One man’s quest for vegetarianism and a cleaner planet

Millions of gallons of oil are spreading across the Gulf of Mexico, killing wildlife and threatening coastal communities. This environmental disaster makes it clear that there are costs associated with our dependency on fossil fuel. These costs are usually well-hidden and often seem out of our hands. We assume these are challenges for businesses and governments to take on, but too large and unseemly for one person to make a real impact.

I am reminded of The New York Times’ 2008 article, “Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler,” in which the author Mark Bittman compares oil to meat.

He writes, “Like oil, meat is subsidized by the federal government. Like oil, meat is subject to accelerating demand as nations become wealthier, and this, in turn, sends prices higher. Finally – like oil – meat is something people are encouraged to consume less of, as the toll exacted by industrial production increases, and becomes increasingly visible.”

Bittman’s piece compares the amount of fossil fuels needed to produce a meat meal versus fossil fuels needed for a plant-based meal and illustrates that the meat meal requires 16 times more!

Although the negative consequences of excessive oil and meat consumption are usually tucked away, a growing bed of evidence is making these issues harder and harder to ignore. In 2006, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization released a report called “Livestock’s Long Shadow.” The report states that animal agriculture is a major contributor to climate change and “emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.”

It didn’t take long for industry to challenge that report in attempts to debunk the conclusion that animal agriculture contributes more to climate change than transportation. In April of this year, James McWilliams wrote a piece for The Atlantic challenging the rash of media reports that jumped on this industry-led PR campaign. McWilliams rightly concluded, “No matter what the exact figure, the environmental case against industrial meat production remains powerfully convincing.”

Now, the United Nations’ Environment Programme has published a new report called “Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Production and Consumption: Priority Products and Materials.” It identifies the largest contributors to environmental impacts and pressures, citing “food” and “agricultural materials, especially animal products” as priority areas of concern. Referring to this report, The Guardian newspaper published an article under the heading “UN Urges Global Move to Meat and Dairy-Free Diet,” that states, “A global shift towards a vegan diet is vital to save the world from hunger, fuel poverty and the worst impacts of climate change.”

There are many things in this world that are out of our control and where we may feel helpless to make a difference. But, that’s not the case with food. We can each exercise a large degree of control over what we eat, and by making food choices that are consistent with our own values and interests, we can make the world a better place. Choosing to eat plants instead of animals lightens our environmental footprint, including our dependency on oil, and it improves and saves lives, both human and non-human. Of that, we can be certain.

Editor’s note: Article by Gene Baur. Originally published by our friends at Tonic.com. Tonic is a digital media company and news source dedicated to promoting the good that happens each day around the world. Tonic tells the stories of people and organizations who are working to make a difference, by inspiring good in themselves and others. Be sure to visit them and say hi, and follow Tonic on Twitter, too!

Image: flikr

The post The Power on Your Plate appeared first on EcoSalon.

FarmVille is the green place to be for city folk reaping the rewards of rural relationships and cooperation through good, clean social gaming.

The hugely popular farming sim has my friends and family bragging on Facebook about a season of planting cash crops, helping neighbors grow lettuce instead of lawns and finding new homes for lost little duckies. It quacks me up!

The strategy of the Zynga grainchild: The user is given the chance to start their own farm, build it out and move up in levels.

After they have plowed the land and their crops are ripe for picking, they harvest the food and sell it for cash to buy new crops. Other ways to get money include helping friends with their farms or sending free gifts to friends, such as trees and farm animals.

“This is a good game because it’s not superficial where you are going out and buying clothes or houses like in other virtual games,” says my 13-year-old daughter, an avid fan who set up a farm for her 10-year-old sister in recent weeks planting eggplants, soybeans and strawberries. “You’re building crops and helping neighbors with their crops and in the coming years, it will really come down to that.”

My teen, now at level 7,  finds FarmVille lets her and her Facebook friends associate a fun game with something not product-based, and that it helps train her generation to think green.

That’s the main reason an employer in Minneapolis, Minn. set up a real organic farm as a playground and work perk for his employees. His concept is a hit as the Haberman public relations team clocks time hoeing and raking after hours.

You don’t get points with your boss for playing FarmVille so my cousin, Alan Finkelstein, plays in his spare time when he’s off work. He’s at the top of the heap with an impressive level 31. He’s a god in his neck of the woods. You don’t get to level 31 without logging some serious computer time.

“Okay, FarmVille police, I was forced to play, they kidnapped me and made me play,” Alan jests, defending his highly-coveted acreage. “I do notice more things in the world that are related to farms than I used to prior to playing.”

Alan says he gave it a go when a friend was playing and really loved it. He finds the game makes him more aware of things associated with farming and holds a “zen quality” for the L.A. journalist, husband and Facebook fanatic.

“I like to strategize, collect, plan, design, steal other folk’s designs, send gifts to friends, receive gifts from friends, and having to be patient in growing my own farm,” he says. “My cousins say to me, ‘Dude, your farm is amazing and thanks for sending me the horses’ and it’s nice to have that interaction.”

Del Monte should only have such interaction. This sim is clearly a brand of socialism Americans can get behind.

According to Virtual Worlds News, FarmVille has gained over 1 million new players per week since its June 19 launch, and currently boasts more than 11 million daily active users.

Apparently, that’s the total achieved by lead designer Mark Skaggs over his entire career with Electronic Arts where he designed other strategy games such as Command & Conquer and The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth. He says FarmVille will probably break records, largely because he’s keeping it fresh.

“One of the really fun and successful features we added is what we call the ‘Lonely Cow’ feature,” Skaggs told VWN. “You can help find it a home, then somebody claims it. You’ll get a brown cow instead of the white cow you had before. Then you milk the brown cow and you get chocolate milk! That’s a ‘moment of delight,’ totally unexpected but cool.”

We once felt that same moment of delight when competitors landed on those high-priced blue properties we monopolized – Park Place and Boardwalk – and had to fork over big bucks for encountering our big, red hotels.

I much prefer a society that works together to land big red barns, sustainable crops and organic chocolate milk. As my wise daughter said, it will really come down to that.

Main Image: Sabrina.dent

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Got goats? If not, there’s a family-owned and operated grazing service in Orinda, California that will deliver to you a South American shepherd, Border Collie and trained herd to graze your ranch or yard. Used primarily for fuel mitigation, star thistle eradication and reducing pesky hillside brush, the livestock comes in a variety of breeds to munch sites as expansive as 30,000 acre ranches.

The Goats R Us business was bred by Terri (above) and Egon Oyarzun, who operate the ranch with the help of their animal-loving 13-year-old son, Zephyr.

Egon was born and raised in rural Southern Chile, where he got his training by helping his father break oxen to pull carts.

The family recruits shepherds from South America who live with the animals on the grazing property in a self-contained travel trailer and pens. The hired hands often work on horseback to reduce the use of motor vehicles on the range.

Portable electric fencing helps contain Billy and his friends – agricultural workers who, unlike much of the American workforce, don’t suffer from age discrimination and are given super retirement benefits.

The old goats are never sold and are invited to picnic and roam the hills of the company’s own ranch. The seniors are vaccinated and wormed three times a year. Hey, where do I sign up?

There’s also a training program for the new recruits. Every winter when a pre-selected group of nannies gives birth, the babies are raised with the herd where they learn to work with the doggies. Angora goats are the primary stock because of their thick mohair and hardiness which fair well in the chilly northern California winters.

Perhaps the smartest in the pack are the keen-eyed Border Collies, raised and trained by the Goats R US team to respond to calls, whistles and hand signals. The company says each shepherd and his dog team develop their own unique communication style and create a bond that helps them do get that job done, whether “moving goats through a wide grassland or the busy, narrow streets of San Francisco.”

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Call me a cynic, but I’m always skeptical when a powerful, multinational corporation announces any sweeping green initiative. I can’t help but pull back the shiny press release and look behind it. In the case of Carl’s Jr.’s recent unveiling of a flagship green restaurant in Carpentaria, Calif. there was one glaring omission – the food.

This list of goodies from Carl’s Jr. will get a green building expert all hot and bothered:

– ENERGY STAR rated appliances
– Solar reflective roofing material to reduce cooling needs
– Rainwater collection system
– Smart irrigation and energy management systems
– LED parking lot lights
– Construction with low-emitting material
– A catalyst that converts charbroiler particulate into carbon dioxide and water

But without addressing the food system’s impact on the environment (especially the fast food system) this initiative leaves a food activist like me cold.

According to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 31% of all greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture.

Livestock production accounts 18% of all emissions worldwide (more than transportation). Deforestation to make more room for agriculture and meat production also causes huge emissions.

Food waste is another big one. There have been some interesting studies in the UK.

Nitrogen fertilizers used in large-scale conventional agriculture are other big contributors.

And for all you locavores out there, I hate to tell you that transportation is a smaller part of the picture than people often assume (though there are plenty of other great reasons to eat locally). Production and processing are bigger contributors.

Obviously we have to eat, so we’ll never do away with food’s impact entirely. But there are some things we can do to lessen our own impact. The biggest change you can make is to eat less beef and cheese (or none at all). Oops, that eliminates most of the fast food menu, doesn’t it?

Eat less processed food. Eat organically grown foods that weren’t fertilized with conventional fertilizers. Don’t waste food. If you take all of these steps, it’s hard to see how you could eat in a fast food restaurant with any regularity at all – however green that restaurant might be.

Further reading:

Circle of Responsibility

The Media and Food’s Contribution to Climate Change

Image: Patrick Kitely

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