There has been a sweeping change in our food industry in the last several decades. We have

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1 Tim Hurty 8/8/14 Env. Ethics Phil. Position Paper The One Trillion Pounds of Manure in the Room There has been a sweeping change in our food industry in the last several decades. We have moved away from the small farm growing a variety of different crops and housing a variety of livestock. Moving instead into a massive industrial food system that streamlines the process and increases profit at any cost. This cost, thought to have disappeared from efficiency, in the form of massive environmental and social damage, is then spread across the rest of society in what Garrett Hardin refers to as the tragedy of the commons. In his 1968 article by the same name Hardin claims overpopulation because of the welfare state as the tragedy; targeting the poor welfare recipients who cannot feed their children as the threat; though the greater threat to the commons are the corporate welfare recipients, especially in the animal agriculture, who cause the most damage to ecosystems and the people. We need to, force change by changing our diets and having most of the country convert to veganism; as well as demand economic and regulatory change for the industry from our government. With the mounds of evidence of the damages animal agribusiness causes to the environment and society as a whole; not many environmental advocacy groups mention agribusiness as being the top destructive force that they are (Andersen & Kuhn, 2014), but no one can truly consider him or herself an environmentalist and continue to consume animal products without conscience. Animal Agriculture poses a major ecological threat to the planet s atmosphere. A World Watch report by Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang states livestock and their byproducts actually account for at least 32,564million tons of CO2 per year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide GHG emissions (Goodland & Anhang, 2009). The report explains how this is due to CO 2 released through breathing; because livestock exist in the high numbers they do as a form of human invention the CO 2 from livestock is no more natural, and much more abundant, than CO 2 released by 1

2 transportation(goodland & Anhang, 2009). In addition to this massive release of CO 2 from livestock, large amounts of rainforests, housing trees responsible for taking CO 2 and turning it back into O 2 is cleared in order to have land available to produce more cattle, further reducing the capabilities of the planet to handle the before stated high amounts of CO 2. According to a new documentary film, Cowspiracy, an acre of rainforest is cleared every second and the leading cause is to graze animals and grow their food crops; meaning of any industry, animal agriculture clears the most forest. So, not only is it putting the most greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, it also decreasing the earth s capabilities to deal with those gasses the most. (Andersen & Kuhn, 2014) Another greenhouse gas Methane, is of particular concern to the atmosphere. The World Watch report also states 37percent of human induced methane emissions are due to animal agriculture. Methane has a significantly lower half-life in the atmosphere than CO2, and warms the atmosphere much more than CO2; meaning a reduction in this methane emission would provide significant, instantaneous results against climate change (Goodland & Anhang, 2009). The pollution caused by animal agriculture does not stop with greenhouse gasses. Waste generated by the industry presents another major concern. In his book Meatonomics David Simon Robinson brings up data from a 2003 EPA study saying The ten billion land animals raised yearly in the united states generate 1 trillion pounds of manure, enough toxic waste to fill New York s Giants stadium two hundred fifty times (Simon, 2013). This amount of waste presents a huge problem to deal with for the industry, and of course, therefore, the rest of us. In Pork operations this manure along with much other waste in the form of urine, blood, and flesh is flushed into open-air lagoons. These lagoons become an unnatural-looking pink hinting at the toxicity they must contain (Becker, 2014). These lagoons have also been known to drain, or leak into the water systems nearby. Meatonomics states that leaking of animal waste into the water system is routine, citing numerous sources. A major environmental problem caused by this waste 2

3 entering water systems is algal blooms. When waterways get polluted with manure or fertilizer, certain types of algae flourish. These algae cause an influx of oxygen in the water and create dead zones where fish and other species are killed and nothing else can grow (Simon, 2013). A satellite photo enhanced to show massive dead zones caused by oxygenation in the Mississippi river delta in the Gulf of Mexico shown in the film Cowspiracy is especially shocking. A recent New York Times piece on fresh water concerns in Ohio discussed the damages caused by algal blooms in Lake Erie.. Much of the pollution is being washed in from agriculture primarily from animal feed lots and large scale crops planted to produce animal feed (Wines, 2014). It is common practice to spray nearby fields with a mist of this toxic substance to try and empty these lagoons as they reach capacity. This spraying pollutes the air as well as the water presenting a major health concern, costing money in cleanup and making life unbearable to anyone who lives nearby a factory farming operation. The concerns of animal agriculture and water do not end there. In relation to other forms of agriculture animal agribusiness uses immense quantities of water. Drought is a widespread issue these days. Raising animals in the U.S. alone requires 34 trillion gallons of water. The makers of Cowspiracy claim 55% of water use is attributable to animal agriculture, and it takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce 1lb of beef. This is in large part due to the large amounts of monocrops being grown as the primary feed for animals raised for food (Andersen & Kuhn, 2014). Pound for pound it takes 100 times as much water to produce animal protein as it does grain protein (Simon, 2013). Even the forms of plant protein that are higher on water use don t get closer than ten to one compared to animal protein (Simon, 2013). Even grass-fed and organic beef is not better for on water consumption, it is better they are not pumped full of hormones and antibiotics, grass-fed beef is even more water intensive than beef fed by monocrop feed. Also, The space needed to grow enough grass-fed beef to satisfy our demand simply does not exist, it would take more Polyface farms than is possible, or such tiny servings of meat; it would make no sense (Simon, 2013). No truly sustainable form of animal agriculture exists to meet our current demands. 3

4 The agricultural system that causes these problems is bolstered by economic and governmental policy; set up to keep people consuming exorbitant amounts of animal products. Subsidies keep prices low and force demand high. Thanks to subsidies, from from 1980 to 2008, the inflation-adjusted prices of ground beef and cheddar cheese fell by 53 and 27 percent, respectively. During the same period, the inflation-adjusted prices of prices of fruits and vegetables rose by 46 and 41 percent respectively (Simon, 2013). This means during this period significant subsidized advantages held by the meat and dairy industry, but not by the fruit and vegetable growers, allowed meat and dairy prices to remain unusually low; in fact meat and dairy are often being produced at a loss, but subsidies cover that loss and more (Simon, 2013). This economic force allows for unusually low prices, which then increase demand, and cause over consumption, increasing environmental damage and healthcare costs on society. Animal food products are directly linked to being large contributors to the three most common health issues in America; cancer, heart disease, and diabetes (Simon, 2013). Those who want to debate diets effects on these diseases and American s high occurrence of them bring up longevity; Claiming Americans simply are blessed to live long enough to naturally acquire these diseases. These allegations, however, are false. Americans rank fiftieth in longevity and many of the nations who live longer, have lower rates of diseases (Simon, 2013). This decadent American diet causes much externalized cost spread on to society as a whole (Simon, 2013). The forces that drive this choice in diet are not as simple as we may think. We are not simply choosing to eat an unhealthy diet. Nutritional standards for healthy eating put forth by organizations already suggest eating too much of certain foods; due largely to the fact these organizations suffer from many conflicts of interest (Simon, 2013). Americans consume even more of these unhealthy foods than the already high suggestions. This is due to subsidies. In his book Meatonomics, Simon calculates that the externalized costs of animal agriculture total $414 billion dollars and are put back onto society, instead of being paid by the corporations who are making huge profits (Simon, 2013). The 4

5 environmental and economic damages affiliated with the animal agriculture industry coalesce and work in tandem to bear quite the burden on the commons. The ecologist Garrett Hardin wrote extensively about the tragedy of the commons. his hypothetical description of his theory even involves animal agriculture. A rancher, who has his cattle grazing on grassland that is publically owned or shared, has no incentive to not put one more, then one more, then one more cow onto the shared land to graze when it means more profit to him. Sure his actions may cause ecological destruction and harm society as a whole, but that damage is shared and spread across to everyone, making the profit to him large, and the loss to him, after it is spread out to everyone else, small (Hardin, 1968). After all in a capitalist system wherein the duty of the capitalist lies with growing and multiplying the economy, isn t this the most moral thing to do? In his 1968 Article The Tragedy of the Commons Hardin holds overpopulation and the welfare state responsible for this tragedy. His argument is that if individuals and families were on their own they would have fewer children as their children would simply starve to death and the behavior of reproducing in excess would decrease. While this theory may in fact be valid, I find it unethical, unnecessary, and impossible of actually being implemented to prevent environmental collapse. It is more likely what will happen as a by-product of climate change when society crumbles. I believe there is a way to ensure there is enough food for everyone; the planet currently produces enough plant based food to feed the entire planet, it just takes not feeding it all to livestock (Andersen & Kuhn, 2014). I think Hardin targets the wrong welfare recipient. The real problematic welfare recipient is the corporate welfare recipient. I believe the real problem is the deregulation and cutthroat profit motive of neoliberal capitalism. The real abusers of the commons are the massive corporations who pull in huge profits and inflict huge externalized costs onto society. I have used several pages showing only a small glimpse of the environmental and economic impact corporate welfare, in animal agribusiness, plays in this destruction. 5

6 A chain of economic forces allows and encourages animal agriculture to inflict a massive amount of damage on both the environment and the economy. This system makes everyone complicit in this tragedy of the commons; from every level of omnivore to vegan, we pay the bill for externalized costs and our money goes to keep the system running. It is clear that this problem, as I believe it to be, presents quite a challenge for resolution. The system forces the rational purchase of meat because of its cheap price, yet if we hope to avert climate collapse we need to get our animal food product lust under control. This will take hoards of people transitioning to veganism, and the rest severely limiting their animal food product consumption. Policy changes for the use of money in subsidizing business, and for ties between corporations and government will need to be advocated for. Programs will need to be set up to help farmers and workers transform the lands once dedicated to animal agriculture and their feed crops, into farms for a variety of fruits and vegetables. This change will not be happily accepted by big business and politicians will fear supporting it, but it is possible for small movements, representing impossible change, to grow and eventually spread that change to the world. Anyone who considers him or herself to truly be an environmentalist cannot do so with a piece of meat in their mouth. Now for the obligatory Martin Luther King quote. In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. As the quote intimates, any friend of the environmental movement, needs to take animal agriculture into serious consideration. 6

7 Works Cited Andersen, K., & Kuhn, K. (Directors). (2014). Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret [Motion Picture]. Becker, O. (2014, July 4). The Shitty Secret Behind All Those July 4th Hot Dogs. Vice News. (J. Mojica, Ed.) Goodland, R., & Anhang, J. (2009, November/December). Livestock and Climate Change. Retrieved July 5, 2014, from Worldwatch.org: Hardin, G. (1968). The Tragedy of the Commons. Science, 162, Simon, D. R. (2013). Meatonomics. San Fransisco: Conari Press. Wines, M. (2014, August 4). Behind Toledo's Water Crisis, a Long Troubled Lake Erie. Retrieved from 7