Guilty conscience, Mr. Roth?

Alex Roth, a guest writer for Grist, slams PETA spokesman Matt Prescott for saying, "You just cannot be a meat-eating environmentalist," and ends up getting slammed by the Grist community instead.

Now, I'm definitely not a huge fan of Prescott's statement that omnivores can't be environmentalists. Though I think it would take a whole lot of effort to rationalize the cognitive dissonance of being a meat-eating environmentalist away, I also think it's counterproductive to promote exclusionist environmentalism. But that's PETA's modus operandi. They say or do something shocking in order to get an idea across. We react strongly. They do it again. After awhile, the idea becomes mainstream (see also: PETA's campaign against fur). And, as Holly notes on the comments section of the Grist site, "PETA is not an environmental group. It is an animal-rights group."

That said, Roth's arguments are ridiculous and then some. He writes, "Of course, most of us carnivorous environmentalists do sometimes eat factory-farmed meat, just as vegans sometimes eat products made from industrial soybeans." Uh, Mr. Roth? It takes a much smaller toll on the environment to grow a pound of industrial soybeans than it does to raise a pound of meat.

According to "Choosing Nature, Three Times a Day: The True Cost of Food" on the Sierra Club website (emphasis mine):
WILD PLACES LOST: Fifty per cent of the Earth is devoted to cattle production. (In
the U.S., 45% of land is devoted to cattle.
WILD PLACES LOST: 70% of the land in the Western U.S. is devoted to cattle.
WILD PLACES LOST: 95% of the oats, 80% of the wheat and
80% of the corn in the U.S. is fed to cows.
WILD PLACES LOST: About 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to
create cropland to produce our meat-centered diet.
GRAIN: It takes 10 to 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of cow flesh.
WILD PLACES LOST: It takes 10 to 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef.
DESERTIFICATION: The major cause is cattle grazing.
WATER: It takes up to about (some estimates are higher) 2,500 gallons of water to
produce one pound of grain fed beef. With the same water, farmers could produce 16
pounds of broccoli, 25 pounds of potatoes, enough soybeans for three pounds of tofu or
enough wheat for nearly five pounds of whole wheat bread.
TOPSOIL LOST: One pound of grain fed beef causes the loss of 35 pounds of topsoil.
ENERGY: It takes one gallon of gasoline to produce one pound of beef.
POLLUTION: In the United States, two billion tons of untreated sewage is discharged into the environment from cows.

Roth also writes, "PETA also shoves aside the report's conclusion that many of the environmental harms caused by livestock production can be mitigated through better agricultural practices". Yeah, but as anyone who's taken Biology 101 knows, even with better ag practices, raising livestock still takes way more energy than growing plants. From the College of Agriculture Sciences at Penn State, "In a food chain, an animal passes on only about 10 percent of the energy it receives." That's why, as noted above, it takes about 10 pounds of grain to get one pound of beef.

Then he states, "To me, being an environmentalist simply means supporting policies and practices that promote a healthy environment". Everyone from the UN to the University of Chicago is publishing evidence that switching to a plant-based diet can lessen one's impact on the environment by as much or more than switching to a hybrid vehicle. So, by his own definition of what it means to be an environmentalist, Roth should, if not adopt a plant-based diet, at least support those who do, and at the very least, keep his yap shut when others promote veggie diets for environmental reasons.

He continues, "These days, climate change is known to be exacerbated by most human activities, from stir-frying tofu to watching videos of endangered baby harp seals." True enough. But some activities exacerbate climate change more than others. From the UN report:

The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. . . The livestock sector is a major player [in climate change], responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2 equivalent. This is a higher share than transport.

Some behaviors are also easier to change than others. Reducing my carbon footprint by driving less and biking more has proved more challenging than adopting a plant-based diet, by at least a degree of magnitude. So, if eating meat creates a huge amount of greenhouse gases and it's fairly easy to avoid eating meat, why eat meat?

(On an unrelated note: I suspect Roth would be against clubbing a baby harp seal, but he doesn't seem to have a problem with shooting a bolt through a cow's head, as is standard practice in the beef industry.)

Roth continues, "No, what is most astonishing about a person like Prescott is that someone evidently so well-intentioned can simultaneously be so counterproductive and so irritating". Funny, I was just thinking same thing about you, Mr. Roth.

Fear and loathing in Lake Davis

On Monday the state of California started dumping $16 million and 17,000 gallons of poison into Lake Davis, all in the name of environmentalism. According to a New York Times article, 500 state fish and game personnel will be pouring CFT Legumine, which contains the poison rotenone, into Lake Davis in an effort to eradicate northern pike, an exotic invasive fish.

The northern pike is certainly an easy animal to fear. The aggressive invader with the folk name "water wolf" can grow more than three feet long and eats whatever it can get its razor sharp teeth around, like frogs, bugs, other fish, and even the occasional duckling. According to the NYT article, "State officials are particularly concerned that the pike might escape to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where it could feast on other fish, including valuable salmon and threatened species like the delta smelt. Signs on the lake recommend cutting the head off any pike caught and tossing the fish back in the water."

The pike first appeared in Lake Davis in the mid-1990s and were very likely introduced by people. In 1997 officials poisoned the lake with rotenone to the point that the state approved a $9.2 million settlement with local residents for damages. But the pike reappeared in 1999. Nobody's sure how many pike currently live in Lake Davis, but the California State Department of Game and Fish estimates the population could number in the tens or hundreds of thousands.

Ok, so the pike breeds and hunts aggressively and isn't the cutest fish in the lake. But, is it worth pouring into Lake Davis a pesticide the World Health Organization classifies as "highly toxic for aquatic life" and, in its pure form, as "moderately toxic" to humans?

The State of California has successfully eradicated northern pike from the nearby Frenchman Reservoir by using rotenone. According to an info sheet on the Department of Fish and Game site:

[Rotenone] will be applied at a rate of about one part per million. The rotenone itself will initially be present at a rate of about 50 parts per billion. The trace compounds will be present at a few parts per billion at the greatest, and many will not be detectable in the water when the rotenone is applied.

Rotenone also decomposes quickly and there are no detectable traces of rotenone left in Lake Davis from the 1997 treatment. The lake, which does not currently supply the nearby town of Portola with water, will be closed for up to 45 days after treatments this month. The lake will again serve as the water supply for Portola at some point in the future.

Researchers at Emory University found that when they gave rats low doses of rotenone, the rats developed symptoms similar to symptoms found in people with Parkinson's disease. The findings "are consistent with the idea that chronic exposure to low levels of environmental toxin may cause cumulative damage to the brain’s dopamine system, eventually leading to the clinical symptoms of the disease."

While rotenone is being used in very low concentrations and decomposes quickly enough that it's not at risk of causing chronic exposure on its own, it is one more environmental toxin that we're exposed to. So, the risks the rotenone in Lake Davis could pose to human health are not clear.

And what about the plants and animals in and around Lake Davis, for which rotenone is "extremely toxic"? The website for the Department of Fish and Game says they will "herd" the trout downstream and restock them after the treatment, but they make no mention of the other species that inhabit the lake and happen not to be as important to the economy as trout.

But, wait. CFT Legumine, which the Department of Fish and Game will be using to apply the rotenone, actually only contains five percent rotenone. According to the manufacturer site, CFT Legumine also contains five percent "other associated resins" and 90 percent "inert ingredients". On savelakedavis.org Jeanne Tansey writes:

In the case of CFT Legumine™, the inert ingredients help disperse the pesticide more easily and evenly into the water.

16,000 gallons of CFT Legumine™ is the projected amount of poison according to the Lake Davis Northern Pike Eradication Project 2007 plan. That means that 90% or 14,400 gallons of inert ingredients will be put into the lake. We do not know exactly what those ingredients are. But the front panel of the pesticide container, immediately below the Ingredient Statement, reads “Contains aromatic hydrocarbons.”

The Department of Fish and Game doesn’t even know what the 90% inert ingredients are. They do not know what the 14,400 gallons of liquid chemicals, that they will be putting into the lake and surrounding streams, are. They analyzed a sample of CFT Legumine™ to get an idea of what they might be. We do know what chemicals the health agencies will be testing Lake Davis water and sediment for after the lake is poisoned. Page 7 of the Lake Davis Northern Pike Eradication Project 2007 plan is the “Water Quality Monitoring Plan.” It contains a list of 18 chemicals they will be monitoring in surfacewater and sediment. A logical conclusion would be that these chemicals were found in their analyzed sample.

Among these chemicals are benzenes, xylenes, naphthalene, and toluene. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services includes naphthalene, toluene, and xylenes on its “Table 1, Hazardous Inerts.” Table 1 is the list of the most dangerous chemicals identified by the Dept. of Health and Human Services. . . Benzene exposure also causes serious health effects.

So, the Department of Fish and Game doesn't even know what's in 14,000 gallons of the stuff they're dumping into the lake? Northern pike might be bad for the ecosystem (or maybe more accurately, the fishing economy) in Lake Davis. CFT Legumine might be even worse.

A call to all you writers

Grist has a short article on "fast fashion", the cheap, nearly disposable clothing that's becoming more and more popular. The article briefly touches on the environmental, social, and global impacts of producing so many clothes so quickly, but I'm sure there's tons more to be said. If anyone out there can do for "fast fashion" what Eric Schlosser did for fast food in "Fast Food Nation", I bet it would be an interesting, eye-opening read.

Light pollution

I spent last week backpacking in the wilderness of Yosemite and one of my favorite things was falling asleep under the stars each night because here in LA, planes are about the only lights visible in the night sky. So I was saddened, but not surprised, to read in The New Yorker that truly dark skies are slowly disappearing from the American landscape due to air and light pollution. In fact, even the darkest skies in this country aren't as dark as skies all over the world were in Galileo's time. From the article:

In Galileo’s time people assume that the Milky Way must be some kind of continuous substance. It truly resembled a streak of spilled liquid—our word “galaxy” comes from the Greek for milk—and it was so bright that it cast shadows on the ground (as did Jupiter an Venus).

Having grown up in South Dakota, I've definitely seen a milky-looking Milky Way, but I've never seen it bright enough that it could have cast shadows. How cool would that be? And check out the photo of the Milky Way on The New Yorker site to see how beautiful the Milky Way looks, if only we could see it.