: you are living in a world bent on its own destruction. Environmental hazards are at an all time high, global warming is an imminent threat, and human sickness runs rampant due to antibiotic resistance. In addition, animal concentration camps have become one of our main providers of sustenance. Suppose you are informed that you could help solve all three of these problems by cutting a single food group from your diet. What would you do?
Though it may come as a shock to some people, this disturbing scenario has become the reality of our everyday lives. The animal “concentration camps” are called “factory farms.” The human sicknesses are zoonotic diseases like bird and swine flu. The United Nations reports that livestock production “generates more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined,” making factory farms arguably the No. 1 cause of global warming (qtd. in Foer 1). Moreover, we have developed an industry in which innocent animals are forced to endure unimaginable cruelty for the sole purpose of human consumption. In essence, humankind has unintentionally created a scenario through which all living things, humans, animals, and the environment, will suffer and ultimately, be destroyed. However, by choosing to avoid the consumption of animal products, you can single-handedly contribute to a better future.
Environmental Impact
According to Chris Brazier, “the burden of justification should be turned around—not ‘why are you a vegetarian?’ but rather ‘why on Earth do you eat meat?’” (8). Brazier highlights the main arguments for vegetarianism, including factory farm cruelty, reasons of dietary health, “distaste for the idea of feeding off the flesh of another sentient being,” and finally, environmental hazards (8). He confirms the contribution of factory farming to global warming, noting that “livestock production accounts for 80% of greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and for 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions from human activities” (Brazier 8). Indeed, Jeff Anhang, a World Bank researcher, attributes “a staggering 51% of world emissions to livestock production” (qtd. in Engelhart and Kohler 3). Producing one kilo of beef consumes 169 megajoules of energy, which is enough to light a 100-watt bulb for 20 days. In fact, the meat industry is responsible for more than one-third of the total fossil fuels consumed in the U.S. (PETA). Furthermore, while a farmer can produce enough vegetables, fruits, cereals, and vegetable fats to feed up to 30 people per year on one hectare, a farmer using that same area for the production of meat, milk, or eggs could only feed between 5-10 people (Brazier 8). Though meat eating worldwide continues to rise, Brazier frankly states that “these global eating trends are clearly unsustainable” (9). He reports that “a vegan living for 70 years will pump an average of 100 tons less CO2-equivalent into the atmosphere than someone eating meat and dairy products.” Though many people have until now dismissed vegetarianism and veganism as “mere lifestyle choices,” these same people, over the next few years, may be forced to think again (Brazier 9). As Brazier suggests, “the politics of food have always been emotive, but the stakes just got much, much higher” (9).
For members of the population unwilling to forgo meat altogether, Brazier submits that “meat might return to being something saved for special occasions” (9). Katie Engelhart and Nicholas Kohler propose that “a more discerning attitude may be transforming the way we consume meat, with the emphasis on quality and connoisseurship rather than quantity and endless choice” (7). Engelhart and Kohler document worldwide campaigns designed to encourage people to go meatless once a week, such as Sir Paul McCartney’s Meat Free Monday campaign. Such efforts attempt to cut CO2 emissions by reducing overall meat production (Engelhart and Kohler 2). Christopher Weber, a Carnegie Mellon researcher, calculates that “forgoing red meat for veggies just a day a week would save 1,860 km of driving a year” (qtd. in Engelhart and Kohler 3). Researchers at the University of Chicago affirm that “the vegan diet is a more effective way of curbing climate change than driving a hybrid car” (qtd. in Engelhart and Kohler 3). In the words of Tobias Leenaert, a long-time animal rights activist, “just as driving an SUV to the bakery around the corner is sort of shameful, we need the same [attitude] with meat” (qtd. in Engelhart and Kohler 3). Sir Paul McCartney elucidates the subject further, stating, “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 can do” (qtd. in PETA).
Health Effects
Laura Sayre reports that “factory farm production is intensifying worldwide, and rates of new infectious diseases are rising” (2). With factory farms notorious for breeding virulent disease, it’s not difficult to see the connection. Sayre explains that “the stress of factory farm conditions weakens animals’ immune systems; ammonia from accumulated waste burns [their] lungs and makes them more susceptible to infection; [and] the lack of sunlight and fresh air … facilitates the spread of pathogens” (3). Such pathogens are transmitted through water and air, endangering even those who refuse to buy meat produced in such a manner (Sayre 2). Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Eating Animals, contends that the primary ancestor of the H1N1 swine flu actually originated at a hog factory farm in North Carolina, after which it spread quickly throughout the Americas (3). “It’s nothing new for animal diseases to leap to humans,” Sayre points out, however, “the unsanitary and stressful conditions in many industrial-scale livestock operations are breeding new diseases faster than ever before” (1). Subsequently, according to Foer, at least 76 million Americans become ill annually from the food they consume (3).
Compounding the danger of disease, is the increasing threat of antibiotic resistance. This is due to factory farms’ feeble attempts to prevent disease by feeding their livestock steady doses of antibiotics preemptively (Sayre 2). Humans feed on the antibiotic infused meat and become antibiotic resistant themselves. Sayre confirms that “antibiotic resistance is a clear and present danger, already killing thousands of people in the United States each year” (2). Indeed, the Infectious Diseases Society of America has declared antibiotic-resistant infections an epidemic in the U.S. (Sayre 2). Most notable among these infections, is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which currently kills more Americans each year than HIV/AIDS (Sayre 4). Sayre quotes medical investigators in saying that “we may be entering a ‘post-antibiotic era,’ one in which ‘there would be no effective antibiotics available for treating many life-threatening infections in humans’” (4).
Johns Hopkins researchers Ellen Silbergeld, Jay Graham, and Lance Price argue that “concentrated animal feeding operations are comparable to poorly run hospitals, where everyone is given antibiotics, patients lie in unchanged beds, hygiene is nonexistent, infections and re-infections are rife, waste is thrown out the window, and visitors enter and leave at will” (qtd. in Sayre 3). Foer adds that “when we eat factory-farmed meat, we live on tortured flesh. [And] increasingly, those animals are making us sick” (3). Dr. Neal Barnard, president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, admits, “the beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all the natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined. If beef is your idea of ‘real food for real people’ you’d better live real close to a real good hospital” (qtd. in Gelfand 1).
