and 70 percent of the grain produced in many of us don’t want to face,” remarks view, what’s really needed is for people
industrial nations. Joseph Connelly, publisher of VegNews to understand the connections between
More, livestock are forcing other magazine. He chides Al Gore for not factory farming, meat eating and envi-
animals out. With species loss acceler- mentioning meat-based diets in his film ronmental impacts,” he advises. “That’s
ating in a virtual “sixth extinction,” live- and giving them only glancing coverage the first step.”
stock currently account for 20 percent in his book, An Inconvenient Truth.
of the animal biomass on the planet. A 2003 Harris Poll found that Jim motavalli is a freelance envi-
Despite all this, in 2003, the aver- between four and ten percent of the ronmental writer based in Fairfield, CT.
age human ate more than 90 pounds of American people identify themselves as Reach him at JimMotavalli.com.
meat, double the amount 50 years ago. vegetarians. Five years later, Connelly
Cultural signals at school, work and says that number seems to be holding Source: Adapted from E/The
church, as well as advertising, continue steady. Environmental Magazine, at
to reinforce the message that meat is “From a sustainability point of Emagazine.com.
good and necessary for health. Vegetari-
anism is still depicted as a fringe choice
for health faddists.
Sadly, environmental organizations
today rarely propose vegetarian diets.
Even such an enlightened source as
the 2005 Worldwatch report, Happier
Meals: Rethinking the Global Meat
Industry, is careful not to advocate a
vegetarian diet, instead listing it among
options that include eating less meat,
switching to pasture-raised, “humane”
meat, and opting for a few non-meat
entrées per week. Vegetarianism has be-
come “the elephant in the living room,”
but even in this food-conscious age, it
is not easily made the centerpiece of an
activist agenda.
Michael Jacobson at the Center for
Science in the Public Interest argues
that cutting down meat consumption
should be a top public health priority.
“From an environmental point of view,
the less beef people eat the better,” he
says, citing the release of methane from
livestock and noting the increased risk
of colon cancer and heart disease.
When supplied such facts, many
meat eaters ask, “Where would I get my
protein?” According to the latest medi-
cal research, a balanced vegetarian
diet provides all the protein needed for
glowing health—and avoids meat’s high
cholesterol and saturated fat.
Were humans meant to eat meat,
just because our ancestors did? “Non-
sense,” says Dr. Milton Mills, a physi-
cian with Fairfax Hospital in Virginia
and a free clinic activist. “The human
gastrointestinal tract features the ana-
tomical modifications consistent with
an herbivorous diet.”
“The fact that this cornerstone of
the American diet aids and abets cli-
mate change is an ‘inconvenient truth’
November 2008 47
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