Veganism for the environment
Stephen Grant
Issue date: 12/1/09 Section: Opinion
With about 50 billion animals slaughtered annually to satiate human demand; meat production requires copious amounts of resources. The amount of water required to produce a pound of meat versus a pound of vegetables is enormously higher. Clean water being a scarcity for many, this is a huge waste of water.
Dealing with farm animal waste environmentally prudently is nearly impossible. Especially when you're injecting hormones and antibiotics into the animals, waste run-off and the use of manure leads to water contamination, outbreaks of bacterial infections and ecological dead-zones.
Hunting also creates environmental detriments. While natural predation contributes to evolutionary adaptation, human hunting diminishes wildlife populations (sometimes causing extinction). Fishing tends to target stronger animals, as they lunge at lures. This leaves fewer, less aggressive fish to mate - if they are able. This is paralleled in land-based hunting, where the strongest animals would be the ones to venture closest to humans. Trap-hunting and long lining for animals are also ecologically destructive by their haphazard approach; sometimes even killing endangered species. All of these have serious irreversible ecological consequences.
This isn't an extensive list of environmental devastations from animal usage, just the more consequential ones.
This ultimately begs the question, 'Can someone even be an animal-utilising environmentalist?'
Dealing with farm animal waste environmentally prudently is nearly impossible. Especially when you're injecting hormones and antibiotics into the animals, waste run-off and the use of manure leads to water contamination, outbreaks of bacterial infections and ecological dead-zones.
Hunting also creates environmental detriments. While natural predation contributes to evolutionary adaptation, human hunting diminishes wildlife populations (sometimes causing extinction). Fishing tends to target stronger animals, as they lunge at lures. This leaves fewer, less aggressive fish to mate - if they are able. This is paralleled in land-based hunting, where the strongest animals would be the ones to venture closest to humans. Trap-hunting and long lining for animals are also ecologically destructive by their haphazard approach; sometimes even killing endangered species. All of these have serious irreversible ecological consequences.
This isn't an extensive list of environmental devastations from animal usage, just the more consequential ones.
This ultimately begs the question, 'Can someone even be an animal-utilising environmentalist?'
Viewing Comments 1 - 10 of 11
Tayler
posted 12/01/09 @ 4:39 PM EST
Great article Chris!
Tayler
Tayler
posted 12/01/09 @ 4:46 PM EST
Great article Chris!
Patrick Lacroix
posted 12/01/09 @ 9:47 PM EST
The following are questions for Mr Stephen Grant, whose statements and logical inconsistencies warrant a strong rebuttal.
First, to your response to Ashley on the matter of dairy farming. (Continued…)
Bernard Brown
posted 12/02/09 @ 8:29 AM EST
To answer your question, 'Can someone even be an animal-utilising environmentalist?' the answer is yes.
The key is that we need to strongly reduce our production/consumption of animal products (and raise a lot less livestock, etc. (Continued…)
Denis
posted 12/02/09 @ 6:33 PM EST
Patrick,
As a vegan, I can tell you that most animal rights activists started out as human rights activists and then extended their activism to animals. (Continued…)
Denis
posted 12/02/09 @ 6:59 PM EST
In fact, Patrick, me and Stephen signed a petition for "men against violence towards women" today. We wore ribbons to raise awareness and tomorrow we are walking to raise awareness about violence against women. (Continued…)
Tayler
Tayler
posted 12/02/09 @ 10:12 PM EST
Patrick,
In response to the response of yours on Chris' article.
1. Everyone who is vegan saves over 100 animals per year. In our decisions to become vegan, we are choosing not to ignore the cruelty placed upon these animals and we all choose to become vegan for our own reasons or from our own experiences. (Continued…)
Stephen Grant
posted 12/02/09 @ 11:21 PM EST
Bernard, there's no better way to eliminate the taint of animal agriculture than boycotting it any way possible. Middle grounds tend to be somewhat arbitrary. (Continued…)
Oh, You Know Me
posted 12/03/09 @ 9:25 AM EST
I love it when the vegans start to get fired up! It's kind of like they all get together in a group and decide who is going to post what and when on these types of things. (Continued…)
Ashley
posted 12/20/09 @ 2:27 PM EST
I just stumbled upon this article while I was looking up things to do at Brock, being vegan myself and hopefully attending Brock, I figured I should ask the following questions:
1 Does Brock cater to vegan needs in the food area. (Continued…)
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