Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 09:45:16
From: Tom Gray 
Message-Id: <3.0.6.16.19990428094516.53cf70da@pop.igc.org>
To: Positive Futures
Subject: [pf]

Group's Surprising Beef With Meat Industry; Study ranks production of beef, poultry and pork as second to automobiles in ecological cost

Source: The San Francisco Chronicle

Environmentally speaking, the worst thing you can do for the planet is drive your sport utility vehicle to the local steak house for a prime sirloin.

That, at least, is the contention of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental advocacy group that has just completed a new analysis of the ecological costs of various activities and products.

It perhaps comes as no startling revelation that automobiles are at the top of the organization's list of environmentally damaging products. But what is a surprise is that meat comes in at number two.

The industrial production of beef, poultry and pork pollutes waterways and air, fouls the land and gobbles up valuable resources, said Warren Leon, deputy director of the Massachusetts environmental group.

But other supposedly damaging products -- such as plastic grocery bags or polyester clothing -- are relatively benign, he said.

To compile the list, the Union of Concerned Scientists compared consumer spending patterns with their effect on four broad environmental problems -- global warming, air and water pollution and the alteration of natural habitats.

Leon, who co-authored a book based on the study titled "The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices," said researchers divided "everything people buy and use" into 50 categories. "What we found is that the most harmful activities or products fall into seven of the 50 categories we studied," he said.

Leon, who is on a national tour to promote the book, talked about the findings at a meeting of San Francisco's Commonwealth Club last night.

The manufacture and use of cars and light trucks were at the top of the list. "That was about what we expected," Leon said.

After all, cars account for 3.7 tons of greenhouse gas emissions per household each year. And they are responsible for a quarter of all common air pollutants, such as particulates and ozone, and 45 percent of airborne toxins, such as benzene and formaldehyde.

But Leon said researchers were surprised when meat production showed up second only to vehicles in terms of environmental destruction. "We knew meat production would have some kind of impact, but we didn't expect it to be so significant."

In terms of water pollution, said Leon, beef is 17 times more damaging than all that goes into making pasta. This is because of water pollution from manure, as well as the amount of electrical energy, fuel, fertilizer and pesticides needed to raise cattle fodder.

"The contamination to the nation's waterways from manure run-off is extremely serious," he said. "Twenty tons of livestock manure are produced for every household in the country. We have strict laws governing the disposal of human waste, but the regulations are lax, or often nonexistent, for animal waste."

Beef production is also 20 times more damaging to wildlife habitat than pasta production, said Leon, because it uses far more land.

Poultry is somewhat easier on the environment than beef or pork, Leon said. "Chickens are able to convert feed to meat more efficiently than cattle or hogs, so they ultimately contribute less pollution per pound of meat produced," he said.

George Gough, the vice president of government relations for the California Cattlemen's Association, said cattle can have a negative effect on water quality if they are not properly managed, but he said the state's ranchers are committed to sound practices.

He also said not all animal husbandry is the same in its environmental effect. "Huge commercial hog farms are more likely to have a serious impact than range cattle," Gough said.

Vegetables, fruits and grains are third on the group's list because their cultivation usually entails large quantities of pesticides, herbicides, artificial fertilizers and irrigation water.

The other worst offenders are: home heating, air conditioning and water heating; household appliances and lighting; home construction; and household water and sewage.

Some products that have long been assumed to be environmental bugbears -- such as plastic grocery bags -- came away with a relatively clean bill of health.

"Paper or plastic -- it doesn't make any difference," Leon said. "Each accounts for about the same amount of resources expenditure, and the typical household uses only a few pounds a year. Compared to 150 gallons of gas per car or 20 tons of manure per household, that's nothing."

Nor should consumers fret about choosing between cotton and polyester, fashion considerations aside.

"Both have their downsides," Leon said. "So does wool -- sheep exert an impact on the land, and wool clothes are usually dry- cleaned, which involves toxic chemicals. (But) compared to other categories, clothes aren't that serious of a problem."

So what is an environmentally minded consumer to do? The environmental damage caused by essential products, such as food, cannot be eliminated, Leon said, but they can be substantially reduced.

"Food will always remain a resource-intensive industry, but we can ease the burden on the environment by buying organic produce and eating less meat," he said. "It doesn't have to be an all or nothing proposition. You don't have to turn vegetarian -- just cutting back a hamburger or two a week can really help."

Consumers should also think of the environment when buying a car, Leon said. "You don't have to get a tiny subcompact," he said. "We found that for any given size and type of vehicle, there is a 20 to 50 percent difference in fuel efficiency, depending on the make. You just have to shop around."

Some consumer products represent a net gain for the environment, Leon said.

"Microwave ovens consume far less electricity than standard ranges, and new refrigerators are three times more energy efficient than models from 25 years ago," he said. "People should buy them with clear consciences."

----------------------------------------------

CHART:

SEVEN MOST HARMFUL CONSUMER ACTIVITIES

	Global warming 	Air pollution 	Water pollution 	Habitat
   	(gases) 		Common  Toxic 	Common  Toxic 	Water   Land

contributor				    alteration 

Driving cars and light trucks:
	 27% 			 22%     46%	  6%      13%	  1%     13%

Meat and poultry production
	  3%			  3%      1%	 20%       6%	 18%     26%

Growing fruit, vegetables and grains
	  2%			  5%      3%	  3%       5%	 30%      6%

Home heating, hot water and air-conditioning
	 16%			 11%      5%	  3%       1%	  1%      0%

Household appliances and lighting
	 15%			 13%      2%	  5%       4%	  2%      1%

Home construction
	  3%			  4%      2%	  6%       6%	  1%     23%

Household water and sewage
	  0%			  0%      1%	 11%       0%	  5%      0%
	 ___			 ___     ___	 ___      ___	 ___     ___
Percent of total consumer contribution to pollution
	 66%			 58%     60%	 54%      35%	 58%     69%
   
   Source: Union of Concerned Scientists


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Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 23:00:25
From: Tom Gray 
Subject: Re: [pf] More on UCS Study
To: positive-futures@igc.org

At 02:24 PM 4/28/99 GMT, Pat Meadows wrote:
>
>  Thanks for posting this article, Tom.  
>
>I'm darned if I know why *anyone* would be surprised that
>meat is such a great environmental polluter.  My tattered,
>battered, pages-have-turned-yellow copy of "Diet for a Small
>Planet" by Frances Moore Lappé was published in 1971.  All
>the evidence was there, irrefutably presented.  That's 28
>years, now, that this has been known.  
>
>  Sometimes I despair. 

- I think one of the biggest problems people have generally is breaking out of established patterns of thought. The mind gets in a groove and it's just easier to follow that than to consider something different. That's why picking the right habits in the first place, or perhaps alternatively, making a habit of looking at the opposite of one's assumptions, is important.

- How many dollars has McDonald's spent over the past 28 years promoting the food they sell? How many has Francis Moore Lappé spent? One has to be realistic about the state of the average person's knowledge and consider the quantity and content of the information they see and hear.

- There is an interesting analysis in a book that I'm reading now, The Art Of The Long View: Planning For The Future In An Uncertain World by Peter Schwartz, that I think is exactly on point. It talks about the different myths that nations have of themselves, and how those myths affect their reactions to events, and it compares America's reaction to the energy crisis with Japan's: "The Japanese reacted with their myth of resilience.
. . [They] made themselves the most energy-efficient industrial economy on the planet in less than three years. That meant a severe recession in the Japanese economy while they rebuilt the capital structure. By 1976, their energy-efficiency had improved enormously. The United States reacted differently. Politically, American leaders fought to preserve the country's 'manifest destiny.' Corporate leaders refused to believe that this would be any more than a temporary setback in the 'Land of Opportunity.' Individuals reacted, at first, with anger (at gas lines, at the Arabs, at the oil companies). Then, each according to his or her means and inclinations, we separately set about making our lives more energy-efficient--or not. The United States remains more vulnerable to oil crises than Japan despite the fact that Japan imports all of the oil it needs.
The American myth was not 'worse' than the Japanese; arguably, our attitudes about melting pots and individual fulfillment will serve us well in the years to come. But in this instance, the Japanese myth led to more economic success.'" A lot of environmentalism has to do with accepting limits, but a lot of the story of the U.S. is about successes that followed the refusal to accept limits--limits on individual freedom, limits imposed by class, and so on.

- I read Diet for a Small Planet when it came out, and it made something of an impression, but not enough to get me to really change my diet. What tipped me over the edge was the work I've been doing with Ecological Footprint analysis, which attempts to set up a single yardstick that can be used to measure all sorts of individual actions and their environmental impact. Beef consumption came out so high on the list that I was instantly converted. On the other hand, I'm much more of an enviro today than I was in 1971, and have taken many other steps to reduce consumption, so this omission was also much more glaring by contrast. I also have a friend who is a fanatical vegan, and she probably softened me up.

So I'd say try not to despair, and instead keep looking for ways to get the point across. The Ecological Footprint did it for me, and I'm passing the UCS work along in the hope that it will make a difference for someone else.
To me, wind energy is pretty much of a no-brainer, but evidently it is not for lots and lots of people, and so part of the reason why I am here is to try to help create a context in which more people will see the energy issue as I do.

Tom

"Calvin: 'When I grow up, I'm not going to read the newspaper and I'm not going to follow complex issues and I'm not going to vote.'

"Calvin: 'That way I can complain that the Government doesn't represent me.'

"Calvin: 'Then, when everything goes down the tubes, I can say the system doesn't work and justify my further lack of participation.'

"Hobbes: 'An ingeniously self-fulfilling plan.'

"Calvin: 'It's a lot more fun to blame things than to fix them.'"
       --THE DAYS ARE JUST *PACKED*, Bill Watterson

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Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 08:40 -0700 (PDT)
From: Stan King 
To: Positive Futures
Subject: Re: [pf] Devil's advocate on UCS report

Diane wrote:
 
>I think this report will be ignored by most folks because -- if 
>taken to its (perhaps illogical) conclusion -- it leaves 
>no room for human beings.
>
>Here's my sarcastic fantasy of explaining it to a room of the
>non-converted.
>
>"There's a recent study out that says the following are the most
>damaging of our human activities.  They include:
>1. Cars
>2. Meat
>3. Vegetables, fruit, grains
>4. Home heating
>5. Air conditioning
>6. Water heating
>7. Household appliances
>8. Lighting
>9. Home construction
>10. Household water and sewage.

>A lot has been said on this group about cutting out or down on meat. 
>But, heaven's sake, the other food groups are No. 3!  What's left?

Diane,

I haven't read the report but I suspect #3 (veggies, fruit, grains)
is so high on the list because of the unsustainable way we produce
them, with conventional agriculture. A pound of food produced with
conventional agriculture results in six pounds of soil lost. Even
a pound of most organic food produced today results in three to
five pounds of topsoil lost. In the US, we have lost 20 of our initial
26 inches of topsoil. We are heading for a major crash in the next
century unless we can reverse this. Fortunately there are ways
of producing food that actually build the soil. An example is
biointensive gardening.  

For more information take a look at:

http://www.crest.org/sustainable/ecology_action/index.html

Best Regards,

Stan
 
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Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 10:34:41
From: Tom Gray 
Message-Id: <3.0.6.16.19990429103441.0987f046@pop.igc.org>
To: Positive Futures
Subject: Re: [pf] Devil's advocate on UCS report

At 08:46 AM 4/29/99 -0500, Diane Fitzsimmons wrote:
>I think this report will be ignored by most folks because ...

Yes, I agree.  I had exactly the same reaction to seeing meat, grains, and
veggies all listed so high.  What I *think* they were trying to say is, pay
attention to transportation and diet issues, those are most important in
terms of total impact, but you are right, that was not well articulated in
the material that was released.

I suggest you consider commenting through their Web site, [starting] at: 
http://www.ucsusa.org/less/guide.ch1.html 
-- I'm assuming they have some sort of feedback option.

Collecting the data is an essential first step.  But the second critical
step, and maybe the most important one, is communicating it effectively.

Tom

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