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Why the Green Movement Is Not Seeing Red Over Meat

by Guest bloggers, February 18, 2009 at 1:37pm

Guest blogger Bernard Brown from the PB&J Campaign sheds some light on the green movement's overall caution in addressing the meat-centric diet.

Last July Al Gore finally admitted that it would be a good idea for us to eat less meat – good for our health and good for the planet¹. It’s important to mention that the world’s most prominent environmentalist did not volunteer this idea, he had to answer a direct question about it at a conference.

For a while I’ve been wondering about why Al and much of the rest of our environmental movement haven’t talked about this before (the Center for a New American Dream is unusual in speaking up about it for several years now). The livestock industry is second only to power generation in its contribution to global warming, and causes plenty of other local and regional environmental pollution and resource problems.

I broke down the per meal numbers and found that if you eat one plant-based lunch (like a PB&J, falafel, black bean soup, etc.), you’re saving about 2.5 lb of CO2-equivalent emissions. You also save about 133 gallons of water and 24 square feet of land compared to the average American lunch – more of a difference if you’re comparing that to red meat like a hamburger.

These differences come directly from the animals themselves – grazing land, water they drink, those infamous cow farts and pollution from manure – but just as importantly because animals are inefficient at turning feed crops into food for us. We waste a lot of grain and soy (and the land, water, fuel burned, fertilizer, etc. that go into producing those feed crops) that we could be eating ourselves, or at least we could use the agricultural inputs to grow food that would more than replace the calories, protein, and other nutrients from the animal products.

So our animal product consumption looks a lot like our other types of unsustainable consumption, for example of fossil fuels or of paper. We can make somewhat of a difference by eating locally produced food from animals raised outside the factory farm system, but the impact of food miles is dwarfed by emissions produced in raising livestock², and keep in mind that habitat destruction, for example cutting down forests for grazing land, is a huge contributor to climate change. We can certainly choose better sources of our meat, milk and eggs, but ultimately we need to cut back.

Nonetheless Al Gore’s We campaign seems to ignore the topic completely. Other environmental groups are similarly silent or talk about it very quietly (shhh!), like they don’t want anyone to notice. For example take the recommendations buried in the Sierra Club’s Sustainable Consumption Campaign³ , which takes a lot of clicking to find on www.sierraclub.org.

By contrast environmental websites are full of recommendations to policy makers and consumers to reform other consumption problems. Take gasoline ⁴ ⁵ for example. It’s no secret that we should buy fuel-efficient cars or take public transportation. No self-respecting environmentalist would be caught dead in a Hummer.

Animal product consumption levels in the United States are similarly unsustainable, and the problem demands the same kind of policy advocacy and consumer education as our unsustainable transportation and energy industries. So what’s so hard about telling people to change what they eat?

I have some ideas – all pure speculation, but here goes: Meat is macho, for one, and our environmental leaders might be afraid to oppose it and promote hippie food like beans and tofu. What makes the job even harder is that our way of eating is backed by some incredibly potent symbols of agrarian America. In truth these are huge, heavily-subsidized industries, as corporate and industrial as Big Oil and deserving the same scrutiny, but no effete environmentalist wants to challenge the rugged cowboy.

Also important is that animal rights groups dominate the issue. They’ve successfully framed the discourse in black and white terms: Someone is either a meat eater or veg. They’ve long cited the very real problems of excessive water and land use as reasons to stop eating animal products; more recently they’ve been quite savvy in seizing on global warming as another reason to “go veg.” Unfortunately, their rhetorical success has made it work harder for the rest of us. The environmentalist who opposes our high levels of animal product consumption risks association with PETA.

We saw a little of this dynamic at play when Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Al Gore’s co-Nobel Prize winner as the head of the UN’s IPCC, recommended that we all eat less meat. Coverage generally noted that Dr. Pachauri is a vegetarian⁶, as if to suspect an ulterior motive; one can’t apparently trust a vegetarian to give you advice on eating sustainably, even if he is one of the world’s leading experts on global warming.

Luckily, food writers like the overtly omnivorous Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman are providing an alternative. Bittman, a thorough gourmand who is not shy about sharing meat and fish recipes, has written a series of articles and now a book criticizing our animal-product-focused food system⁷ and arguing with both passion and a sense of humor for a moderate, environmentally-friendly diet, putting “meat in its place.”⁸

Some people might suspect us of trying to take away their meat and turn them into “godless sissy liberals,” to use Bittman’s words⁹, but I think this kind of consistently frank and practical approach can establish the way we eat meat, milk, and eggs on the same level of discussion as the ways we consume gasoline and coal. We can tell people to eat a PB&J instead of a hamburger just like we decide to take the bus to work to save gasoline or turn off the lights when we leave a room to save electricity.

Contrary to the apparent belief of our environmental leaders, it is possible to advocate for a reduction of animal product consumption and production, and it is possible to do it in pragmatic, positive language. The problems are huge and compelling (if global warming isn’t bad enough, deforestation in the Amazon should make the case), and the course of action is ultimately inexpensive and simple.

Of course to make a difference we have to put in some concerted effort and attention, moving the issue to the front page of the website, talking publicly about hamburgers like we talk about SUVs. The problems we face are too big, too scary, and too immediate to be sissies about it.

About the PB&J Campaign

The PB&J Campaign is an effort of private citizens working to combat environmental destruction by reducing the amount of animal products people eat.. The PB&J Campaign approaches positive change one meal at a time by illuminating the differences one single dining decision can make.