--Over 70% of the grain that we grow goes to feed livestock. Of the calories animals derive from this grain, only a small percentage yields meat for human consumption.
--In a world in which potable water is becoming increasingly scarce, the United States devotes 50% of its supply to livestock production.
--Raising crops to feed humans requires far less land than producing meat. Today there is 2/3 of an acre of arable land per person on the Earth. Within 40 years that figure is expected to drop to 1/3 of an acre.
--Typically, 60 gallons of water will yield one pound of wheat. It takes about 2500 gallons to produce a pound of beef. While water is a fairly renewable resource, the meat industrial complex does its best (or more appropriately, worst) to ensure that such renewal is seriously compromised. The EPA has determined that livestock waste, 1.4 billion tons of which were released into our water supply in 1996, is the principal water pollutant in the United States.
--“Vegfam, a British non-profit organization also claims that 10 acres can support 60 people when growing soybeans, 24 when growing wheat, 10 when growing corn, 2 when raising cattle. Also, PETA claims, "because of deforestation for cattle land, each vegetarian saves 1 acre of rainforest a year."”
Pork chops, fried chicken, bacon, and KC strip steaks are delectable in a way that defies description. Yet like so many of the tantalizing offerings dangled before us by our corporate masters, they are contributing to the demise of the human race, our animal brethren, and the Earth itself.
The system we have been conditioned to accept, support, and adore is unsustainable, vile, exploitative, and, frankly, murderous. American Capitalism is little more than an “evolved” form of feudalism in which corporations have replaced lords and the working class has been condemned to economic serfdom. The concomitant symptoms of this global malignancy, including runaway industrialization, imperial conquest, technological advances sans ethical considerations, environmental destruction, fascism, racism, speciesism, neoliberalism, and rampant consumerism, are straining the Earth and its inhabitants beyond reasonable limits.
Don Robertson, the American Philosopher, has concluded that “we are all moral barbarians today.” (20)
If we wish to evolve into more civilized human beings and perpetuate life on Earth, we need to put some serious effort into embodying Robertson’s moral imperative:
“The moral imperative of life is to live a life that detracts not at all from the lives available to those who will follow us into this world.”
While not easy, shunning the egregiously deleterious meat industrial complex is a simple first step. (To learn more, go to http://www.goveg.com/)
Disclosure Statement: The author of this essay converted to vegetarianism two months ago. As a result, he has experienced spiritual, physical, and mental invigoration. He highly recommends it.
End Notes:
(1a) http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12840743/porks_dirty_secret_the_nations_top_hog_producer_is_also_one_of_americas_worst_polluters
(1) http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
--In a world in which potable water is becoming increasingly scarce, the United States devotes 50% of its supply to livestock production.
--Raising crops to feed humans requires far less land than producing meat. Today there is 2/3 of an acre of arable land per person on the Earth. Within 40 years that figure is expected to drop to 1/3 of an acre.
--Typically, 60 gallons of water will yield one pound of wheat. It takes about 2500 gallons to produce a pound of beef. While water is a fairly renewable resource, the meat industrial complex does its best (or more appropriately, worst) to ensure that such renewal is seriously compromised. The EPA has determined that livestock waste, 1.4 billion tons of which were released into our water supply in 1996, is the principal water pollutant in the United States.
Pork chops, fried chicken, bacon, and KC strip steaks are delectable in a way that defies description. Yet like so many of the tantalizing offerings dangled before us by our corporate masters, they are contributing to the demise of the human race, our animal brethren, and the Earth itself.
The system we have been conditioned to accept, support, and adore is unsustainable, vile, exploitative, and, frankly, murderous. American Capitalism is little more than an “evolved” form of feudalism in which corporations have replaced lords and the working class has been condemned to economic serfdom. The concomitant symptoms of this global malignancy, including runaway industrialization, imperial conquest, technological advances sans ethical considerations, environmental destruction, fascism, racism, speciesism, neoliberalism, and rampant consumerism, are straining the Earth and its inhabitants beyond reasonable limits.
Don Robertson, the American Philosopher, has concluded that “we are all moral barbarians today.” (20)
If we wish to evolve into more civilized human beings and perpetuate life on Earth, we need to put some serious effort into embodying Robertson’s moral imperative:
“The moral imperative of life is to live a life that detracts not at all from the lives available to those who will follow us into this world.”
While not easy, shunning the egregiously deleterious meat industrial complex is a simple first step. (To learn more, go to http://www.goveg.com/)
Disclosure Statement: The author of this essay converted to vegetarianism two months ago. As a result, he has experienced spiritual, physical, and mental invigoration. He highly recommends it.
End Notes:
(1a) http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12840743/porks_dirty_secret_the_nations_top_hog_producer_is_also_one_of_americas_worst_polluters
(1) http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
(2) http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2525/
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