Environment

There’s no such thing as a meat-eating environmentalist. No. Such. Thing.

If you eat meat, you are causing enormous damage to the environment. It’s as simple as that.

In the US, almost two trillion pounds of animal waste are produced each year, or approximately 87,000 pounds per second.  That’s a lot of poop, and where does it all go?

It takes about 2 acres of grazing land to sustain a single cow being raised for meat– imagine two football fields!  Now imagine how much food you could grow on that same amount of land.  You could feed at least 16 times more people that way, and this in a world where people are starving.

A 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization asserted that when you factor in all the trees cut down for grazing space and fossil fuels used in animal production, the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions than the transportation sector.

Here are some stats from the report:

• the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent than transport (18% vs. 13.5%)
• livestock accounts for 9% of the CO2 derived from human-related activities.
• livestock generates 65% of the human-related nitrous oxide (which mostly comes from manure—think about 56 billion ‘food’ animals pooping every day!)
• livestock is responsible for 37% of all the human-induced methane, which is 23 times more warming than CO2.
• livestock now use 30% of the entire land surface of the planet, mostly for pasture, but also to produce feed for them.

In 2010 the math behind some of these findings was challenged, and so the jury is still out on exactly how much climate-warming gasses are produced, but the fact remains it’s a profoundly significant amount.

In addition, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had identified livestock manure as the biggest single cause of declining fish populations in 60,000 miles of polluted waterways. That’s 1,795 bodies of water, in thirty-nine states. And another 113,000 miles of waterways are seriously affected.

Future Grazing Land

In the Amazon, some 70% of forests have been cleared to create new pastures for grazing. And when trees are cut down, the CO2 they once absorbed is now released back into the atmosphere.

All of this livestock pollution takes a toll on the environment—and on people. A new study in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics found that the pollution from livestock facilities is associated with an increase in infant mortality.

Like your stats? Well, here are a few more…

Livestock pollution and public health

California officials identify agriculture, including cows, as the major source of nitrate pollution in more than 100,000 square miles of polluted groundwater.

In Oklahoma, nitrates from Seaboard Farms’ hog operations contaminated drinking water wells, prompting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to issue an emergency order in June 2001 requiring the company to provide safe drinking water to area residents.

In 1996 the Centers for Disease Control established a link between spontaneous abortions and high nitrate levels in Indiana drinking water wells located close to feedlots.

High levels of nitrates in drinking water also increase the risk of methemoglobinemia, or “blue-baby syndrome,” which can kill infants.

Not a creature from "Clash of the Titans" but a dangerous pathogen called Cryptosporidium

Animal waste contains disease-causing pathogens, such as Salmonella, E. coli, Cryptosporidium, and fecal coliform, which can be 10 to 100 times more concentrated than in human waste. More than 40 diseases can be transferred to humans through manure.

In May 2000, 1,300 cases of gastroenteritis were reported and six people died as the result of E. coli contaminating drinking water in Walkerton, Ontario. Health authorities determined that the most likely source was cattle manure runoff.

Manure from dairy cows is thought to have contributed to the disastrous Cryptosporidium contamination of Milwaukee’s drinking water in 1993, which killed more than 100 people, made 400,000 sick and resulted in $37 million in lost wages and productivity.

In this country, roughly 24 million pounds of antibiotics — about 70 percent of the nation’s antibiotics use in total — are added to animal feed every year to speed livestock growth. This widespread use of antibiotics on animals contributes to the rise of resistant bacteria, making it harder to treat human illnesses.

Large hog farms emit hydrogen sulfide, a gas that most often causes flu-like symptoms in humans, but at high concentrations can lead to brain damage. In 1998, the National Institute of Health reported that 19 people died as a result of hydrogen sulfide emissions from manure pits.

Livestock pollution and water pollution

Manure "lagoons" overflow in heavy rains

Huge open-air waste lagoons, often as big as several football fields, are prone to leaks and spills. In 1995 an eight-acre hog-waste lagoon in North Carolina burst, spilling 25 million gallons of manure into the New River. The spill killed about 10 million fish and closed 364,000 acres of coastal wetlands to shellfishing.

From 1995 to 1998, 1,000 spills or pollution incidents occurred at livestock feedlots in 10 states and 200 manure-related fish kills resulted in the death of 13 million fish.

When Hurricane Floyd hit North Carolina in 1999, at least five manure lagoons burst and approximately 47 lagoons were completely flooded.

Runoff of chicken and hog waste from factory farms in Maryland and North Carolina is believed to have contributed to outbreaks of Pfiesteria piscicida, killing millions of fish and causing skin irritation, short-term memory loss and other cognitive problems in local people.

Nutrients in animal waste cause algal blooms, which use up oxygen in the water, contributing to a “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico where there’s not enough oxygen to support aquatic life. The dead zone fluctuates in size each year, extending over 5,800 square miles during the summer of 2004 and stretching over 7,700 square miles during the summer of 1999.

Ammonia, a toxic form of nitrogen released in gas form during waste disposal, can be carried more than 300 miles through the air before being dumped back onto the ground or into the water, where it causes algae blooms and fish kills.