Meat's Pressures on the Planet

Many people assume that there are only two reasons to become a vegetarian: health concerns and ethical considerations. But the widespread consumption of meat has effects on the environment that go far beyond human nutrition or the well-being of animals.

BBC online has begun a new series, Planet Under Pressure, which explores six of "the most pressing environmental issues facing the human race today": food, water, energy, climate change, biodiversity, and pollution. All of these crises are directly or indirectly linked to eating meat.

FOOD
More agricultural crops in the world today are grown to feed the animals that feed humans, rather than to feed humans directly. Meat-eating is one of the most insanely inefficient processes that free markets tolerate.
In the world's oceans, overfishing has depleted many fish populations to critical levels. If demand continues to rise and stocks continue to shrink, some fishing stocks will disappear entirely.

WATER
Livestock, and the huge amounts of crops grown to feed livestock, consume epic amounts of water that could be supplying our homes and human-intended crops instead.

ENERGY
The huge amounts of land that are being used now for raising livestock and growing the food that feeds them could be used for wind or solar energy, thus easing our reliance on coal and nuclear power.

POLLUTION, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND BIODIVERSITY
Meat-eating is a leading cause of deforestation, since large tracts of land are required not only to graze livestock, but to grow the aforementioned crops that feed livestock. And deforestation, in turn, is a leading cause of species extinction. Moreover, we need forests in order to keep the air in our atmosphere clean, and as we chop down more forests, pollution will worsen and global warming will accelerate.
In the sea, overfishing has heinous effects on biodiversity. The fact that many fish populations have been depleted to less than 10% of their original levels not only threatens the survival of those individual target species, but other species in the food web as well. According to oceanographer Doug Segar, overfishing may constitute "a far greater threat [to marine ecosystems] than the oil spills or industrial and domestic sewage discharges that often dominate media coverage."

The planet is indeed under pressure - and much of the pressure comes from humans' insistence on eating cows, chickens, pigs, and fish. Keep these animals off your plate more often and you'll be giving Mother Nature a break she desperately needs.