Tag: vegetarianism

It’s meat and drink

11th July 2009


Image source: sundancechannel.com

An article in the New York Times last week drew attention to two instances of local governments looking to reduce their ecological footprints in recent weeks. First of all, the Belgian city of Ghent has declared that Thursdays will be a “meatless day” on the grounds that eating vegetarian meals will improve health and reduce the impact of raising livestock on the environment. In Australia, meanwhile, the NSW town of Bundanoon voted to ban bottled water this week to reduce carbon dioxide emissions associated with bottling and transporting the water.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXceWLZq8OQ]

Where did swine flu come from?

6th July 2009


Image source: thinkingfinance.net

It occurred to me the other day that despite the huge publicity surrounding the H1N1 virus, there is very little discussion about the cause of the outbreak. One of the few thoughtful pieces I have come across is to be found at the ecomii website.

According to a recent post at the ecomii politics blog by Marie Oser, the blame lies with industrialised animal production. A research and advocacy group in Washington, DC, is cited, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), which maintains that the link to animal industries is undeniable. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that ‘one-third to one-half of pigs on modern farms have antibody evidence of the H1N1 virus. This is due to the fact that overcrowded pig farms create the perfect reservoir for this virus to replicate, creating new and more deadly strains. Once a pathogen emerges it is then spread by farm workers and the transport of livestock.’ In short, if there were no concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) pig farms, there would be no swine flu epidemic.

Time to throw a veggie pattie on the barbie

7th September 2008


Image source: plan59.com

The headline news in The Observer today is that we have to cut back on meat consumption if we want to get serious about addressing climate change. This ‘controversial’ statement (according to the article) made by the Chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, is old news and it is amazing it hasn’t been given the airplay it deserves. Meat production accounts for around 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions from the production of animal feeds, but also from the farts of livestock! A bigger worry is that meat consumption has quadrupled in the last 50 years and is on course to increase even more dramatically as China and India get richer and demand for higher protein diets increases (maybe less so in India given the religious factors governing vegetarianism). Although meat is rich in protein, other good sources are potatoes, whole wheat bread, rice, broccoli, spinach, almonds, peas, chickpeas, peanut butter, tofu (soybean curd), soymilk, lentils and kale. Far more protein per hectare can be produced this way than through raising livestock. Not only this, but far less water is required. According to John Robbins, it roughly takes 60, 108, 168, 229 pounds of water to produce a pound of potatoes, wheat, corn and rice respectively. He reports that a pound of beef however, requires 12,000 gallons of water.

World Water Week

15th August 2004

As I’m sure my friends and colleagues in Australia will appreciate more than most, the question of access to water is shaping up as the ‘big issue’ of the noughties. No longer considered a ‘free gift’ of nature, Australia has an increasingly sophisticated market for water (see ‘Water trading becomes a liquid market for economic dries’ in the Australian Financial Review, 29 July 2004). How alert the rest of us are to the profligate nature of our water consumption is a moot point. The Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), organiser of this week’s World Water Week conference presents a pretty gloomy picture. They make the link between water and food production and contend that the carnivorous amongst us are a big drain on water supplies because it takes so many more cubic metres of water to produce 1kg of meat compared to that required for 1kg of cereals. It should perhaps be of no surprise, therefore, that the US is top of the water consumption league table. What I found most interesting about the SIWI commentary, though, is the notion of water-poor Australia being an exporter of ‘virtual water’ on account of its meat exports.