Give up meat and save the environment

Letter published in Redditch Standard 29-9-06

REDDITCH Vegetarians and Vegans’ call to other residents to eschew meat for a day (and preferably longer) is an act of concern for those yet unborn.
Whilst most people have at least heard of global warming and may understand that it is a serious threat to the very survival of the human race, few are aware of the indelible connection between livestock farming and environmental destruction.
This is due in no small part to the kind of relentless and self-serving distortion and suppression of information by vested interests, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, which might well only have been equalled by a Soviet satellite state during the Cold War era.
Livestock farming is, for example, hugely wasteful of water, an increasingly scarce resource.
According to a study conducted by the University of California, it takes 5,214 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef, as opposed to 25 gallons to produce the same quantity of wheat.
Further, the excrement produced by farm animals, which now outnumber the present human population of the planet by 3 to 1, is a major contaminant of our water supplies.
In addition, the beef industry in particular has been a primary cause of deforestation.
Woods and forests are vitally important to ecological equilibrium because they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and transform it into oxygen, moderate the climate, prevent floods and soil erosion, and recycle and purify water.
They are also the habitat of millions of plants and animals.
The tropical rain forests, for example, contain 80 per cent of the world’s species of land vegetation and accounts for one fifth of its oxygen supply.
Half of all species on earth reside in them. Yet this rich and fecund resource continues to be destroyed at an alarming rate, largely to raise cattle whose flesh will be transformed into hamburgers, whilst their hooves trample the once fertile topsoil into dust.
We are thus quite literally devouring our children’s future.
Deforestation and water shortages, with their far-reaching consequences, are only two examples of how the demand for cheap meat by the Western world is contributing to the destruction and violation of the earth, our fundament.
The freak weather conditions we have observed over the last decade are both a symptom of the destabilisation of our eco-systems and a foretaste of things to come, if we do not address this vitally important issue.
Anyone in Redditch who wishes to leave the planet as they found it can do so most effectively by reducing their dependency on meat and other animal products.
Redditch Vegetarians and Vegans and The Vegan Society, soon to relocate to Birmingham’s jewellery quarter, both have website addresses and will be more than happy to advise on how to adopt a plant-based diet, the basis of which is whole grains, pulses, nuts, fruit and vegetables.
The humble soya bean could save the world as well as feed all its inhabitants, if only we would use the resources we have carefully and with regard to those who come after us, who will reap what we have sown.
If on the other hand we continue to eat dangerously high up the food chain, the Second Coming could well be sooner than any of us ever imagined.

Paula Howard