What If...We All Became Vegan?
in [Vegetarian]
|
Prev: Non Leather Shoes- Fashion Student needs your input.
Next: Oxford Vivisection Sponsors - Edward Jenner Institute for Vaccine - Paid Oxford University Labs 306,982.40 to practice mad science on animals
From: Earth Blog on 25 Jul 2006 18:22 In June 2006 there were 6,525,000,000 people on the Earth, each consuming an average of 2800 calories per day. That's a total of around 18 trillion calories per day, all of which have to come from somewhere; meat, dairy products, legumes, leafy vegetables, cereals, beets.ultimately though, from the soil, the rain and the sun. Usually the soil has to be fertilised in some way, from dung, rocks or fossil fuels. Usually the water has to be moved from other places to make up for irregular rainfall. Sometimes the sun is not strong enough and the crops or animal feed has to come from somewhere with warmer weather, or be grown under artificial conditions. Almost always, the food has to be transported from one place to another. In a world with a growing population, whose average calorie consumption is rising, and whose demand for more exotic food is being accelerated by advertising and globalisation, there is one other, almost invisible factor that may be making a huge difference on our global footprint : the amount of food which comes from animals. So, just for a few minutes, I would like you to suspend any cultural, religious or habitual feelings you have about diet, and just assume that everyone on this planet suddenly became vegan. That is, nothing they consumed derived from animals. According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation the typical industrialised consumer derives 28% of all of their calories from animals; largely meat and dairy products. For developing countries this goes down to 8%, so let's strike an average of 15% for the world as a whole. As part of a detailed and objective analysis in 2000, Vaclev Smil discovered that the use of the world's grain harvest alone for animal fodder had gone up from just 20% in 1950 to 45% in the late 1990s, including 60% of all grain produced in the USA. Smil also found that, if we take 1kg of vegetable matter to equal 1kg of gross energy consumed, then converting the 1kg consumed product into milk would require 4-5kg vegetable matter; pork, 5-7kg vegetable matter; chicken 7-10kg vegetable matter; and beef, 20-25kg vegetable matter. We can see straight away that a move away from beef to chicken would provide an approximate 65% saving in the amount of vegetable matter required to produce the final food product, and even more if a switch was made away from meat entirely to dairy; effectively a lacto-vegetarian diet. At only 1kg vegetable matter to 1kg gross energy, there is a huge additional benefit, environmentally, in switching to a completely animal free diet. In fact, with beef accounting for 25% of the global meat total; pork, 39%; and poultry, 29%; we can take an average of 11.2kg of vegetable matter required for just 1kg of food energy for the whole world. Based on the UN FAO figures above, this means that the global average of 15% calories from animals requires twice as much vegetable matter as the 85% of non-animal calories consumed worldwide. Therefore, if we all went vegan we would need only one third of the cropland we use now. This is a remarkable figure and one that is scarcely believable; but look at the figures, and that's what comes out. And what also comes out is this: Currently 80m tonnes of nitrogen fertiliser is produced worldwide every year. Because nitrogen fertiliser production generates nitrous oxide, which has a global warming potential 300 times that of carbon dioxide, the emissions from nitrogen fertiliser comes out at a massive 1376m tonnes CO2 equivalent. In other words, reducing the amount of nitrogen fertiliser by two thirds would offset over 3% of the carbon dioxide produced by humans every year. The amount of carbon dioxide generated by food transportation in the UK in 2002 was 19 million tonnes , which does not include the distance travelled by animal feed. Calculating the amount of CO2 generated by animal feed transportation is tremendously difficult owing to the complexity of the supply chain; however, given the global nature of the animal feed market, the raw materials are unlikely to have been produced any more locally than the average UK apple, quite the converse, in fact. Therefore, we can safely say that if we include animal feed, the true emissions from UK food is closer to 60m tonnes CO2. Globally, the industrialised world therefore produces around 600m tonnes CO2 from food transportation, and the whole of the world a very approximate 1500 million tonnes. The global reduction in carbon dioxide would therefore be around 1000m tonnes, or 4% of all carbon dioxide emissions. Deforestation is an unfortunate side-effect of cropland growth, especially when the forest being destroyed is amongst the world's richest and most vital habitats, which absorbs around 8% of the world's CO2 each year. Every year around 20,000 square miles (out of 7 million) of the Amazon is lost through deforestation, with over half of that caused by cattle ranching or soya production. Even though the 0.3% loss annually seems very small, the combination of cumulative loss (17% in the last few decades) and the huge amount of carbon returned to the air through burning and decomposition, is potentially catastrophic for the global environment. A one third reduction in Amazon deforestation resulting from global veganism would be a major saving grace for this irreplaceable resource. And these are just three examples from many others, including all of the other forests destroyed for cropland; the 19% of global methane produced by farmed ruminant animals; and the run off from slurry, pesticides and fertiliser poisoning oceans and rivers worldwide. But, even so - setting aside the cultural, religious and habitual arguments for or against it - there are bound to be objections to the hypothesis of global veganism. Some of the more likely ones are answered here: Humans need protein and meat-based nutrients to survive. There are plenty of vegetable-based alternatives; beans, pulses and nuts of all types, which will suffice. More specifically to veganism, vitamin B12 and other key nutrients can be synthesised, which would be a small price to pay for the environmental benefits. Soya is destroying the Amazon. As shown earlier there is really no need for any forest destruction given the two thirds reduction in land requirement. In fact
From: Alan Connor on 25 Jul 2006 18:58 On uk.environment, in <UsydnXky45r3BFvZRVnygg(a)pipex.net>, "Earth Blog" wrote: <article not downloaded: http://slrn.sourceforge.net/docs/README.offline> (he only posted this to uk.environment for some reason) http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search Earth Blog Results 1 - 22 of 22 posts in the last year 1 alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian 2 alt.energy.renewable 7 alt.global-warming 2 sci.environment 9 uk.environment 1 uk.environment.conservation Why are you hiding your true posting history by posting under multiple aliases? You obviously have a lot more posts on the Usenet than that. No one has a posting history that is that focused. You ruin your credibility by doing so. You obviously cannot be trusted because you don't have the integrity to stand behind everything you post. I will not be downloading any of your articles or any responses to them. I do not trust you. ------------------------------------------------------------- > Subject: What If...We All Became Vegan? Well....Considering that it takes 35 times as much land and 50 times as much fresh water to feed a person with a typical American diet (or variant thereof), than it does a herbivore (never met a 'vegan' I could stand), we would have take a tremendous load off of the Earth's ecosystem. And a number of highly-destructive races of animals created by people: Cattle, sheep, pigs...would basically become instinct. No one is going to raise cattle, for example, if no one was eating them or drinking milk, etc. Good riddance. And the average workload would go way down. Animal foods are incredibly labor, capital, and energy intensive. You can raise a pound of grain protein with 1/10 of the labor that it takes to raise a pound of animal protein. So. The planet would be much healthier and we'd have more free time. And although it is obvious that the human body can be healthy on just about any sort of diet-style, the healthiest and longest-lived people known eat very little animal foods. These would be various Asian subcultures. The officially-recognized longest lived people on Earth are the Okinawans living a traditional lifestyle without any dairy products and about 4% animal protein in their diets. There are many other such people's in Asia. Google "The China Project." They often live to 120 and die with healthy teeth. The body doesn't have to work as hard to digest plants as it does animals. Alan -- See my headers.
From: rick on 25 Jul 2006 22:24 "Earth Blog" <earth-blog(a)nospam.com> spewed... snip > > But, even so - setting aside the cultural, religious and > habitual arguments for or against it - there are bound to be > objections to the hypothesis of global veganism. For one, your typical ly that implies ALL meat animals are fed from crop production. Free-range or wild animals need NONE of the inputs that ANY of your crops require. Plus, many animals can be fed off the WASTE of your crop production. How much of any crop plant do YOU eat? 5%? 10%? Half? Take corn for instance. You eat none of the cob, the stalk, the husk, or the silk. Many food animals CAN eat these and provide healthy, nutricious foods from YOUR wasted plant portions. Why do you always ignore these little facts? Oh, yeah, because it confuses your brainwashing, right?
From: Rupert on 26 Jul 2006 00:45 rick wrote: > "Earth Blog" <earth-blog(a)nospam.com> spewed... > > snip > > > > > But, even so - setting aside the cultural, religious and > > habitual arguments for or against it - there are bound to be > > objections to the hypothesis of global veganism. > > > For one, your typical ly that implies ALL meat animals are fed > from crop production. Where did he imply that? He constantly used the word "usually". Can't you just make your point in a civil manner for once? > Free-range or wild animals need NONE of > the inputs that ANY of your crops require. Plus, many animals > can be fed off the WASTE of your crop production. How much of > any crop plant do YOU eat? 5%? 10%? Half? Take corn for > instance. You eat none of the cob, the stalk, the husk, or the > silk. Many food animals CAN eat these and provide healthy, > nutricious foods from YOUR wasted plant portions. Why do you > always ignore these little facts? Oh, yeah, because it confuses > your brainwashing, right?
From: rick on 26 Jul 2006 02:41
"Rupert" <rupertmccallum(a)yahoo.com> wrote in message news:1153889104.844717.318670(a)b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com... > > rick wrote: >> "Earth Blog" <earth-blog(a)nospam.com> spewed... >> >> snip >> >> > >> > But, even so - setting aside the cultural, religious and >> > habitual arguments for or against it - there are bound to be >> > objections to the hypothesis of global veganism. >> >> >> For one, your typical ly that implies ALL meat animals are fed >> from crop production. > > Where did he imply that? He constantly used the word "usually". > Can't > you just make your point in a civil manner for once? =========================== I see your reading abilities have not improved, eh killer? Try reading again, for comprehension, not dogma. He used the word 'usually' twice. Once refering to soil, and once referring to water. Can't you for once make an informed comment without your brainwashing doing the bidding? > >> Free-range or wild animals need NONE of >> the inputs that ANY of your crops require. Plus, many animals >> can be fed off the WASTE of your crop production. How much of >> any crop plant do YOU eat? 5%? 10%? Half? Take corn for >> instance. You eat none of the cob, the stalk, the husk, or >> the >> silk. Many food animals CAN eat these and provide healthy, >> nutricious foods from YOUR wasted plant portions. Why do you >> always ignore these little facts? Oh, yeah, because it >> confuses >> your brainwashing, right? > |