Livestock farming produces more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transport combined ' according to a recent UN report. The report describes animal farming as 'One of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems.' Meat-eating has been described as another inconvenient truth, one we'd prefer not to know about, and one not fore-fronted in the global warming discussion. It's responsible for an astounding amount of air, land and water pollution. Some of the facts, figures and ideals are summarised here. But for me there is a missing piece to the story...

It's costing the earth

• Global livestock production currently accounts for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions compared with 14% for the global transport industry ' all planes, trucks, cars, SUVs and ships combined.
• Meat-based diets require 10-20 times as much land as plant-based diets. Nearly half the world`s grain and soya is fed to animals ' only a fraction of which ends up as meat on the table. More people could be fed at a fraction of the cost on these crops.
• Raising livestock (and growing soya feed) is the number one contributor to rainforest destruction, especially in Latin America where 70% of Amazon forests have been turned over to grazing. More than two acres of rainforest are cleared per second to graze or feed farm animals. These rainforests were the green lungs of the planet in the past.
• In the USA, more than one-third of all fossil fuel and raw material consumption is used to raise livestock ' fertilisers, pesticides, transportation, refrigeration, food processing, packaging, etc.
• It takes 15 times as much water to produce animal protein as it does to produce plant protein. The livestock industry is also among the world's worst water polluters ' including animal waste; antibiotics and hormones; chemicals from tanneries; and fertilisers and pesticides used on feed crops.
•     According to the Worldwatch Institute, the meat industry is directly responsible for 85% of all soil erosion in the USA. Pastureland is degraded through overgrazing, compaction and erosion. Tens of billions of tons of topsoil are lost each year to cultivation of feed crops.
•     Globally, people are consuming more meat and dairy every year (projected to double by 2050). Reducing/eliminating meat and animal products from our diet will have more impact in reducing global warming than changing to energy-saving light bulbs or to more fuel-efficient cars (although these are needed too).
• Eating fish is as big a contributor to global warming as beef. Most seafood undergoes energy-intensive long-distance travel from ocean to market. Even farmed fish require this sort of input, e.g. it takes 3 pounds of ocean-caught fish to raise 1 pound of farmed salmon.
• Due to the loss of wilderness to agricultural land, animal farming is the number one cause of species extinction.
• Studies on world food security estimate that an affluent diet containing meat requires up to 3 times as many resources as a vegetarian diet. Switching to vegetarianism can reduce your carbon footprint by up to 1.5 tons of CO2 a year, according to research by the University of Chicago.

Cruel animal practices

The effects of factory farming on the environment are being acknowledged ' but there is still relative silence around the impact on animals. Sixty billion farm animals are slaughtered for the table each year. Most people have a fleeting notion of how these animals have lived: battery-farmed chickens are de-beaked and unable to move about, burned by the ammonia in their droppings and crippled by their own unnatural body mass (they are bred for bulk). Industrial beef and dairy farming is just as cruel, including use of growth hormones, permanent lactation, feeding animal derivatives, and overcrowding. Interestingly, scientists are implicating these conditions as the source of viruses such as the current swine flu pandemic.

Do we need more protein?

Many people believe that they need animal protein as it gives them stamina not achievable on a plant diet. However, throughout nature animals that eat a high-fibre plant diet have long alimentary canals, while carnivores have short guts to expel putrefying flesh quickly. The human gut is 40 feet from mouth to anus ' one of the longest digestive tracts relative to body weight in nature, suggesting it was designed for a plant-based diet. Vegetarian diets today are nutritionally inadequate because they centre on refined starch and dairy, a very poor combination, as opposed to unrefined plant foods. Cultures such as India and China flourished for centuries on plant foods that make up complete protein such as rice and dahl (split peas). Studies have also shown that a high-meat diet is associated with higher incidence of cancer, cholesterol and heart disease. I find it useful to consider diet in terms of acid and alkaline, as we are meant to have an alkaline pH. Meat and dairy leave the highest acid residue in the body of any food, predisposing to toxicity and disease.

Greening our diet

• Eat less/no meat, for the reasons discussed above.
• In terms of environmental impact, red meat is the worst flesh choice, with fish marginally better and chicken before that.
• Choose food that is organically grown ' it is the only method that deals with the problem from the soil up and that is sustainable.
• Eat food that is grown locally ' don't pay for trucks and fuel.
• Eat food in season ' it reduces cold storage and transport costs.
• Choose food with minimal packaging.
• Grow your own food where you can.
• Eat with gratitude, whether plant or animal.

Missing piece of the story

Recently I watched a whale breaching in the ocean up the west coast. It leaped in slow motion several times; then disappeared. My mind didn't get it, but my body did. It was an absolutely seamless part of life at play and in love with itself. It was the missing piece of the story.

Author : Julia Casciola