How the coming vegetarian revolution will arrive by
force.
By Jim Motavalli
I have a prediction: Sooner than you might think, this will be a
vegetarian world. Future generations will find the idea of eating
meat both morally absurd and logistically impossible. Of course,
one need only look at the booming meat industry, the climbing rates
of meat consumption in the developing world, and the menu of just
about any restaurant to call me crazy. But already, most people
know that eating red meat is bad for their health and harmful for
the planet. It's getting them to actually change their diet that's
the hard part -- and that's exactly why it won't happen by
choice.
Going by the numbers, eating meat is pretty hard to justify for
the even moderately health-conscious. A National Cancer Institute
report released last March found that people who ate the most red
meat were, as the New York Times put it, "most likely to
die from cancer, heart disease and other causes." The biggest
abstainers "were least likely to die." Those who eat five
ounces of meat daily, (the equivalent
of one and a half Quarter Pounders or Big Macs) increase their
risk from cancer or heart disease by 30 percent compared to those
who eat two-thirds of an ounce daily -- a stark difference.
The environmental impact is also crystal clear -- and similarly
appalling. "Livestock's Long Shadow," a 2006 report by the
United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organzation (FAO), found that
livestock is a major player in climate change, accounting for 18
percent of all greenhouse gas emissions (measured in carbon dioxide
equivalents), or more than the entire global transportation
system.
The obvious solution to both health and environmental disasters
is to stop eating meat altogether. But this is easier said than
done. Even the studies addressing the impact of meat on the planet
downplay vegetarianism, as if the authors are nervous to press it
on people. Going veggie is not even proposed as one of the FAO's
"mitigation options" (which instead include conservation tillage,
organic farming, and better nutrition for livestock to reduce
methane gas production). Nor is it emphasized in "Happier Meals: Rethinking the Global Meat
Industry," a report by Danielle Nierenberg at the Worldwatch
Institute. The study's author is herself a vegan, but she told me,
"Food choices are a very personal decision for most people. We are
only now convincing them that this is a tool at their disposal if
they care about the environment."
She has a point: Giving up meat is tough, and arguing people
into it is probably a losing proposition. Even with all the
statistics out there about the dangers of meat, there are fewer
vegetarians in the world than you'd think. A Harris poll conducted in 2006 for the Vegetarian
Resource Group found that only 2.3 percent of American adults
18 or older claim never to eat meat, fish, or fowl. A larger group,
6.7 percent, say they "never eat meat," but often that means they
only avoid the red kind. Worldwide, local vegetarian societies
report high participation in just a few places - for example, 40
percent in India, 10 percent in Italy, 9 percent in Germany, 8.5.
percent in Israel, and 6 percent in Britain.
So how will we become a vegetarian planet? The numbers suggest
that we won't stop eating meat simply because it's "the right thing
to do." People love it too much. Instead, we'll be forced to stop.
By 2025, we simply won't have the resources to keep up the habit.
According to the FAO report, 33 percent of the world's arable land
is devoted to growing crops for animal feed, and grazing is a major
factor in deforestation around the world. It's also incredibly
water-intensive. The average U.S. diet requires twice the daily
amount of water as does an equally nutritious vegetarian diet,
reports the Worldwatch Institute. Meanwhile, there will be more
than 8 billion people on this earth, and two-thirds of the world's
population will live in water-stressed regions.
Sounds like a mess -- and one that doesn't bode well for our
cattle cravings. Meat will disappear -- except as a luxury
available to few -- and the ethical issues will evolve, too. In the
way that slavery, once a broad social norm, later became an
unthinkable crime, we can expect to see a similar shift once
meat-eating disappears from our planet. Perhaps, some day, the very
idea of eating animal flesh will seem as remote as the idea of
owning humans does now. So if you're a carnivore, enjoy now --
before the inevitable vegetarian revolution begins.
Jim Motavalli is a senior writer at E/The Environmental
Magazine and blogs for the Mother Nature Network.
