vegan/BeyondBeefEnvironment.html
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Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 10:33:20 EDT
From: wheeler@super.org (Ferrell S. Wheeler)
To: tms@cs.umd.edu
Subject: BB/FS Environment
FACT SHEET: ENVIRONMENTAL DEVASTATION
Beyond Beef Campaign
1130 17th St., NW
Suite 300
Washington, D.C. 20036
Tel: 202-775-1132
Fax: 202-775-0074
The Real Costs of Beef: Environmental Devastation
Cattle and beef production is a primary threat to the global
environment. It is a major contributor to deforestation, soil erosion
and desertification, water scarcity, water pollution, depletion of
fossil fuels, global warming, and loss of biodiversity.
Deforestation
* Cattle ranching is a primary cause of deforestation in Latin America.
Since 1960, more than one quarter of all Central American forests have
been razed to make pasture for cattle. Nearly 70 percent of deforested
land in Panama and Costa Rica is now pasture. [1]
* Some 40,000 square miles of Amazon forest were cleared for cattle
ranching and other commercial development between 1966 and 1983. Brazil
estimates that 38 percent of its rain forest was destroyed for cattle
pasture.[2]
* Just one quarter-pound hamburger imported from Latin America requires
the clearing of 6 square yards of rain forest and the destruction of 165
pounds of living matter including 20 to 30 different plant species, 100
insect species, and dozens of bird, mammal, and reptile species.[3]
Soil Erosion and Desertification
* Cattle production is turning productive land into barren desert in the
American West and throughout the world. Soil erosion and desertification
is caused directly by cattle and other livestock overgrazing.
Overcultivation of the land, improper irrigation techniques, and
deforestation are also principal causes of erosion and desertification,
and cattle production is a primary factor in each case.
* Cattle degrade the land by stripping vegetation and compacting the
earth. Each animal foraging on the open range eats 900 pounds of
vegetation every month. Their powerful hoofs trample vegetation and
crush the soil with an impact of 24 pounds per square inch.[4]
* As much as 85 percent of U.S. western rangeland, nearly 685 million
acres, is being degraded by overgrazing and other problems, according to
a 1991 United Nations report. The study estimates that 430 million
acres in the American West is suffering a 25 to 50 percent yield
reduction, largely because of overgrazing.[5]
* The United States has lost one third of its topsoil. An estimated six
of the seven billion tons of eroded soil is directly attributable to
grazing and unsustainable methods of producing feed crops for cattle and
other livestock.[6]
* Each pound of feedlot steak costs about 35 pounds of eroded American
topsoil, according to the Worldwatch Institute.[7]
Water Scarcity
* Nearly half of the total amount of water used annually in the U. S.
goes to grow feed and provide drinking water for cattle and other
livestock. Producing a pound of grain-fed steak requires the use of
hundreds of gallons of water. Producing a pound of beef protein often
requires up to fifteen times more water than producing an equivalent
amount of plant protein.[8]
* U.S. fresh water reserves have declined precipitously as a result of
excess water use for cattle and other livestock. U.S. water shortages,
especially in the West, have now reached critical levels. Overdrafts
now exceed replenishments by 25 percent.
* The great Ogallala aquifer, one of the world's largest fresh water
reserves, is already half depleted in Kansas, Texas, and New Mexico. In
California, where 42 percent of irrigation water is used for feed or
livestock production, water tables have dropped so low that in some
areas the earth is sinking under the vacuum. Some U.S. reservoirs and
aquifers are now at their lowest levels since the end of the last Ice
Age.[10]
Water Pollution
* Organic waste from cattle and other livestock, pesticides, chemical
fertilizers, and agricultural salts and sediments are the primary
non-point source of water pollution in the U.S.[11]
* Cattle produce nearly 1 billion tons of organic waste each year. The
average feedlot steer produces more than 47 pounds of manure every
twenty-four hours. Nearly 500,000 pounds of manure are produced daily
on a standard 10,000-head feedlot. This is the rough equivalent of what
a city of 110,000 would produce in human waste. There are 42,000
feedlots in 13 U.S. states.[12]
Depletion of Fossil Fuels
* Intensive animal agriculture uses a disproportionate amount of fossil
fuels. Supplying the world with a typical American meat-based diet
would deplete all world oil reserves in just a few years.[13]
* It now takes the equivalent of a gallon of gasoline to produce a pound
of grain-fed beef in the United States. The annual beef consumption of
an average American family of four requires more than 260 gallons of
fuel and releases 2.5 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, as much as the
average car over a six month period.[14]
Global Warming
* Cattle and beef production is a significant factor in the emission of
three of the four global warming gases -- carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide,
and methane.[15]
* Much of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere is directly
attributable to beef production: burning forests to make way for cattle
pasture and burning massive tracts of agricultural waste from cattle
feed crops. When the fifty-five square feet of rain forest needed to
produce one quarter-pound hamburger is burned for pasture, 500 pounds of
CO2 is released into the atmosphere.[16]
* CO2 is also generated by the fuel used in the highly mechanized
agricultural production of feed crops for cattle and other livestock.
With 70 percent of all U.S. grain production now used for livestock
feed, the CO2 emitted as a direct result is significant.[17]
* Petrochemical fertilizers used to produce feed crops for grain-fed
cattle release nitrous oxide, another greenhouse gas. Worldwide, the
use of fertilizers has increased dramatically from 14 million tons in
1950 to 143 million tons in 1989. Nitrous oxide now accounts for 6
percent of the global warming effect.[18]
* Cattle emit methane, another greenhouse gas, through belching and
flatulation. Scientists estimate that more than 500 million tons of
methane are released each year and that the world's 1.3 billion cattle
and other ruminant livestock emit approximately 60 million tons or 12
percent of the total from all sources. Methane is a serious problem
because one methane molecule traps 25 times as much solar heat as a
molecule of CO2.[19]
Loss of Biodiversity
* U.S. cattle production has caused a significant loss of biodiversity
on both public and private lands. More plant species in the U.S. have
been eliminated or threatened by livestock grazing than by any other
cause, according to the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO).[20]
* Riparian zones -- the narrow strips of land that run alongside rivers
and streams where most of the range flora and fauna are concentrated --
have been the hardest hit by cattle grazing. More than 90 percent of
the origienal riparian zones of Arizona and New Mexico are gone,
according to the Arizona State Park Department. Colorado and Idaho have
also been hard hit. The GAO reports that "poorly managed livestock
grazing is the major cause of degraded riparian habitat on federal
rangelands."[21]
* Unable to compete with cattle for food, wild animals are disappearing
from the range. Pronghorn have decreased from 15 million a century ago
to less than 271,000 today. Bighorn sheep, once numbering over 2
million, are now less than 20,000. The elk populaion has plummeted from
2 million to less than 455,000.[22]
* The government has worked with ranchers to make cattle grazing the
predominant use of Western public lands. The Bureau of Land Management
(BLM) has long favored ranching over other uses. BLM sprays herbicides
over large tracts of range eliminating vegetation eaten by wild animals
and replacing it with monocultures of grasses favored by cattle.[23]
* Under pressure from ranchers, the U.S. government exterminates tens of
thousands of predator and "nuisance" animals each year. In 1989, a
partial list of animals killed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's
Animal Damage Control Program included 86,502 coyotes, 7,158 foxes, 236
black bears, 1,220 bobcats, and 80 wolves. In 1988, 4.6 million birds,
9,000 beavers, 76,000 coyotes, 5,000 raccoons, 300 black bears, and 200
mountain lions, among others, were killed. Some 400 pet dogs and 100
cats were also inadvertently killed. Extermination methods used include
poisoning, shooting, gassing, and burning animals in their dens.[24]
* The predator "control" program cost American taxpayers $29.4 million
in 1990 -- more than the amount of losses caused by wild animals.[25]
* Tens of thousands of wild horses and burros have been rounded up by
the federal government because ranchers claim they compete with their
cattle for forage. The horses and burros are held in corrals, costing
taxpayers millions of dollars per year. Many wild horses have ended up
at slaughterhouses.
* For several years, cattle ranchers have blocked efforts to
re-introduce the wolf, an endangered species, into the wild, as required
by the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
Footnotes
[1] Catherine Caulfield, "A Reporter at Large: The Rain Forests," New
Yorker, January 14, 1985, 79.
[2] Ibid, 49.
[3] Julie Denslow and Christine Padoch, _People of the Tropical
Rainforest_ (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 169.
[4] John Lancaster, "Public Land, Private Profit," Washington Post, A1,
A8, A9; Lynn Jacobs, _Waste of the West: Public Lands Ranching_ (Lynn
Jacobs: Tuscon, AZ, 1991), 15.
[5] Myra Klockenbrink, "The New Range War Has the Desert As Foe," New
York Times, August 20, 1991, G4.
[6] Frances Moore Lappe', _Diet for a Small Planet_ (New York:
Ballantine Books, 1982), 80.
[7] Alan Durning, "Cost of Beef for Health and Habitat," Los Angeles
Times, September 21, 1986, V3.
[8] Lappe', _Diet for a Small Planet_, 76-77.
[9] David Pimentel and Carl W. Hall, _Food and Natural Resources_ (San
Diego: Academic Press, 1989), 41.
[10] Sandra Postel, _Water: Rethinking Management in an Age of
Scarcity_, Worldwatch Paper 62 (1984), 20.
[11] Pimentel and Hall, 89.
[12] M. E. Ensminger, _Animal Science_ (Danville, IL: Interstate
Publishers, 1991), 187, table 5-9; Based on analysis by John Sweeten,
Texas A&M, for the National Cattlemen's Association, 1990.
[13] Pimentel and Hall, 35.
[14] Alan Durning, "Cost of Beef For Health and Habitat," Los Angeles
Times, 3; Based on 65 pounds of beef consumed per person per year. The
auto CO2 emissions comparisons come from Andrew Kimbrell, "On the Road,"
in Jeremy Rifkin, ed., _The Green Lifestyle Handbook_ (New York, NY:
Henry Holt and Co., 1990), 33-42.
[15] Fred Pearce, "Methane: The Hidden Greenhouse Gas," New Scientist,
May 6, 1989; Alan Durning and Holly Brough, _Taking Stock: Animal
Farming and the Environment_, (Washington D.C.: Worldwatch Institute),
17; World Resources Institute, _World Resources 1990-91, 355.
[16] Greenhouse Crisis Statistical Review, Sources: World Resources
Institute, Rainforest Action Network, U.S. Department of Agriculture,
and Worldwatch Institute in _U.S. News and World Report_, Oct 31, 1988.
[17] David Pimentel, "Waste in Agriculture and Food Sectors:
Environmental and Social Costs," paper for Gross National Waste Product
Forum, Arlington, VA, 1989, 9-10. Pimentel concludes that substituting
a grass feeding livestock system for the present grain and grass system
would reduce energy inputs about 60 percent.
[18] Lester Brown et al., _State of the World 1990_ (New York, NY: W.W.
Norton and Co., 1990), 67; Fred Pearce, 38.
[19] Fred Pearce, 37; Methane emissions from livestock from World
Resources Institute et al. 1990-91, 346, Table 24.1; Cattle emissions
as a percent of livestock emissions from Michael Gibbs and Kathleen
Hogan, "Methane," _EPA Journal_, March/April 1990.
[20] George Wuerthner, "The Price is Wrong," _Sierra_, September/October
1990, 40-41.
[21] Wuerthner, 40: Jon Luoma, "Discouraging Words," _Audubon_,
September 1986, 92.
[22] Wuerthner, 41-42; Denzel Ferguson and Nancy Ferguson, _Sacred Cows
At The Public Trough_, (Bend, OR: Maverick Publications, 1983), 116.
[23] Ferguson and Ferguson, 158; Lynn Jacobs, 237.
[24] Keith Schneider, "Mediating the Federal War of the Jungle," New
York Times, July 9, 1991, 4E; Carol Grunewald, ed, _Animal Activist
Alert_, 8:3 (Washington D.C.: Humane Society of the United States,
1990), 3.
[25] Carol Grunewald, ed, _Animal Activist Alert_, 8:3, 3.
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