Global Warming and Vegetarianism

The New York Post revealed that one large chicken slaughtering plant in America was found to be using 100 million gallons of water daily. The same volume would supply a city of 25,000 people.

While in India, I traveled with Mr. Agrawal to a village on the outskirts of Delhi. The sun baked rural fields shimmered in a heat haze. I mentioned to him the effect of methane on global warming.

“Cows are not the cause of global warming, men are”, he said. He pointed to a foraging bovine, “She eats the remains of inedible cane stumps and grain husks, and turns it into milk, a wonder food of immediate utility.”

In traditional cultures, no extra land is cultivated in order to feed cattle grains that would otherwise feed hungry people. In her book “Diet for a Small Planet”, Frances Moore Lappe estimates that plant based agriculture could easily feed the world population many times over. With over 800 million people starving in the world today, that in itself is a strong argument for a change to vegetarianism.

Mr. Agrawal, patting the cow, said, “That is why she is called mother cow. She gives us nutritious milk, a foodstuff of many vitamin and health giving properties.”

Further on down the road we passed a villager guiding an ancient cart behind a pair of bullocks. “Father Bull”, Mr. Agrawal said. “He is working for the family, and mother cow gives us milk. Why would we kill and eat such helpful animals. They are of much greater value alive than dead.”

Indeed, the bovine population of India has remained steady over thousands of years, without any increase in global warming. Traditional India was not technologically advanced, but was always rich in regional cuisine and culinary skill, based on a vegetarian diet. That is at least, until subjugation by Muslim and British administrations during recent centuries, causing displacement, artificial city life, localized economic collapse, and food shortages.

The traditional Indian cow, the Zebu, requires much less feed resource than the huge meaty beasts of the west, which are bred for the hamburger munching palate. The Zebu is a much-admired family member, and part of a natural and environmentally sustainable lifestyle.

In addition, as long as vegetarianism remains the prominent diet of India, massive amounts of grazing land and artificial feedlots are not required, and methane emissions remain in keeping with natural cycles. And so the cow remains sacred to many Indians.

As Mr. Agrawal told me, “She is a symbol of hope, peace, and goodness, and that is something that deserves protection.”

It is easy to understand all this, while in an Indian village, where all of life, good and bad, is played out in the public domain for us to see. However, western countries are a different story, with so much of life (and death) hidden, disinfected, and sanitized.

Have you ever wondered, while driving down the country road, what those vast tracts of unfamiliar crops are. The large percentage of them are fodder crops, grown to feed millions of farm animals, as they are fattened up in feedlots and holding pens.

The United Nations report estimates that 500 million cattle alone are slaughtered around the world every year. The untreated animal waste is stored in massive lagoons, which not only pollutes our waterways but also emits another 15 percent of harmful methane emissions into the atmosphere. And the story does not end there.

Methane has always been a part of the Earths atmosphere and structure. At high pressures, such as found on the bottom of the ocean, methane forms a solid clathrate with water, known as methane hydrate. The sudden release of large volumes of methane from such sediments has been suggested as a possible cause for rapid global warming events in the Earths distant past.

One source estimates that the size of methane hydrate deposits of the oceans at ten trillion tons. Theories suggest that should global warming cause them to heat up sufficiently, all of this methane could again be released into the atmosphere.

And remember, the global warming nature of methane is 23 times greater than CO2. This would immensely magnify the greenhouse effect, heating the Earth to unprecedented levels.

Although less dramatic than release from ocean clathrates, but already happening, is an increase in the release of methane from bogs as permafrost melts. Recent years have seen increased thawing of the permafrost in the Arctic Circle. Measurements in Siberia show that the methane released is five times greater than previously estimated.

Now the good news. Methane is not the enemy. Actually, it has tremendous potential as a source of renewable energy. Methane's relative abundance and clean burning process make it an attractive fuel source.

At room temperature and standard pressure, methane is colorless and odorless. Methane is non-toxic. It is the cleanest, least harmful form of hydrocarbon, most commonly known in domestic environments, as natural gas.

Apart from gas fields, methane can be obtained via biogas generated by the fermentation of organic matter, including manure, wastewater sludge, and other naturally occurring sources under anaerobic conditions.

And more good news. Unlike carbon dioxide, which can remain in the air for more than a century, methane cycles out of the atmosphere in just eight years, so that lower methane emissions quickly translate to a cooling of the Earth.

Simply by going vegetarian, we can eliminate the impact of global warming. Could it be any simpler? And of course, the usual pro vegetarian arguments remain. We will have cleaner waterways, sustainably managed rainforests and pasturelands, plus the potential, with proper management, to easily feed the entire world population.

The things that really matter most to all of us are fresh air, clean drinking water, and healthy food, all of which can be provided by a switch to vegetarianism. It's really a no brainer.

Any serious environmental advocate should mention vegetarianism as an action that can be taken to address global warming. Governments could encourage farm subsidies for plant agriculture. There could be an increased awareness taught in food programs and schools.

Unfortunately, as Frances Moore Lappe mentions, “Again and again I have to learn this lesson: often those with the most information concerning our societies basic problems are those so schooled in defending the status quo that they are blind to the implications of what they know.”

I attended a social function recently. At lunchtime, I gnawed on a lettuce leaf, as those around me feasted on flesh foods. Something tells me that even if presented with all relevant information regarding global warming and environmental destruction, they would still not be prepared to give up eating meat.

It is an addiction after all, and socialized through many generations. We vegetarians will continue to be viewed, at least for the time being, as greenies, hippies, and misfits.

Sometimes talk is important. Sometimes rhetoric is important. But sometimes also, it is not a matter of what comes out of your mouth that is important, but what goes into it.

I think of my friend Mr. Agrawal occasionally, and of his God, Krishna, a cowherd boy, and of heaven as a rural, self sufficient and sustainable environment. And I wonder, who is really the sacred cow?