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.