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Thanksgiving arrives every year with a heated debate over how to best cook that plump and juicy turkey. But the idea of a tofu turkey (also known as a “tofurkey”) has gone from a joke a couple years ago to a reality for many. While vegetarianism has been practiced for over a thousand years in some countries, it is a relatively new concept in the West. And so, with the question cropping up more and more often, should we eat meat?
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Animal Agriculture is a Major Polluter
- From PETA
By PETA - People for Ethical Treatment of Animals
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There are a lot of different kinds of pollution
There is no dispute that the pollution created by farm animals - feces and urine - is high. The problem with this statement lies with the inherent implication that the amount of pollution mentioned significantly impacts the environment.
It's not a difficult idea to understand: All excrement created by animals originated from their food - various plant life. Their waste, when released, does what it has been doing for billions of years. It decomposes into basic chemicals and minerals, ready for absorption new seeds ready to grow new plants, continues the cycle, or circle of life.
As livestock population increases, also does the amount of crop growing required to sustain it. This effectively keeps the damage caused by said pollution at zero.
- ZMX September 2, 2008 8:08PM
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Sources should accompany your confidence
I've read an FAO report on supposed sustainability of mixed farming. That's the best you'll find to support your last statement. It's a pie-in-the-sky idea because it is based on a world without factory farms and the copious amounts of meat. The FAO also came out with a report stating that the greenhouse gases from livestock surpasses that of all automobiles on the planet. No significant impact? I suppose I should see if you weighed in on the Global Warming debate, too.
The notion that what is happening now on the planet is even remotely similar to what had been happening for billions of years prior indicates your gross misunderstanding about the sustainability and symbiotic nature of Earth's inhabitants. You should really investigate the results of factory farming.
How about this?
http://www.nrdc.org/water/pollution/nspills.asp
There is plenty of research to support the claims that the problem is a serious one. The debates on morality I can understand. This topic, however, is simply too difficult to refute.
- mike
September 2, 2008 8:58PM
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Side: No
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Elementary is My Source and Should be Yours
Every bit of energy taken in by an animal is eventually released into the atmosphere and the ground, via excretion or death (decomposition). This is known as waste. Now, plants and animals have been eating and dying for (depending on your beliefs) at least five thousand years. Why is the world not a gigantic cesspool?
Because the animals that are being fed must continue to be fed. Every bit of waste that comes out of an animal has the exact same composition as the food it ate - it's just been broken down into more difficult to use forms. All of this waste is the exact same matter as the food that was consumed, and a lot of plants have to be made to keep up. Now, the matter has to come from somewhere, we all know you can't just create matter. The plants grow from all of the waste material. In fact, there NEEDS to be waste material for the plants to grow in the first place. Otherwise everything would be used up in the form of other objects.
Example: Say there are a million cows. In a year these million cows eat a billion plants and excrete a billion plants' worth of waste. The next year, they'll need a billion more plants to eat. The matter that makes up the plants comes from the billion plants worth of waste the cows excreted.
Matter cannot be created or destroyed. Plants are born from the waste of other plants that have been eaten. The system is self sustaining.
The only problem is that some selfish farmers may decide to dump the waste where it doesn't belong.
- ZMX September 18, 2008 5:00PM
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Keep digging, Watson.
Your "conservation of energy/matter" statement is true enough. So, at the end of our universe's life, what went in also came out. But that says nothing about the sustainability for mammals on the planet.
Sure, we're turning the potential energy of coal into all forms of kinetic energy. We're not creating the matter that makes up the greenhouse gases. It's the form the matter takes as a result of our actions that will generate serious consequences. We can generate CFCs, and all that matter came from Earth. Yet the form of a CFC will deplete the ozone. Yes. Poop fertilizes. The key here is time-frame and concentration. The Earth can recycle quite a bit, but not as fast as we're producing it, and not over such a small area.
So, I suppose you're right. To say that we're ruining or poisoning the planet is an entirely relative statement. What I meant to say is that we're creating conditions that will kill us. My mistake.
- mike
September 18, 2008 5:42PM
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You're the one that needs to dig.
First of all, your comments on coal and CFCs aren't really related to the topic of whether or not animal excretions are harmful.
Anyway, you're the one making a bold statement: That the ecosystem cannot keep up with the amount of waste animals produce and continue the life cycle. It's your job to prove this to be so. Where is there any hard evidence that says that plants are incapable of growing because all the waste from livestock isn't being broken down fast enough?
I also pose another question. There are nitrogen converting bacteria in the ground. Without them, we would never have existed, for they are predominantly what keeps the cycle moving. Now, why would it be unreasonable to think that with increased waste those helpful bacteria would flourish and help more?
- ZMX September 21, 2008 10:32AM
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Nuh-uh, nuh-uh, you are!
The coal and CFCs are referring to your defense that a closed system works itself out and that neither matter cannot be created nor destroyed. They can be changed, however, and humans exist in a relatively narrow band of life.
Who on Earth said anything about plants not being able to grow? I don't think I've ever cried strawman so much as I've had to do since coming to this board. Please read carefully and don't misrepresent either side of a discussion.
Some reading:
http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan/environment.html
http://www.agriculture.de/acms1/conf6/ws4cont.htm
Really, I can't find any sources to defend your side of this argument. No one is debating this topic. The debate is over what to do about it, not whether or not it's an issue.
It's an issue!
There are other solutions besides veganism, I'll be first to admit. That's why the environment is only a piece of it. You can feasibly cut down on consumption to, say, 1/100 of your typical consumption, and more sustainable methods of animal exploitation become available.
I just don't subscribe to those, because no matter how you slice it, it's not justifiable.
- mike
September 21, 2008 1:31PM
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How about a middle ground?
I am a vegetarian for religious and ethical reasons. I feel that eating meat is bad for the environment and (because many meat animals are grain fed) causes price increases in staple foods that are needed by underfed people worldwide.
How about a middle ground in the meat eating vs. vegetarian debate?
Most suburban yards (in this part of the USA) have an excess of rabbits, ground hogs, chipmunks, squirrels and deer. In our neighborhood, there are also fish in a local pond. We have no wolves here - the predator that used to control these populations. A meat-eater could kill (harvest) a small number of these each year with minimal impact on the local ecosystem. In fact, a reduction in the ground hog population would benefit us since they they eat many of our garden plants.
Meat eaters - please start with humanely killing and eating the food supply in your back yard. The environmental impact will be less.
- Sane Mom September 9, 2008 12:11PM
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