FunkyFrank
New member
been hearing alot about this lately
How does cutting back on meat consumption or going vegan help the environment?
- Thread starter FunkyFrank
- Start date
It uses less land to grow plants for human consumption instead of using the land to raise animals, and then more land to grow animal feed.
Although I'm not a vegan or vegetarian, I can definitely see that it would be a better system not to have to raise animals for food consumption.
I'm sure there are other factors as well, such as pollution, but that's all I know about it for sure.
Although I'm not a vegan or vegetarian, I can definitely see that it would be a better system not to have to raise animals for food consumption.
I'm sure there are other factors as well, such as pollution, but that's all I know about it for sure.
Gluten-free Vegan
New member
When the Clean Water Act went into effect in 1972, agriculture as a source of pollution was overlooked. The EPA has identified agricultural runoff as a primary pollution source for the 60 percent of rivers and streams considered "impaired." A 1997 Senate report said that every year, U.S. livestock produce 10,000 pounds of solid manure for every U.S. citizen.
Waste from livestock in the U.S. amounts to 130 times that produced by people. Every time it rains, excess phosphorous and nitrogen from the urine and feces seep into our waterways, causing algal blooms, or red tides. Another result of agricultural runoff has been the proliferation of dinoflagellates, named for their characteristic dual flagella, the appendages they use to propel themselves. In 1991, Pfiesteria piscicida was discovered to be a particularly nasty variety, with the ability to ambush its prey by stunning it with a disorienting toxin before sucking its skin off. This nearly indestructible one-celled creature, or "cell from hell," as it soon became known, killed a billion fish during just one flare-up off North Carolina during the early 1990s. People who come in contact with the tiny predator often experience memory loss as well as grotesque sores on their skins. In 1982 there were 22 known species of harmful dinoflagellates. In 1997 there were over 60.
Beef cattle are best suited to moist climates, like those of Europe, where they evolved. But in the U.S., many are concentrated in the West on the driest land. Native grasses long ago were overrun by heartier foreign varieties brought here on bovine hooves. Grazing usually takes place along fragile riparian zones - the strips of land along rivers and streams where wild species of plants and animals concentrate and regenerate. These delicate ecosystems, which serve as natural purifiers of the water, are summarily trampled flat by cows and contaminated by manure.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, two-thirds of the world's major fishing grounds and stocks are now exhausted or seriously depleted. Fishers, using modern techniques such as sonar, driftnets, bottom-fishing super trawlers, longlines, and floating refrigerated fish-packing factories, are ultimately not only putting themselves out of business but rapidly destroying ocean ecosystems. Early in 1998, 1,600 scientists from around the world declared that the oceans were in peril. They warned that swift action is imperative to prevent irreversible environmental degradation
Conservative industry figures for feed-to-flesh ratios are 7:1 for cattle, 2.6:1 for pigs, and 2:1 for chickens. Many factors, however, can influence feed conversion. By virtually all accounts, eating food derived from animals is wasteful. And when the industry does accomplish more efficiency, improvements usually come at the expense of the animals, via genetic tinkering and growth-enhancing drugs.
On October 12, 1999, the population of the world hit 6 billion, at least in theory. This number is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050. The Green Revolution, which fueled much of the recent growth, appears to have come to an end. Indeed, grain production worldwide has been declining since 1983, and biotech is not likely to reverse the downturn. Today, 70 percent of grain in the U.S. and 40 percent of grain worldwide lavishly goes to feed livestock. And just when the world seems to think it needs more land to cultivate grain to feed to animals so more people can eat them, per-capita world cropland has declined by 20 percent in the 1990s alone. The World Health Organization says 1.2 billion people in the world don't get enough to eat. Increasing meat production is definitely not the answer.
From the animal-feed breadbasket of the nation's Midwest, massive amounts of fertilizer, pesticides, and manure runoff travel down the Mississippi River till they end up in the Gulf of Mexico. This high-nutrient mix causes an eco-chain reaction that ultimately ends with microscopic organisms robbing the bottom of the ocean of oxygen. Animals there need to relocate to more oxygen-rich waters. Slow and non-mobile species suffocate. The phenomenon is known as hypoxia. Scientists have dubbed affected areas "dead zones." Once a year the Gulf's dead zone grows to about the size of New Jersey.
As a result of the introduction of cattle to this hemisphere, major forest fires in the American West occur today at the rate of one every three years, where earlier they may have occurred only once in a century. Historically, ranchers suppressed "cool" grass fires on the bovines' behalf, allowing tinderboxes of dense foliage to build up below taller trees. Factor in cheatgrass, a nonnative plant that would not have had the opportunity to take root in America without the overgrazing of cattle. This prolific weed provides dry, papery kindling in early summer, perfectly conducive to massive forest fires.
Waste from livestock in the U.S. amounts to 130 times that produced by people. Every time it rains, excess phosphorous and nitrogen from the urine and feces seep into our waterways, causing algal blooms, or red tides. Another result of agricultural runoff has been the proliferation of dinoflagellates, named for their characteristic dual flagella, the appendages they use to propel themselves. In 1991, Pfiesteria piscicida was discovered to be a particularly nasty variety, with the ability to ambush its prey by stunning it with a disorienting toxin before sucking its skin off. This nearly indestructible one-celled creature, or "cell from hell," as it soon became known, killed a billion fish during just one flare-up off North Carolina during the early 1990s. People who come in contact with the tiny predator often experience memory loss as well as grotesque sores on their skins. In 1982 there were 22 known species of harmful dinoflagellates. In 1997 there were over 60.
Beef cattle are best suited to moist climates, like those of Europe, where they evolved. But in the U.S., many are concentrated in the West on the driest land. Native grasses long ago were overrun by heartier foreign varieties brought here on bovine hooves. Grazing usually takes place along fragile riparian zones - the strips of land along rivers and streams where wild species of plants and animals concentrate and regenerate. These delicate ecosystems, which serve as natural purifiers of the water, are summarily trampled flat by cows and contaminated by manure.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, two-thirds of the world's major fishing grounds and stocks are now exhausted or seriously depleted. Fishers, using modern techniques such as sonar, driftnets, bottom-fishing super trawlers, longlines, and floating refrigerated fish-packing factories, are ultimately not only putting themselves out of business but rapidly destroying ocean ecosystems. Early in 1998, 1,600 scientists from around the world declared that the oceans were in peril. They warned that swift action is imperative to prevent irreversible environmental degradation
Conservative industry figures for feed-to-flesh ratios are 7:1 for cattle, 2.6:1 for pigs, and 2:1 for chickens. Many factors, however, can influence feed conversion. By virtually all accounts, eating food derived from animals is wasteful. And when the industry does accomplish more efficiency, improvements usually come at the expense of the animals, via genetic tinkering and growth-enhancing drugs.
On October 12, 1999, the population of the world hit 6 billion, at least in theory. This number is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050. The Green Revolution, which fueled much of the recent growth, appears to have come to an end. Indeed, grain production worldwide has been declining since 1983, and biotech is not likely to reverse the downturn. Today, 70 percent of grain in the U.S. and 40 percent of grain worldwide lavishly goes to feed livestock. And just when the world seems to think it needs more land to cultivate grain to feed to animals so more people can eat them, per-capita world cropland has declined by 20 percent in the 1990s alone. The World Health Organization says 1.2 billion people in the world don't get enough to eat. Increasing meat production is definitely not the answer.
From the animal-feed breadbasket of the nation's Midwest, massive amounts of fertilizer, pesticides, and manure runoff travel down the Mississippi River till they end up in the Gulf of Mexico. This high-nutrient mix causes an eco-chain reaction that ultimately ends with microscopic organisms robbing the bottom of the ocean of oxygen. Animals there need to relocate to more oxygen-rich waters. Slow and non-mobile species suffocate. The phenomenon is known as hypoxia. Scientists have dubbed affected areas "dead zones." Once a year the Gulf's dead zone grows to about the size of New Jersey.
As a result of the introduction of cattle to this hemisphere, major forest fires in the American West occur today at the rate of one every three years, where earlier they may have occurred only once in a century. Historically, ranchers suppressed "cool" grass fires on the bovines' behalf, allowing tinderboxes of dense foliage to build up below taller trees. Factor in cheatgrass, a nonnative plant that would not have had the opportunity to take root in America without the overgrazing of cattle. This prolific weed provides dry, papery kindling in early summer, perfectly conducive to massive forest fires.
M
moelsk
Guest
Actually it depends. If you are buying meat and or veggies out of your area, then organics does no good, because it's not sustainable when you are shipping and trucking items around the world or across the country. This requires consuming large amounts of petrol products to get these products to those far off destinations. It is only when it is locally grown, does it help the environment. You are actually helping the planet more buying locally, even if it is not organic, then buying non-local organic products. After buying locally you can weigh the add the benefit of utilizing less land for food argument. I believe humans are meant to eat some meat. Maybe not in the quantities we do, but there is a reason we have incisors in our mouths.
Yo "partly", better kinow your facts first, if you think shipping organic fruit from Chile to Maine is better for the environment then eating non-organic locally grown fruit from Portland Maine, then you have not given this matter any thought. Going LOCAL is the point. Read the answer first.
Yo "partly", better kinow your facts first, if you think shipping organic fruit from Chile to Maine is better for the environment then eating non-organic locally grown fruit from Portland Maine, then you have not given this matter any thought. Going LOCAL is the point. Read the answer first.
sweetcutie
New member
People believe that it haelps the environment because your killing less animals for the products, or harming the animals. However, in all fairness it doesn't do much except harm your body because yu don't get enough proteins. ( just a personal opininon)
partlycloudy493
New member
It actually doesn't. In all honesty, it causes more cows to eat more grass, destroying that part of the environment, and it also puts more carbon dioxide in the environment from what cows and animals put off [[due to bodily functions 
]]
]]Lovestoned
New member
Well by cutting back it means there is less demand for meat. And when there is less demand for meat, we do not need to raise as much cattle. Less cattle means less land converted to grazing fields for the cattle. Which in places like Brazil, mean we are saving the rainforest from destruction.