The human species seems to be on a mission to make the earth uninhabitable, but with a little awareness of the consequences, better decisions can be made.
The food industry and Standard American Diet (SAD) may play an even bigger role on the health of our ecosystem than any other factors combined, playing a major role in problems like climate change, pollution and deforestation.
“The California University of Science found in a study that a family that gives up meat is equivalent to owning a hybrid car,” Scott Rollins, instructor and department chair of Life Sciences at SFCC, said.
Greenhouse gasses are largely responsible for climate change.
“Livestock contribute largely to greenhouse gasses by producing CO2, as well as the more potent greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxides,” Rollins said. “ 75% of nitrous oxide comes from livestock, and it has nearly 300 times the heat trapping capability of CO2.”
Livestock also requires tremendous amounts of resources.
One of the reasons Inland Northwest Vegans promote veganism is to protect the environment. The society also educates people about other harmful effects of an animal based diet, as well as how to cook healthy and tasty vegan foods. They also host a vegan potluck at the Spokane woman’s club on the third Sunday of each month.
“Regarding water alone, just one hamburger requires 660 gallons of water to produce,” Tessa Trow, cofounder of Inland Northwest Vegans, said. “1,000 gallons of water are required to produce just 1 gallon of dairy milk.”
Producing 1 kg of animal protein requires about 100 times more water than producing 1 kg of grain protein according to “Water Resources, Agriculture and the Environment” published by Colorado University in 2004.
Wasting water can have catastrophic results since only a fraction of earths water is drinkable. According to “World Water Resources at the Beginning of the 21 Century” published at Cambridge University by Shiklomanov and Rodda, 2003 more than 97% of the Earth’s water is in the oceans
“As we waste water on animal agriculture, we are also creating deserts, poisoning millions of hectares of land with salt, killing entire lakes such as the Aral Sea and wiping out entire species,” Trow said.
Not only are the food industries using incredible amounts of water, they’re also polluting water and soil.
“The top two water pollutants in the US are Pathogenic (disease causing), often from livestock manure, and nutrients from fertilizer,” said Rollins.
Although fertilizer is used to enhance the growth and nutrition in plants, too much is not good and can pollute water and soil.
“In Spokane, one of the things we see on Long Lake is harmful Cyanobacteria blooms,” said Rollins. “These can be harmful to humans and animals, often causing death in pets.”
The pathogenic pollutants usually come from livestock’s urine and feces.
“A farm with 2,500 dairy cows produces the same amount of waste as a city of 411,000 people,” Trow said. “It is drained into entire lakes which then contaminate surrounding land.”
“Although I prefer to eat this way, it’s not always possible.”
In addition to using and polluting tremendous amounts of water, raising animals for food also destroys huge amounts of land.
“30% of the earth’s land mass or 17 million square miles are used to raise animals for food.” Trow said. “The moon has less area than that, at 14.6 million square miles. More than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to create cropland to grow grain to feed farmed animals.”
The animals eat way more food than they end up producing, so eating meat requires a lot more land for growing food than growing food for human consumption.
“1 kg of beef requires 20 kgs of grain,” Rollins said.
Eating animal products at the typical amount for the western countries is not sustainable, and is causing irreversible damage to the ecosystem.
“The planet could only feed about 36% of the current population on a typical American diet consisting of 25% of calories coming from animal products,” Edward O. Wilson, biologist and chronicler of the science of sociobiology, wrote in his book “The Future of life”.
So what can someone do to eat a more responsible diet?
Carolyn Stephens, instructor and department chair of Fine Arts, enjoys gardening when the seasons allow, where she can control the pollutants. She also tries to support businesses who practice responsible farming.
“In the nice weather months I buy produce from farmers markets,” Stephens said.
If eliminating meat seems to daunting, Trow suggests eating vegan or vegetarian until dinner. Reducing the amount one relies on this industry will also reduce the negative impacts the industry has.
“Reducing the amount of meat is not only better for the environment but also our health,” Rollins said. “That doesn’t mean give up meat, I’m not vegetarian, but try to reduce the amount.”