>I have always wondered about the ecological
>implications of vegetarianism. Could, for
>example, the planet sustain 6 billion (or more)
>ethical vegetarians? Certainly calls for an
>investigation. Here's one such attempt:
>
>American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 59,
>1110S-1116S, Copyright © 1994 by The American
>Society for Clinical Nutrition, Inc
>
>
>REVIEW ARTICLES
>
>Ecology and vegetarian considerations: does
>environmental responsibility demand the
>elimination of livestock?
>
>JD Gussow
>Program in Nutrition, Teachers College, Columbia
>University, New York, NY 10027.
After reviewing at some length the cruelty and environmental destruction involved in factory farming, the author concludes:
>In light of all this, it is tempting to suggest
>that our species may not be suited to its
>dominant role on earth. Nevertheless, we are
>stuck with ourselves as living animal creatures
>on a planet that is dependent on both animals
>and plants to maintain its biological balance.
>Pastoralists and others in poor countries
>dependent on grazing animals must be helped to
>redevelop sustainable practices. Intensive,
>wasteful, and increasingly cruel animal
>factories must be eliminated. Attention must
>also be paid to the larger issue of who is
>controlling both these factories and much of
>what is happening to food resources around the
>globe. In the 10th anniversary edition of Diet
>for a Small Planet (6), Lappe acknowledged that
>she was not a vegetarian and that her original
>understanding of what was wrong with the
>American diet was oversimplified in light of
>what she had learned since. She states that "The
>more I learned, the more I realized that a
>grain-fed-meat diet is not the cause of this
>resource waste, destruction and dependency. The
>'Great American Steak Religion' is both a symbol
>and a symptom of the underlying logic of our
>production system--a logic that makes it
>self-destructive." The issue then is not beef or
>the consumption of animals per se but the ways
>in which the human species misuses nature for
>profit in the name of producing food. Simply
>focusing on whether or not we or others eat
>animals may distract those with the conscience
>and the will to act from the larger issue of
>saving the planet. What drives the food system
>is not human appetite but profit. If meat
>consumption drops in rich countries, corporate
>interests will hunt for markets in poor
>countries, just as they have for cigarettes and
>weapons. The real problem we face is a problem
>of scale and control. Giant corporations that
>are rapidly gaining control over the world's
>food from seed to table are working to create a
>system from which nature is largely excluded
>(36). To gain support for their movement, those
>concerned about animal mistreatment need to ally
>themselves with the sustainable agriculture
>movement, which aims to produce vegetable and
>animal foods with thought for the long-term
>fertility and productiveness of the planet we
>all occupy.
>
>Any individual is entitled to believe and act on
>the belief that humans should not participate in
>a cycle of consumption that involves animals.
>However, this idea of morality is culturally
>specific. It would be difficult to argue that
>tribal communities who for millennia admired and
>emulated the qualities of the animals they
>reverently killed for meat were immoral. For
>example, can we really claim that the Inuit,
>whose livelihood has depended on the sea animals
>they hunted, respect animals less then we do?
>
>How we think about this issue of consumption
>matters. We are the dominant species; therefore,
>we have no choice but to participate in
>decisions about how the resources of this planet
>are used. Vegetarianism may well be a superior
>moral position, but, if everyone adopted it, the
>world would not revert to peacefulness as some
>writers would have us believe. The world is far
>too crowded for universal hunting and gathering;
>humans would need to grow crops and would be
>obliged to slaughter, even if they did not eat,
>the resurgent wild animals that would compete
>for their harvests.
>
>Moreover, on a global scale, vegetarianism for
>all is unecological. There are many sustainable
>integrated systems around the world that produce
>animals and plants for human consumption in
>which eliminating animals would decrease both
>sustainability and food output. However, these
>systems are threatened by "modern" agriculture;
>they need protection, encouragement, and more
>research so that they can be adapted to modern
>conditions (37, 38). Indeed, Coppinger et al
>(31) argue that the wildlife on the planet that
>is excluded from our "domestic alliance" with
>animals may well become extinct. Commenting on
>the near completion of the transition from
>hunting and gathering to agriculture, these
>authors urge that we need to "preserve and
>enlarge the diversity within the domestic
>alliance," if we are to preserve the balance of
>nature. In promoting vegetarianism, they point
>out, we often forget to notice that we are
>valuing our own health more than the health of a
>"diversified ecosystem." It is a diversified
>ecosystem that will be required for long-term
>sustainability.
>
>In a recently adopted statement on the role of
>animals in agriculture, Minnesota's Land
>Stewardship Project (LSP) (39) urged that
>agriculture "should use natural ecosystems as
>the model for environmental health and
>permanence" and "that animals-domesticated and
>wild-have a vital role in sustainable
>agriculture...LSP further acknowledges that
>stewardship, that is, humankind's responsibility
>for the care of creation, includes the humane
>treatment of livestock as well as the
>maintenance and enhancement of habitat for
>wildlife."
>
>It is unnecessary to promote meat consumption as
>an ecologically moral behavior, but it would
>probably be beneficial if everyone were to
>acknowledge the ecological appropriateness of
>omnivorousness. Those who are vegetarians may
>thus need to learn to live with yet another
>layer of moral ambiguity; it is quite improbable
>that humans will ever create on any significant
>scale sustainable food systems that do not use
>animals and their products for either wool,
>fertilizer, draft power and transportation,
>biogas, or milk and eggs, or even for meat.
>
>I