Name: Shehu Usman Inuwa

Class: Biology 4590-201 (Environmental Writing)

Date: Thursday, March 1, 2018

Assignment: Blog Post #1

Top Carnivore

            How long can you go without consuming meat? When`s the last time you’ve eaten a meal that didn`t involve eating meat? How often have we heard, “eat your vegetables”? How much effort do you think goes into making your savory cuisine? For many of us those questions are too hard to answer.

            According to the Journal of Wildlife Rehabilitation, the average American consumes a whopping 270 pounds of meat annually. That much meat for each Americans consumption annually must use up an awful lot of resources, which it does. In terms of bovine production, each cow requires up to 52.8 gallons of water and 74.5ft² of land for grazing daily (Teachout, 2015). One can beg to differ that factory farming is far less invasive in terms of overall land use, and you’re right. Yet, only 8 percent of livestock worldwide is grass fed only (New Internationalist, 2011). Grass feeding alone requires an enormous amount of forest to be destroyed for livestock production. More forest destroyed and land used for livestock production results in a decrease in habitat for native species. A decrease in native herbivores, due the competition with livestock, may force native predators to prey on livestock. The predators then of course end up killed, in order to protect the livestock.

As the citizens of this world, the more we rely of livestock as food, the greater the impact of environmental issues. The factory farming of pigs and chickens alone have polluted more than 35,000 miles of rivers in 22 states and contaminated ground water in 17 U.S. states (Teachout, 2015). That amount of pollution, along with methane, can wreak not only on native ecosystems, but worldwide. Methane is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide, which is why livestock production constitutes roughly 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gases (Teachout, 2015). This does not even include the amount of fuel needed for transport to slaughter, let alone the packaging of the product.

            How can we combat the war on livestock production as the world population increases, and richer countries rely on meat more often? There are alternatives to getting a daily regimen of vitamins, minerals, and nutrients, rather than from animals. Protein can be substituted with other protein rich foods, such as fish and nuts. Calorie rich foods, such as whole grains, may be used as substitutes for calories lost. Agricultural livestock land converted into strictly produce land will not only benefit the environment, but also humans. The produce and vegetables may do our bodies some good, and our bodies will thank us.

References

"On Last Month's Argument: Is Being Vegan the Only Green Option?." New Internationalist, no.            440, Mar. 2011, p. 37.

MACHOVINA, BRIAN and KENNETH J. FEELEY. "Taking a Bite out of Biodiversity."                        Science, vol. 343, no. 6173, 21 Feb. 2014, p. 838.

Teachout, Deb. "What's on Your Plate?." Journal of Wildlife Rehabilitation, vol. 35, no. 1, Jan.                2015, pp. 33-34.