The Vegetarian High Horse

I absolutely love a good steak now and then. Now, it’s become a social responsibility issue, though, this eating of the steak. Here are some facts about how crappy the Livestock Industry is for the environment (with the US being the biggest meat-eating country on the planet, no less): Livestock now use 30 percent of the earth’s entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 percent of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock. The livestock sector accounts for 9 percent of CO2 deriving from human-related activities, but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse gases. It generates 65 percent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure. And it accounts for respectively 37 percent of all human-induced methane (23 times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 percent of ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain. Livestock are estimated to be the main inland source of phosphorous and nitrogen contamination of the South China Sea, contributing to biodiversity loss in marine ecosystems. For more depressing information on the topic, see the full report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Now how’s a social responsibility, countercultural kind of girl supposed to enjoy her filet mignon with all that nonsense bouncing around in her calcium-fortified skull, hmmmm? Let me know what you think about the social issue right here in this little Residential liberal community.