Last month, Climate Week NYC concluded with a panel about the environmental costs of meat and dairy production. Recently, PETA called on the Environmental Protection Agency to include factory animal farms on the list of industrial facilities it regulates.

Marisa Miller Wolfson, director of outreach for nonprofit Kind Green Planet, was on that Climate Week panel, and we caught up with her to talk about PETA's statement and, more broadly, how meat and dairy production impacts climate change in general.

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Your issue seems to be with problems that the life cycle of meat and dairy production causes. Just what does this production do to the environment? How harmful do you think it is?

I’m glad you bring that up because the life cycle of meat and dairy—the chain of production—is much longer than that of plant foods, and there are damages to the environment all along the way.

We could begin with the fact that animals are inefficient converters of plant protein, the vast majority of which come from gigantic monoculture corn and soy farms that are doused with petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides and deplete precious groundwater. This feed grain is then transported to the farms where the animals are.

The farms require energy and water for daily operations, and the waste created from the animals on these farms is stored in huge lagoons, or manure pits. As these fill up, the waste is sprayed onto fields. Unfortunately, the lagoons are prone to leaks and spills, and waste from the sprayed fields runs off into lakes and streams and contaminates groundwater.

But it’s not just the solid waste from animals that’s destructive and polluting; farm animals also produce methane and nitrous oxide when they breathe and defecate. These greenhouse gases are 23 times and 296 times stronger than carbon dioxide, respectively, in their global warming capacities. Now, add to this the fact that we’ve cleared 70 percent of forests in the Amazon and elsewhere for cattle grazing and cattle feed, and that 70 percent of agricultural land is devoted to feeding and pasturing animals used for meat and dairy.

Finally, transporting farm animals to the slaughterhouse burns fossil fuels, and of course processing animal flesh requires both energy and water.

For years studies have pointed to the meat and dairy industries as leading culprits of pesticide use, soil erosion, deforestation, water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Then, in 2006, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization published a report, identifying the livestock sector as “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global” and declared that animal agriculture contributes more to climate change globally, at 18 percent, than the entire transportation sector, at 14 percent.

That same year, geophysicists Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin published a study concluding that switching from a standard American diet to a vegan one for one year would prevent 1.5 tons of carbon dioxide emissions from entering the atmosphere, which is more than the amount you’d save by switching from a normal car to a hybrid.

Last year, Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, pleaded with the public, “Please eat less meat—meat is a very carbon-intensive commodity.” When you’ve got the top man of the world’s most important international agency dealing with most serious environmental threat of our time telling us to eat less meat, I think we should probably pay attention.

What about buying meat and dairy products produced locally? For non-vegans, is that buying behavior something that could make a difference?

To begin with, I should mention that local farms don’t necessarily mean smaller scale, sustainable farms. There are 14 factory farms located in the four counties that border my home county in Indiana. The fact that I could drive about an hour in any direction from my hometown and hit one of 14 factory farms is very telling of how prevalent industrial farms are. And these farms don’t have a big black skull and crossbones on the sign out front; they just look like big warehouses and belong to hardworking families who are probably struggling to fulfill their contract obligations with large corporations such as Smithfield or Perdue.

That said, buying meat and dairy products locally would cut down on emissions associated with transport. And if the farm is small enough not to have to struggle with waste management problems that could lead to serious water pollution, that’s an improvement.

However, transportation from farm to market makes up a tiny piece of the global warming pie. You might remember the statistics from Mia MacDonald’s powerpoint presentation at the Climate Week panel at NYU. Food miles only account for 4 percent of greenhouse gases associated with food production. According to one study, someone who consumes an all-locavore diet every meal of every day for a year saved the equivalent GHGs of 1,000 miles of driving per year.

Meanwhile, someone consuming a regular diet but skipped meat and dairy for just one day per week for an entire year would save more GHGs—the equivalent of 1,163 miles of driving per year.

In a recent Forbes [magazine] article, James McWilliams, author of the new book Just Food, somewhat snarkily states, “If you want to make a statement, ride your bike to the farmer's market. If you want to reduce greenhouse gases, become a vegetarian.” I personally don’t see a need to pose it as a choice between one or the other, and I’ll continue to walk to the farmer’s market every Saturday, thankyouverymuch. However, he is pointing to an often-ignored truth about the importance of taking a more comprehensive view of the life cycle of foods that encompasses many more aspects of production than just food miles. Most people don’t know, for example, that grass-fed cattle produce four times as much methane as conventionally-fed cattle.

During the Climate Week panel, you pointed out that, in spite of science telling us that livestock is a critical component of climate change, getting policy to address high levels of meat consumption in the U.S. is difficult. Are there any pending regulations on the horizon that could help? How could lawmakers directly address the livestock issues you're speaking of?

Earlier, the EPA briefly considered a “cow tax” proposal that would charge a farmer about $175 per dairy cow, $87.50 per head of beef cattle and a little more than $20 per pig in an effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Farmers flipped out, and the EPA abandoned the idea. My hope is that when the next Farm Bill comes up for consideration, our federal legislators will at least lift the subsidies that the meat and dairy industries currently enjoy so that the market reflects a more accurate cost of these foods. But because the lobbies are so powerful, we haven’t been successful yet.

There have been changes in the USDA’s Dietary Guide for Americans that give us reason for optimism, though. Since 1995, when vegetarianism was mentioned for the first time by name, the guidelines have pushed people more and more towards plant foods.

In 2000, the guide urged, “Use plant foods as the foundation of your meals.” Then, from 2000 to 2005, the quantity of fruits and vegetables a person should eat every day increased from 2.5 to 4.5 cups. According to the guidelines, daily intake of cholesterol (found only in animal foods), on the other hand, should not exceed 300 milligrams. That’s the equivalent of just two small eggs. Hopefully, the robust science on the benefits of plant-based living that’s been coming out recently will be reflected in the next set of federal guidelines in 2010.

There are a growing number of opportunities to take action locally to influence food policy. For example, just this past year, environmental advocates teamed up with food justice and animal protection advocates in Chicago in New York City to work with city council members to introduce green food resolutions that promote plant foods as a means of fighting climate change, curbing pollution and improving public health. Kind Green Planet is proud to be a founding member of the FoodPrint NYC Alliance, which is the coalition of groups that are working together to pass the resolution. I encourage anyone who’s interested in starting a campaign in their own city to visit the still-very-rough website created by the Alliance in the hopes that other cities will come on board, and we can build from each other’s successes.

Related to that, PETA recently said that meat production has a more-damaging effect on the environment than any other form of pollution. Is PETA using hyperbole, or is that claim something science backs up?

Well, I wouldn’t put it past PETA to use amped-up language, and depending on how you identify or group together “forms of pollution,” you could probably come up with a few “worst polluters.” However, I think it’s safe to say that animal agriculture is one of the top two or three worst polluters, and PETA has a very valid point in asking the EPA to include greenhouse gas emissions from CAFOS and processing plants within their regulatory jurisdiction. If the EPA is charged with the responsibility of regulating greenhouse gases emitted by power plants and industrial facilities, there is absolutely no reason why they should overlook one of the top contributors.

Pricing is a big part of high levels of consumption, obviously. So how much should meat and dairy cost? What type of pricing accurately reflects the damages they cause?

Oh, I’ve heard guesstimates ranging from $30 to $100 per hamburger.

It’s hard to put a price on anything because you don’t know what all to factor into the equation. Do you include the $4.1-billion bill that taxpayers pay for livestock sewage leaks? What about food aid we send to drought-ridden countries affected by climate change that we help to bring on by consuming 200 pounds of meat per year? I met an orphan in Rwanda whose mother was killed in a mudslide that was brought on by the cattle industry clearing trees in the area. Do you include that orphan’s care for 18 years in the price of a hamburger? How do you begin to put a price tag on that?

And on a nontechnical note, could you share some of your favorite vegan recipes? Particularly anything you think would appeal to meat-eaters.

I wish I were creative enough to invent my own recipes, but thankfully there are so many wonderful cookbooks by real chefs out there with amazing recipes. Some of my favorites:

From Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero

Seitan Piccata

Smoky Red Peppers ‘n’ Beans Gumbo

Spicy Tempeh and Broccoli Rabe with Rotelle

Chickpea Cutlets

From The Candle Café Cookbook by Joy Pierson and Bart Potenza

Spicy Soba Noodle Stir-Fry

From How It All Vegan by Tanya Barnard & Sarah Kramer

Classic Spinach Lasagna

From Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen by Anna Lappé and Bryant Terry

Smoky South American Seitan Stew and Coconut-Infused Quinoa

Andrew Graham (bio) is a writer and media contact in New York. He is on Twitter and writes a blog about global affairs.

Comments (2)

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Great Article
written by R Kells, October 20, 2009

Thanks so much for this important information. Very well written, too.

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written by Fran Tracy, November 07, 2009

Everything I read lately wants me to give up my total life. I am just sick of it. I grow my own vegetables and have fruit and nut trees as well as grapes which I harvest from my own yard. If the large meat producers used the methane from the lagoons to produce green energy as some are, that would solve the problem. What about the fact that has been proven that grass fed cattle are much more healthy and have more protein in the meet than commercial operations. As for peta, GET A LIFE AND LET ME HAVE MINE.
Fran

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