What Does Vegetarianism Have to Do with the Environment?
One of the changes that I am making over these eight weeks involves practicing strict vegetarianism. In general, I’m a fairly enthusiastic meat eater, whether it be burgers at In n’ Out, sushi at Tadashi down in La Jolla (try the Honey Roll) or crab cakes up at my parents’ place. By and large, people become vegetarian for either moral or health reasons. I’m not particularly disturbed by the moral quandary that eating meat represents, and I don’t believe being vegetarian is some sort of healthful panacea either (though I’m sure those feelings are disputable). Instead, I think the environmental consequences of eating meat are so substantial and so obvious that any blogging self-proclaimed environmentalist like myself would be quite hypocritical to continue the practice.
In fact, dietary changes are probably the lowest hanging fruit for reducing one’s carbon footprint. There have been several good articles recently investigating the environmental impact of a portion of beef. Here’s some coverage from The New Scientist and Telegraph concerning a recent study showing that a kilogram of beef produces more greenhouse gas emissions than driving around for three hours with all the lights on back at home. A more general page from the Vegetarian Society (check out the PDF for references, etc.) claims that global meat production is responsible for 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions, as opposed to 13.5% for all human transportation emissions. Considered purely from an efficiency standpoint, producing beef requires around 40 kcal of energy input in order to retrieve just 1 kcal of output in the form of animal protein, which isn’t very efficient at all when compared to plant production (click on return to article at the bottom of the linked page to check out the full article and more details).
Despite the substantial contribution of meat production to several environmental problems, one does not often hear about vegetarianism as a quick and easy way of reducing one’s carbon footprint and being more environmentally friendly in general. I can only speculate that this is due to the quasi-religious status that many people seem to assign to their dietary choices—it’s a touchy subject and no one wants to rock the boat. From an outside perspective, it seems like the pragmatic thing for one to do would be to simply eat as cheaply and healthfully as possible while being environmentally sound, which would probably involving eating very little meat. Nevertheless, there are many myths, such as the myth that a vegetarian diet does not give one all the nutrients one needs, as well as a substantial amount of enculturation around the world that conspire to prevent this from being a more salient option than reducing one’s driving, for example.
After my eight weeks are up, I suppose that I am likely to go back to eating a certain amount of meat in one form or another. In order to mitigate the environmental impact of my diet, I’ll try to seek out organic, grass-fed beef and MSC certified fish, and I’ll try to reduce my meat consumption in general. Unlike in the moral case, environmental vegetarianism can be a question of degree, not absolutes. One can avoid eating meat a couple of days a week and still make a difference, without swearing off the practice entirely.
