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A Prime Meat Prime
Have you ever consider limiting how much meat you consume? Maybe you’ve heard the horror stories of those inhumane slaughter houses, or even seen the videos, which, excluding only the wicked, should have stirred a sort of cerebral conflict. Perhaps an outspoken vegan has tried to convince you to give up on that meat by stating a few hackneyed animal rights slogans, which, up until you witnessed that video were, well, hackneyed. Or is it possible that you actually have enough faith to believe that the animals you obtain that necessary protein from are here solely for your consumption just as God intended. Now that is some extraordinary faith; that type of devotion ought to help you quell any second thoughts you may have had about consuming that tasty mass of flesh and neurons. Whatever your thoughts may be about animal rights, eating meat, and so forth, something that seems to go unmentioned in the attempt to convince the masses to consume less meat is the impacts the livestock industry has on the environment. So read on, you may be surprised how much goes into that cute little piece of flesh on your plate, and at least you will be better equipped to make a more objective decision, next time, if ever, you find yourself in a bout of cognitive dissonance. The livestock industry impacts many important environmental issues relating to air, water and soil quality as well as the preservation of biological diversity. When considering environmental problems relating to both the raising of livestock (i.e. waste management, land degradation, etc.), as well as the processing and transportation of livestock products (i.e. fossil fuel consumption, emissions, etc.), the environmental implications are far-reaching and highly varied. The major environmental issues of concern, both locally and globally, that the livestock industry may contribute to include global warming, acid rain formation, tropospheric ozone formation (not good for your lungs), stratospheric ozone depletion (not good for your skin), acidification and eutrophication of both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems (not good for most living things), ground water contamination, land degradation and the depletion of biodiversity. These problems may be a result of or combination of the pollutants produced during any one of the following processes relating to livestock production: gaseous emissions from livestock during expiration, excretion and defecation; volatilization of chemicals from manure during storage and/or handling; volatilization from manure after application to the land as a fertilizer and nutrient overloading of ecosystems via leaching from manure stores and/or manure fertilizers which may also contain heavy metals and pathogens.
The amount of pollutants produced by the livestock industry depends on many variables, both inclusive to (i.e. animal type, feed type, farming practices, etc.) and exclusive of (i.e. climate, local economy, etc.) the industry. An important distinction to be made within the industry is the type of farm on which the livestock are reared. Given the same set of parameters (i.e. same animal, same climate, etc.) these different farms will emit different amounts of pollutants and are generally a compromise between quantity and quality of production. There are three types of well defined farming systems in the livestock industry: mixed farming systems, grazing systems and industrial systems.
Mixed farming systems integrate livestock and crop production on the same farm; the crop provides feed for the livestock and the livestock provides manure for the crop. Grazing systems are like mixed farming systems except there are no crops grown on the farm and the livestock graze on the native grasses. In theory both of these farming systems are of no great threat to the environment because the waste product (manure) is used to fertilize the crop or grassland. These systems are closed – nutrients and energy are cycled between the livestock and the crop or grass, thus requiring no external in-puts to the system. Industrial systems are those systems where the livestock are not free to graze and are held in high density animal pens. These systems are open, requiring various waste management strategies as well as external resources for raising the livestock. Industrial systems pose the greatest danger to the environment because the pollutants per livestock product produced are the highest. As land availability decreases and the human population increases, livestock production from industrial-type systems is expected to grow in order to keep pace with the rising demand for food. Industrial-type systems produce the greatest yields of livestock per dollar invested, thus, as long as the demand is high, these systems will become more prevalent and continue to thrive.
Wow, all this for a piece of overrated meat! So what if you can not stop that meat obsession but actually do care about the environment? Minimize, minimize, minimize. Supplement your diet with the wealth of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, grains…etc, that are available to us very fortunate peoples of America; contrary to popular believe, obtaining sufficient protein is not a problem. And remember it takes a lot more energy to produce a pound of beef than it does a pound of anything that obtains its energy directly from the sun. So if you move towards a more vegetarian-type diet, you will free-up some energy for children of generations to come. But if you just can’t break tradition I will ease your conscience with a sort of paradox: how supporting the livestock industry may in fact perpetuate the existence of those animal species you are killing. If we all stopped eating meat, wouldn’t that lead to the extinction of those domesticated animals that are only here for your consumption anyhow? Hey, at least they had a prime. And if that is the case, then the Lord truly does work in mysterious ways. |
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