Cowspiracy

We recently watched an absolutely vital film called "Cowspiracy: the Sustainability Secret" — about how most big "green" organizations won't touch the connections between animal agriculture and environmental destruction. It details the connections between beef and climate change, water, and deforestation, and also addresses fisheries and the destruction of ocean life... all done in a gonzo documentary style reminiscent of Michael Moore (although somehow I can't imagine Moore touching this issue either). There's a scene with the California Department of Water Resources in which the filmmaker asks why they don't put out the word about how much water is wasted to raise beef cattle... and they reply with something like "we're a government agency, we deal with water management, and what you're talking about is changing behavior" — as if pushing everyone to take shorter showers and turn off the water while brushing your teeth isn't about changing behavior! The website for the film also has a very helpful graphic with lots of statistics — here are a few tidbits:

Animal agriculture is responsible for 91% of Amazon destruction
110 animal and insect species are lost every day from rainforest destruction
Livestock cover 45% of earth's total land mass
The meat and dairy industry use 1/3 of the earth's fresh water
5% of US water use is domestic; 55% is animal agriculture
A plant-based diet cuts your carbon footprint by 50%

I would definitely class this as one of those movies everyone should see. As it happens, the filmmakers have a campaign for Earth Day this year: anyone can watch Cowspiracy online for just a dollar, starting on the real Earth Day (Wednesday, April 22nd, not whatever weekend day organizations tend to pick for events)... Highly recommended!

Chris Hedges on the case for going vegan

Chris Hedges has gone vegan as a response to climate change, saying that "becoming vegan is the most important and direct change we can immediately make to save the planet and its species." In his column explaining his decision (Saving the Planet, One Meal at a Time) he lays out a treasure trove of statistics. Here are just a few (I've left out the sources, but they are easily found in his footnotes):

• A person who is vegan will save 1,100 gallons of water, 20 pounds CO2 equivalent, 30 square feet of forested land, 45 pounds of grain and one sentient animal’s life every day.
• Crops grown for livestock feed consume 56 percent of the water used in the United States.
• In the United States 70 percent of the grain we grow goes to feed livestock raised for consumption.
• Land devoted exclusively to raising livestock now represents 45 percent of the earth’s land mass.

If you have yet to be convinced, please read the full article!

meat-eating and the drought

Yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle included a front-page, above-the-fold story titled "Farmers forced to change ways during drought." It profiled one Central Valley farmer who is going to abandon growing alfalfa, among other things, because of the loss of water deliveries from the Central Valley Project. The part that jumped out at me was far down in the article — it quotes "environmentalists" accusing farmers of exporting water in the form of crops such as alfalfa and almonds, and mentioned that alfalfa's water use far exceeds that of other crops in the state… Then in nearly the next paragraph, it cites the farmer saying that his alfalfa "isn't some thirsty boutique crop — it's vital to San Joaquin ranchers and dairies that put meat and milk in the refrigerators of millions of Californians" — so matter-of-factly, as if there isn't even the slightest question that meat and milk are absolutely necessary to have in our refrigerators!

So — yes, it is true that all that water going to all that alfalfa is used overwhelmingly to produce meat, milk, and cheese... and if lots more of us were vegetarians we probably would have plenty of water in California (even this year!). Of course, as a local columnist pointed out, any attempt by the government to promote vegetarianism would be met with fierce resistance (not that that is in any way possible, given that our current political system is completely beholden to corporate agriculture).

But official promotion is beside the point, all that is needed is to stop the subsidies and water deliveries — if all the corn, soy, and alfalfa farmers had to pay anything like the true cost of all that water, then meat would be so expensive as to become a rare luxury rather than the mainstay of the typical fast-food diet (much as, if carbon were priced at anything like its cost to the environment, flying would be a big deal again instead of a convenient commute option). If that were to happen, we would see a lot more vegetarians and near-vegetarians — with attendant improvements to general health and well-being, as well as the savings in water and carbon...

the carbon cost of eating meat

So, on to the next of those three precepts: vegetarianism, or the huge carbon cost of eating meat. From what I have seen, this is too often ignored in discussions about solutions to the global warming crisis, for whatever reasons — too personal, too threatening? Or, more cynically, because of the influence of Big Agriculture — or that there is little profit to be made from a wholesale transition to giving up meat (as opposed to, for instance, pushing "green" products like electric cars or solar panels).

When I first began looking up "personal carbon footprint" calculators a few years back, they almost completely ignored the issue of diet, focusing exclusively on how much you drive, what kind of energy you use in your home, how efficient your appliances are, etc. The Sierra Club (as recently as 2008), in its listing of things you can do to lessen your carbon footprint, included small actions such as hanging your clothes out to dry, but did not include eating less (or no) meat.  Until pretty recently, Al Gore had never so much as mentioned the environmental impact of meat (according to Ben Adler). I heard only last month that Gore has now adopted a vegan diet (about time, I'd say); and when I looked again at carbon calculators, I found some that were much improved, taking vegan diets and local food into account — but still diet is given very little attention considering the outsized impact it could have on the crisis.

Whatever the reason for neglect in most discourse, switching to a vegetarian/vegan diet is surely the single most effective thing any individual can do to lower demand for fossil fuels and decrease GHG emissions — and some experts believe that a massive reversion to vegetarianism, coupled with re-forestation of lands now devoted to livestock, is our only hope of being able to drastically reduce emissions as rapidly as necessary in our constantly-worsening emergency.

More on that later; first — meat is essentially grain, water, and land, greatly concentrated. Here are a few specifics:

1. Grain: I have often read arguments that it is cereal monocrops — with their profligate use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers — that are most intensively contributing to environmental degradation. Those who point this out often argue that people should stop eating bread and pasta, not meat. This completely ignores the huge proportions of cereal crops that are fed directly to livestock — according to the World Bank, 65% of world corn production is used for animal feed, with only 15% used for feeding humans. In the US the numbers are even more striking: about 80% of the corn crop goes to feed livestock, and 98% of soybean meal is destined to feed animals, not human tofu-eaters! Meat is essentially grain, greatly concentrated. Estimates vary, but even for chicken (the least carbon-intensive meat) it takes about 2 pounds of grain to produce one pound of live weight gain (which presumably includes the bones, beak, feathers, and all the other "waste" parts that get thrown out). Beef is much worse — I've seen estimates ranging from 3 - 16 pounds, but most sources put the ratio at 7 or 8 pounds of grain to produce one pound of live weight gain. Most certainly, we could get much more food much more efficiently from those vast amounts of corn and soybeans if we just fed them directly to humans!

2. Water: Water use may not have a direct effect on climate change — but it is certainly a consideration, given the increased potential for drought (as we Californians are realizing right now). It takes 29 gallons of water to produce a pound of tomatoes, 219 gallons to produce a pound of tofu, and 2,464 gallons to produce a pound of hamburger (Water Education Foundation). Enough said.

3. Land use: Of course, it takes lots of land to grow not only all those cereal crops, but also to graze vast herds of cattle. The total land area of the US is about 2.3 billion acres; the lower 48 states (excluding a lot of ice and tundra in Alaska) totals about 1.9 billion acres. Of that, the USDA lists 614 million acres of pasture and rangeland, or nearly one-third of the total. Even that is a low estimate, as it does not include so-called "cropland used for pasture" — other estimates have put the total as high as 788 million acres, or 41% of total land area in the lower 48! Add to that the 200-plus million acres used to plant feed corn, soy, and alfalfa hay used for feeding livestock, and we can see that approximately half of the total land area in the contiguous United States goes to growing and feeding animals destined to be eaten (dwarfing the 3% that is urban land). On a global scale, "livestock systems" are estimated to occupy 45% of all land on earth — a pretty astounding figure, I'd say.

The carbon cost of meat is truly enormous — even the UN FAO's extremely conservative estimate is that 18% of global GHG emissions can be traced to meat, more than the entire transportation sector; and WorldWatch's Goodland and Anhang, taking into account all of the factors the FAO missed, calculated that an astonishing 51% of worldwide emissions are attributable to meat production. But it is because of that land use that, according to Goodland, switching to vegetarian/vegan diets may be the only hope for pulling back from the brink of our climate catastrophe. James Hansen recently recommended immediate decreases in carbon consumption of 6% a year, coupled with massive reforestation, as the only way to stay below a 2°C rise in global temperatures (subsequent developments have shown that that challenging figure is not enough — we need to cut back something more like 10% per year, starting now — but the principle still stands). But where is it possible for that massive reforestation to happen? Some of us may fantasize about turning shopping malls, parking lots, and golf courses back into forested land — but even if that were possible, the acreage wouldn't be nearly sufficient (remember, we're talking about massive reforestation here). But remember that approximately half of the total land area in the contiguous US, and 45% in the world, is devoted to grazing and feeding livestock, and the solution becomes obvious. According to Goodland, only by taking meat out of our diets and taking these vast rangelands and feedlots out of production could we find enough land for the reforestation that might — just might — give us a chance of averting catastrophe.

I want to be really clear, here — I am not proposing vegetarianism as a solution by itself. There is only so much that reforestation can do, and it could only work if accompanied by those massive cuts to consumption (10% per year until we reach zero), which entail serious changes in the way we do everything we do (another subject for a long post yet to come…). But in terms of what an individual can do, going vegan is undoubtedly the single most effective way to decrease emissions… And aside from the numbers, there is the consideration that going vegetarian is one of the simplest ways to affect climate change as an individual — as Adler says, "consumers may not have a say in whether or not another coal power plant will be built, but they do have control over how much meat they personally eat." Or, in other words, it is probably a lot more feasible to give up eating meat than it is to stop driving to work or to completely turn off the heater in the winter (plus there is the added benefit of better health... not to mention the massive cruelty of factory farming — but that could be an entire subject in itself...).

my opening missive

Last week I sent a very long email to a few dozen of my friends, hoping to start some conversations and perhaps somehow make a difference. This is what I wrote:

Dear friends,

I would like to beg your indulgence as I begin the year with a long missive on a subject which has troubled my mind and occupied my thoughts for some time now. I have debated with myself over how to word this, and then whether to even send it out — knowing that this will pretty much brand me as a crazy obsessed environmentalist — but I so felt the need to do something that I have finally decided to send a cry from the heart and see what comes. I apologize for the length — it proved difficult to say what I feel without including the background information — my intention is not to pretend to know everything (I certainly don't), but to share some of what I've read about and perhaps to give some food for contemplation and start some conversations. So I would greatly appreciate your reading this, if you might have the time, and letting me know what you think about it...

I have read enough about global warming to understand the desperate situation we are in — the human-created calamity already set in motion, and the near-impossible measures needed, almost immediately, to avert an even worse crisis and somehow preserve a habitable planet. "Business as usual" puts the world on course for a rise of 6°C (11°F) this century. Researchers and activists have used 2°C (3.6°F) as the upper limit of minimal "safety" before positive feedbacks send warming spiraling completely out of control. Yet even now, at 0.8°C of warming, the Arctic sea ice is melting away alarmingly faster than anyone ever predicted; and the greenhouse gasses we have already emitted are enough to bring us to nearly 2°C of warming, even if we stopped using fossil fuels, cold turkey, tomorrow. We are well on the way toward a climate that is simply incompatible with life as we know it. Meanwhile, right now, the oceans are dying before our eyes (with dead zones expanding and 90% of large fish already gone), trees are dying across the planet, and species are being driven to extinction at the rate of one every seven minutes.

I also understand the extreme improbability of anything meaningful being done. Most solutions put forth in general discourse are on a scale so insignificant as to make almost no difference at all. There are solutions that could make a difference — emissions reductions of 10% a year, coupled with massive reforestation, would be a step; and a large carbon fee (with the dividends returned to the people, per capita) is one proposal for a way to get there. The problem is that we live on a finite planet, and reducing emissions enough to avert climate catastrophe is simply not compatible with endless growth — but endless growth is what all our economic and political systems depend on. So we talk about "sustainable growth" (an oxymoron if I ever heard one) and keep chasing the chimera of a technological fix that could allow us to grow indefinitely — a fix which is as mythical as a perpetual motion machine. Because of the rebound effect, producing more energy (of whatever kind, including "renewables") simply lowers cost and leads to more consumption — much in the same way that widening freeways simply encourages more driving and never actually solves the traffic problem. "Clean energy" really only helps keep us on the path of thinking we can keep using all the energy we need to fuel our unsustainable "lifestyles"… and allow us to put off facing the fact that what is needed is to simply STOP what we are doing, change the way we are living -- and radically, and now. In this situation, there truly is no free lunch.

The crisis we face goes so far beyond fluorescent lightbulbs, hybrid cars, and "green consumerism" (another oxymoron). Research has determined that we cannot pour more than about 500 gigatons more carbon into the atmosphere and still have any hope of averting total disaster —and that 500 gigatons is about one-fifth of the carbon in proven fossil fuel reserves (forget about "peak oil" — our problem is that we still have way too much of the stuff). Only governments, working together, could possibly be powerful enough to keep all that carbon in the ground and rein in the fossil fuel companies that profit by using our atmosphere as a waste dump; only true systemic change will get us where we need to go — and systemic change, as Derrick Jensen warns, will not be brought about by personal choices. And I do know that my own attempts to live within a carbon budget, such as they are, really make no discernible difference (especially given that rebound effect, by which my conservation just makes consumption cheaper and easier for others…)

And yet, and yet... While it is absolutely true that global warming cannot be fought through consumer choices alone — we must battle the powerful economic interests who profit from our emissions and the government entities who serve them — it is equally true that we cannot hope to battle those interests while continuing to buy whatever they are selling. I do feel the need to make the best choices I can, to "walk my talk"… And, despairing of any hope for systems to change or for the powerful to do the right thing, I am beginning to agree with the sentiment expressed by a commenter on a UK Guardian thread, who said that "it is much harder to change the political system than to change your own behavior and the behavior of people you know," that the only way to make headway is to live as low-carbon as possible, and persuade others to do the same, one by one if need be. If enough of us do that, recursively multiplying our numbers, eventually the systems that support our unsustainable consumption may begin to crumble… (it's not much hope, but it's all I've got).

And here's the problem — I know very well that telling anyone that "this is what you should and shouldn't be doing" is a really quick and easy way to lose friends… So let me say right off that I certainly don't consider myself any kind of exemplar —I still drive a car to work every day (sigh… to two different schools, on opposite ends of town), I generally use far too much carbon just living in our rich industrialized culture (the best estimates of allowable limits for the kind of reductions we need are anywhere from ½ ton to 2 tons of carbon per person, per year — the average American uses twenty). But there are a few things I've looked into and found out a little about — so if you'll indulge me (if you're still reading, this far), I'll share a little, and you can take it as you may — and if enough folks start the conversation, maybe our governments might get around to doing what's necessary to allow us to live sustainably… My big three precepts for myself, as the three biggest things an individual can do, are: 1. Don't eat meat; 2. Don't fly on airplanes; and 3. Don't buy any new stuff you don't absolutely need.

Eating meat — When I stopped eating meat long ago it was for completely different reasons; but as it happens, meat production is incredibly carbon-intensive. The way it is produced these days, meat is simply grain, concentrated: each pound of meat contains many times that amount of grain (the vast majority of grain we grow goes to feed livestock) — along with all of the petroleum fertilizers, the rainforests cut down to run cattle, etc. etc… The UN FAO estimated that meat is responsible for 17% of all carbon emissions worldwide; Worldwatch added up the things the FAO left out and came up with the incredible figure of 51%. Either way, it's huge.

Flying — Air travel is also incredibly, if not unconscionably, carbon-intensive. One roundtrip LA-to-NY flight uses the equivalent of about 2 tons of CO2 emissions per (economy class) passenger — about the same amount the average resident of Brazil uses in a year, and either equivalent to or many times more than the per-person allowable annual limit for the necessary reductions… When my parents were young, flying was a huge big deal, but now it has become so commonplace that we think nothing of jetting across the country or the world for work or vacation. If carbon were priced at anything like a rate commensurate with its damage, none of us (at least in my circles) could afford to fly — it would again be a rare luxury rather than something we regularly use for transportation.

Buying stuff — This is sort of a no-brainer. A huge part of our emissions comes from manufacturing, buying, using, and then throwing away our stuff — It is a measure of the sickness of our society that we are defined as consumers instead of as citizens. China recently (and famously) passed up the US in total GHG emissions — but what's not usually mentioned is the reason for that is all of the stuff we buy from them! A Chronicle story before the holidays said that 75% of all new toys in the US are manufactured offshore (and the majority of those in China). So if you hear that US emissions have dropped slightly, that is why — we are simply offshoring our carbon emissions along with our jobs.

Of course, I know that common wisdom will say that if we all did this, our economy would take the proverbial nosedive. There's the rub: our economy, dependent on endless growth, just cannot be sustained over the long run — and the long run is getting very short these days. I know there are models of steady-state economies out there, which I have yet to investigate fully… but the important thing is that the collapse of a habitable planet, and the chaos that goes with it, will be orders of magnitude worse than the collapse of an economy. David Roberts, in "The Brutal Logic of Climate Change," talks about planned austerity, shared sacrifice… an "all-hands-on-deck mobilization" that is the moral equivalent of war. Life as we know it will have to change, for life as we know it not to be lost entirely.

It is already too late to avert disastrous effects — right now the Arctic icecap is melting away, with all of the feedbacks that entails — and it is easy to lose hope completely, to say there's no use trying, we can't prevent catastrophe whatever we do… But what we can do is to prevent catastrophe from being even worse, and in so doing we can make a difference.

The story I keep telling myself is the one about a father and child walking on a beach covered as far as the eye can see with starfish washed ashore, dead and dying. When the child picks up a starfish to toss it back in the ocean, the father asks "Why? What difference can you possibly make, just you, with all these thousands and thousands of starfish dying?" And the child picks up another one, tosses it in the ocean, and says "It makes a difference to that one."

Dear friends, if you are still reading, I truly appreciate the time you have taken with this… I have been sick at heart, knowing what we are doing to the world and the innocent life around us, watching as we hurtle toward a mass extinction, not knowing what to do that might be of any use. David Roberts said that "building a core cadre of intense, motivated citizens who feel the climate threat in their bones is an indispensable part of the puzzle" — maybe that's part of the reason I wrote this. Getting the conversation going is perhaps a start, and I would love to hear your thoughts… Thank you for listening.

peace and good wishes,
Avilee


(and just a few of my favorite, pertinent, quotes)…

"Do we want a living real world, or do we want a social structure that is killing the real world? Do we want a living real world, or do we want a dead real world, with a former social structure forgotten by everyone because there is no one left alive to remember? You choose." - Derrick Jensen

"I believe we are musicians in a human orchestra. It is time now to play the Save the World Symphony. It is a vast orchestral piece, and you are but one musician. You are not required to play a solo. But you are required to figure out what instrument you hold and play it as well as you can."   - Sandra Steingraber

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time… Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late."
    - Martin Luther King Jr. — "Beyond Vietnam" speech, April 4, 1967

"If we appear to seek the unattainable, it has been said, then let it be known that we do so to avoid the unimaginable."
    - Port Huron Statement of the SDS

 “It makes a crucial difference whether humankind thinks of the natural world as consisting of resources or relatives.” - Oren Lyons, quoted by Daniel Wildcat in Red Alert