To Reduce Climate Chaos, Eat Less Meat

By FRANK LINGO

A research group at the University of California, Davis, critiques the idea that eating meat harms the climate. The Clear Center defends the meat industry and downplays the impact of livestock, including the effects of methane, which meat production makes a major greenhouse gas contributor.

One little problem with their claim and their research: The Clear Center has received millions of dollars from livestock business groups. So they find their funding from farmers who fund their findings.

The New York Times outlined the issue in an Oct. 31 front-page article.

Although it’s front-page news, the issue isn’t new. Frances Moore Lappe wrote about the harm that meat production does to the world in her 1971 best-seller “Diet For A Small Planet.”

That was about the time I first became a vegetarian. It was kinda hard to carry it off back then. I once went into a McDonald’s and said “I’ll have a burger, hold the burger.” Still enjoyed the lettuce, onion and tomato.

But I reverted to meat-eating on a small scale until 1989 when I went vegetarian for good. By then it was less difficult, with many restaurants and stores having well-stocked salad bars. And now it’s downright easy to be a vegetarian, with grocery stores providing a plethora of pickings for people’s taste in veggie burgers, soy sausage and fakin’ bacon.

“Where do you get your protein, though?” friends have asked. Like horses, rhinoceroses and other weakling creatures — from vegetation. Beans, nuts and grains all have protein. Soy is a more complete protein than any meat. I’m an old coot now but I’m fairly healthy and I haven’t had a heart attack like my brother, now recovered, who ate meat voraciously and often mocked my veggie ways.

Yet the campaign of disinformation rolls on. The Times article noted that Big Ag spent over $150 million last year to lobby the US government against environmental regulations. That’s more than the defense or construction industries spent in attempts of influence.

Americans eat about one-third less meat than they ate in the 1970s. Yet the average is still 215 pounds of meat per person a year, or about 10 ounces each day. Is it a coincidence that America is the fattest developed country on Earth? According to the CDC, about 42% of us are obese, a condition that causes cancer, heart disease, stroke and skyrocketing diabetes.

A significant stat is that it takes 13 pounds of plant protein to produce one pound of animal protein. The billion or more people around the world who are food-deprived could get enough to eat with that grain if it didn’t go to livestock. It also takes humongous amounts of water to grow that much grain and to water the animals, which is a tremendous waste while large areas of the US and other countries suffer from persistent parching droughts.

Besides health and ecological concerns, a motivating factor for my turn to vegetarianism is that I didn’t want to kill animals for my food, and I didn’t want others to do it for me. I feel at ease spiritually with that lifestyle.

“Cutting meat consumption is a powerful and personal thing most Americans can do to tackle the climate crisis, and they can do it immediately,” wrote Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard professor of science, in Scientific American’s Jan. 2022 edition. “It benefits both you and the planet.”

Frank Lingo, based in Lawrence, Kansas, is a former columnist for the Kansas City Star and author of the novel “Earth Vote.” Email: lingofrank@gmail.com. See his website: Greenbeat.world

From The Progressive Populist, December 1, 2022

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