No one loves a fast, beautiful sports car more than me, but the realization emerging from the scientific community is that we are not being accountable to our children and the future generations nor the planet and the countless other species on this planet by our reluctance to rethink our extremely car dependent lifestyles. Yet as a light to moderate meat eater, I am also faced with the reality that a growing number of reports cite animal based diets as a bigger culprit for Global Climate Change than even the worst gas guzzling SUV. The growing realization is that it is no single issue is the culprit for Global Climate Change, but rather a whole range of factors. Yet it still appears that much of humanity is unwilling to fully accept the consequences that Global Climate Change is but one of many adverse impacts that our modern lifestyle is having on the ecology of the planet.
The reality is that it is not just about the kind of car you drive or how much you drive it, but the ecological, social and economic sustainability of the car dependent culture we live in. It was a gutsy move for John Edwards to call for people to give up their SUV’s. However, it would have been an even more gutsy move would be to encourage people to examine the impact of their diets on not just global warming but the ecology overall.
NewsFlash Meat-eating Worse than Driving Cars
Claudia H Deutsch recently wrote an article in the NYT about how various vegan and anti meat groups were reacting a recent UN report on the impact of our meat eating lifestyles on Global Climate Change. The article titled “Trying to Connect the Dinner Plate to Climate Change.”The tagline of their approach is that while Gore may be now famous for his movie the “An Inconvenient Truth,” the fact is the most inconvenient truth of all is that raising animals for meat contributes more to global warming than all the sport utility vehicles combined.
While obviously unpopular in societies like the US where eating meat is about as American as apple pie, the fact is that the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization recently issued a report stating that the livestock business generates more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined.
Another report done by University of Chicago researchers posted in a PR release under the title Vegan Diets Healthier for Planet, People than Meat Diets lays out the basics of research to back up the argument rather nicely:
- Average American drives 8,322 miles by car annually, emitting 1.9 to 4.7 tons of carbon dioxide, depending on the vehicle model and fuel efficiency.
- Americans also consume an average of 3,774 calories of food each day.
- Energy used for food production accounted for 17 percent of all fossil fuel use in the United States and the burning of these fossil fuels emitted 3/4 of a ton of CO2 per person.
- That alone amounts to approximately one-third the average greenhouse-gas emissions of personal transportation. But when you add livestock production and associated animal waste, you get much higher emissions of greenhouse gases not associated with fossil-fuel combustion, primarily methane and nitrous oxide you get a higher Global Warming impact that gives meat eating much of its bad rep.
- What makes the problem even worse is that methane and nitrous oxide are relatively rare compared with carbon dioxide, they are — molecule for molecule — far more powerful greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide. According to the researchers 1 pound of Methane = 50 pounds of CO2.
- The vegetarian diet turned out to be the most energy-efficient, followed by poultry and the average American diet. Fish and red meat virtually tied as the least efficient.
When that UN FAO report came out, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and other groups expected their environmental counterparts to immediately hop on the “Go Veggie!” bandwagon. Perhaps they were a little naive. Animal Rights and Vegan camps quickly realized that most mainstream “Environmentalists are still pointing their fingers at Hummers and S.U.V.’s when they should be pointing at the dinner plate,” said Matt A. Prescott, manager of vegan campaigns for PETA.
The animal rights groups are right in terms of the facts and for standing up for their principles and for the truth, but their approach is wrongheaded and divisive. What this really demonstrates is a failure to see the big picture. We need to create a big tent alliance around the global big picture that is inclusive rather than inclusive and does not push people into places that they are not ready to be in through shame and guilt.
Rage Against the Machine
It’s the same old ball and chain: turning the mainstream marketing on its head as was pioneered by AdBusters in the 80s and 90s. PETA is outfitting a Hummer with a driver in a chicken suit and a vinyl banner proclaiming meat as the top cause of global warming. It will send the vehicle to the start of the climate forum the White House is sponsoring in Washington on Sept. 27, “and to headquarters of environmental groups, if they don’t start shaping up,” Mr. Prescott warned.
- PETA plans to send billboard-toting trucks to the Colorado Convention Center in Denver when Mr. Gore lectures there on Oct. 2. The billboards will feature a cartoon image of Mr. Gore eating a drumstick next to the tagline: “Too Chicken to Go Vegetarian? Meat Is the No. 1 Cause of Global Warming.”
- The Humane Society is promoting a University of Chicago study that, in essence, show that “switching to a plant-based diet does more to curb global warming than switching from an S.U.V. to a Camry,” The society is not only concerned with what happens to domesticated animals, but also with preventing the carnage that global warming could cause to polar bears, seals and other wildlife. “Our mission is to protect animals, and global warming has become an animal welfare issue,” he said.
- Vegan Outreach says it will give more prominence to the global warming aspect of vegetarianism in the next batch of leaflets it orders. The “U.N. report is an impartial, unimpeachable source of statements we can quote,” said Matt Ball, executive director of Vegan Outreach.
Because of the growing evidence about the link between meat based diets and global climate change, there is a sense of frustration that high-profile people like Al Gore as well as many of the other environmental groups with deeper pockets than his – have not stepped up to the plate.
Where we visionaries often go wrong is in shaming people towards change by demanding that people stop eating meat or driving their cars or even buying big cars. Living in a culture built on addiction, we come to realize (if we reflect on our own addictive behaviors) that changing addictive behaviors is often easier said than done. No doubt a major shift is needed but it needs to be done in a way that brings the various sectors of economy and society together at the community level, encouraging a diversity of approaches to build a more sustainable economy and society that uplifting and inspirational rather than depressing and preachy.
Defenders of the Mainstream Status Quo?
Mainstream environmentalists like Al Gore recognize that it’s a lot easier to ask people “to put in a fluorescent light bulb or purchase a hybrid than to learn to cook with tofu.” Interesting questions have emerged relating to whether either fluorescents or hybrids are really moving us towards a bona fide green alternative to current practices.
- The Sierra Club for example seems to be taking the realization that the people don’t like to be preached to about environmentalism a bit too far. They seem pretty tepid in pointing out the facts about Global Climate Change: “We try to be strategic about doing the things where each unit of effort has the most impact,” said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club. Mr. Pope’s group stops short of castigating people for driving S.U.V.’s or building overly large homes, too. Yet various voices in the Sierra Club seems to be taking different approaches as is discussed in more detail below.
- So what’s the solution at Environmental Defense? While “in agreement on the value of eating less meat,” says Melanie Janin, director of marketing communications, the focus on spending their time and money influencing public policy a traditional top down approach that involves getting Congress to regulate greenhouse gases.
Understanding the need for a Multisector Approach
We need to see the need to change and to encourage a discussion of the need to change without demanding immediate change. This is where a multi-sector approach comes into play. In addition to developing the multi-sector Holistic ICT for Development model at OVF, I have also been involved working with Melanie St James to develop Empowerment Work’s Partners in Empowerment (PIE) approach.
The core idea is to bring different groups together who traditionally have not worked together. In this process, we can begin to see what each partner brings to the table to solve the complex issues and challenges of our world. Our inability to come together and work towards more multi-sector approaches to collaboration and development may affect humanity’s future viability as a emerging global society.
This reality is confusing to many people who continue to attack problems with a way of seeing the world neatly arranged with one solution for every problem. Of course we are understanding in our increasingly complex modern society there are often many causes to any particular problem. Compounding this is the process by which influential people simplify and spin a complex reality to suit their vested interests or their pet projects. Even the Vegans and animal rights people do this by simplifying the issue into a meat verses non-meat issue when in fact it is more an issue of factory industrial farming verses local sustainable farming.
The problem is complex. It is not a single issue or problem, the evidence cited in this debate is that our meat eating lifestyles actually are greater than the impact of our cars in terms of global warming and overall environmental impacts. Yet the impact of All mainstream industrial farming practices are detrimental to ecosystems. Its possible that with the wide scale dissemination of integrated farming that the impact of animal farming could be considerably reduced.
Its noted by local Missouri Sierra Club activist Ken Midkiff’s in his recent book on “How Corporate Farming Has Endangered America’s Food Supply” that the problem is the way in which industrial farming is impacting the environment as well as human health. A 2005 Sierra Club national conference also included a Living Well Session about the value of local farming titled “Eating Smart: Alternatives to Industrial Food” by Local Harvest’s Guillermo Payet and Fred Kirshenmann which discussed the vital role of empowering small farmers to promote sustainable agriculture and the relocalization of food production.
Rethinking Academia, Education, Politics and the Media
The reluctance to see the complex interrelated nature of the world’s problems is due to the way we have been trained to think and see the world. This leads to amazingly simplistic notions that we can seriously impact global warming by getting SUVs off the road, buying hybrids investing in ethanol and green fuels and installing florescent light bulbs or changing the political leadership in Washington.
So it is not just about changing this or that aspect of our existence – buying a hybrid is not enough – real sustainable development means a total redesign of our built environments and a total revamp of how we live our lives.
The Challenge for the 21st Century: Creating a Culture of Innovation that Empowers Local People to Create their Own Version of Sustainability
What’s really needed is to create a culture of innovation and enterprise at the grassroots that weans people off of a culture of dependency on unsustainable and unhealthy products made far from them and their communities. Rather than a top-down, elite centered governance approach – more of the same failed policies and approaches that revolve out of Washington and other centers of elite power – what is needed are more inspirational models that show how people (with a little help from Washington and the state governments) can make a difference by promoting more self-reliant ways of living on this planet that support vibrant communities and families.
