4Elise:
I would agree with much of what you have said by way of practical ways to reduce one’s energy consumption. If one feels morally compelled to do that, those seem like good ways. I would quibble with you, however, regarding the following:
"Eat your vegetables. While getting a sufficient amount of protein is
important, cutting back even slightly on meat consumption will help
decrease the greenhouse gas emissions used in its production. Meat
production is an energy-intensive process; large quantities of energy are
required to cultivate, harvest, and ship animal feed, to transport animals to
slaughterhouses, to slaughter animals, to process and package meat, to
refrigerate meat, and to transport meat to stores. Also, many who live in
poverty, especially in the Third World, almost never consume meat
because it is too expensive, so by cutting back on our consumption, we
can stand in solidarity with our impoverished brothers and sisters. "
I have no problem with people eating vegetables. But grain and legume production also consumes a great deal of energy. There isn’t a lot of protein or essential fats in most vegetables. If people don’t eat meat, they fall back on grains and legumes. Grains and legumes also take a lot of energy to harvest, transport and process. I have not seen the comparative figures, but it’s more cost efficient to ship meat than it is to ship grain. That’s why the feed lots and slaughterhouses are always located near the grain sources.
Also, of course, increasing the competition for grains and legumes does not help the impoverished of the world, at least in some situations. Most cattle, for example, are raised on grass up to a final feeding out, and some are raised on grass entirely. Grass is totally useless for human consumption, and much of the world won’t grow anything else. That’s why there is so much herd raising on the Eurasian and American prairies.
I think one might argue about pork or chicken, because hogs and poultry eat about the same kinds of nutrients we eat. But cattle, goats, sheep and buffalo don’t. They eat things no human can eat, and turn it into nutrient-rich meat. If all the world’s meat-eating people suddenly turned vegetarian, a lot of the world’s food production would be lost, and the wealthiest would be competing with the poorest for the same grain and legumes. Also, of course, much of the American west and the Eurasian plain, Argentina and Australia would depopulate.
Very little fuel is consumed in raising grazing animals, because they walk to where they need to go to eat. Also, one does not even remotely fertilize grasslands to the degree that grain and legume (and vegetable) farms are fertilized. Fertilizer production is a big energy-user. So are the chemicals used to suppress weeds and grass in row crops. Almost never do ranchers of any kind use plant-suppressing chemicals. You don’t need a big fuel-consuming tractor or harvester to raise cattle, sheep, goats or bison, the way you do with row crops.
I can see an argument against grain-feeding cattle to “finish” them. Typically, with cattle nowadays, grain is fed for the last two or three hundred pounds of gain. It takes about three pounds of grain for one pound of weight gain. That’s for the “prime” animals. Lower-grade animals (hamburger, soup meat, bouillon, etc) are simply butchered right off the ranch. So they’re not grain fed at all. Americans like grain-fed beef for the “prime” grade meats. But that doesn’t have to be. My impression is that in Australia and Argentina, they don’t do that, or very rarely do. I don’t think sheep, goats or bison are ever grain-fed. But maybe somebody with more knowledge than I have could correct me on that.
