How does eating Vegetarian save the environment?

Question

I've got a couple of friends who are vegetarian on the grounds of environmentalism, they cite the research about cows, the rainforest and global warming, (too long to type out here but I'm sure you've heard of it). I always point out, why not just not eat cow? Chickens don't produce nearly as much greenhouse gasses do they?

are there other environmental factors come into play that I'm missing?

Answer 1

Generally, I would agree with you (or your friends). But the problem is that they are generalizing, in that they don't take into account the wide variety of local foods and conditions.

Just for example, where I live, all beef is grass-fed, because the grass grows (without irrigation) whether there's livestock to feed on it or not. Chickens on the other hand have to be fed with grain that's shipped thousands of miles on diesel-spewing barges and trucks. Same thing with a lot of fruits and vegetables that aren't produced locally - including almost all types of grains. (Though if you're not hell-bent on having corn, peaches, potatoes, etc you can do quite well with the local farmer's market). So for where I live, a beef and seafood diet (with locally grown fruits, etc) is far more environmentally responsible than one of chicken and imported vegetables.

My point is environmental responsibility has to be BOTH global AND local in scope if it's going to make any sense.

Peace to you.

Answer 2

The argument that PETA makes, and it kind of does make sense, is this;

The industry that has been created around the eating of meat does creat allot of greenhouse gasses, allot of polution and allot of exhaust. First of all, how many people in North America eat meat? Allot. And meat doesn't last as long as a block of Tofu does. So, every day, thousands of cows have to be killed.

So how does this happen? First, the cows have to be raised. As they grow up, they poo allot. And all of that poo concentrated into one little area creates allot of greenhouse gasses that go straight up. We're not talking a few cows in a farmer's field. We're talking populations of small towns, statium populations here. Imagine the next time you're at a sporting event and every one in the packed stadium poo outdoors in the same spot every day of the year, for no end. That's allot of poo.

Next, the cows have to be transported. 18 wheelers aren't very good on the enviroment and thousands of them are over the roads of the world every day. They take up the space of at least three or four cars and in rush hour traffic on the highway, that's all of exhaust.

And the last step, the slaughtering. Have you ever seen the inside of a slaughter house? Not exactly the stainless steel place you see in a butcher shop. Some of THE most poluted industries on the world today are the meat industry. I've seen some plants where they exhaust they are spewing into the atmosphere in huge volumes all day, every day, are so toxic, they've eating away the exhaust pipe.

All in all, envirometalism can be an argument for debate over being a vegetarian.

Answer 3

All animal industry harms the environment. I live in the Washington, DC, area, and there was talk not too long ago about pollution in the Chesapeake Bay. There are chicken farms not far from there--ding, ding, ding! Runoff from the chicken facilities is polluting the bay. In North Carolina, runoff from pig facilities pollutes the rivers there. So whether it's cows belching methane, animal waste leaching into the groundwater, the destruction of the topsoil, the degradation of the rainforest, the utter waste of resources, ALL animal industry is bad for the environment. The U.N. even said that animal industry produces more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world.

Answer 4

Well, overpopulation is the largest looming threat to the survival of the human race, so eating vegetarians has a direct impact on the number of people. Save the world, eat a vegetarian.

If you want a real answer, try reading 'Diet for a small planet' Its old, and I think there are more current books with similar info, but that's the one I'm aware of. For the record, I am a food opportunist, with vegetarian tendencies.

Here's a link to info about the peanut butter and jelly campaign. They claim that eating PB and J for lunch for 16 days saves the equivalent energy of the life of one chicken.

Answer 5

In part it is b/c it takes more crop land to produce meat than vegitiables.

What I mean by that is if you grow corn and then feed the corn to cows and then kill the cows and eat the meat, you can feed people.

If on the other hand you grow corn and people eat the corn you can feed 11 times more people in the same amount of space if people eat the corn and skip the cow step.

The need for continued crop land to graze the cows is a large part of the reason for deforestation. If people eat veggie instead of beef, we would not need the additional farm land and could keep the forests.

Answer 6

Small Footprint.. Using less resources. Of course eating Veggie is only 1 step in that goal. What is their home like, what cars do they drive, do they keep them in good repair so they are energy efficient? Do they recycle..there are allot of positive ways to live that help the environment.

Chicken farming is pretty close to beef or pork in the use of resources. It's not just the greenhouse gases..it's water pollution produced, use of grain volume vs human consumption as well as the fact the Big Animals Industry is a very unhealthy way to get a flesh food sources.
The latter is no small deal in the scheme of things. When you eat a animal that has been raise that way your own health is compromised also. Your own resources are then taxed, cost of health care, cost of long term care as a older person due to illness, etc.

Slainté (to your health)

Answer 7

I'm probably just repeating things you already know... but raising livestock is the #1 cause of global warming directly, according to a UN report like a year ago I think. Raising livestock is terrible for land and water (imagine all of that waste floating around in your tap). Cows produce methane naturally in their livers as well - this is toxic, and the mass production of them isn't really helping cut it down. As for deforestation, there are lots of forests being cut down in order to make farms for livestock.

Answer 8

Well, if you're a vegetarian, you could go to farmer's markets and get really good deals on high quality fruits and vegtables. It's likely organic, has few to no pesticides, and since it's grown locally, there's much less travel time to get it to you, than sending a truck across the state, which means less fuel was consumed, and less smog is put into the atmosphere.

Also eating more veggies, will encourage more plant growth, and more plants means less CO2 in the atmosphere.

Answer 9

There are numerous fact sheets on this subject. I'm just too lazy to look for 'em atm.

Basically eating cow is inefficient because of the amount of grain they consume. The amount of grain they consume is ridiculous. The huge amount of land used to grow the grain to feed the cow could be used instead to grow food to feed humans directly. This would greatly reduce the number of cows.

Cows = methane gas

BTW, chickens ARE better for the environment.

Answer 10

I wouldn't eat either one.

However, there does seem to be a lot more squandering of land and resources related to the processing of beef than there does for chicken. I haven't really read into it that deeply, but does sound fairly reasonable.

I'm really vegetarian just because I don't like killing animals, but I think I can see your point.