The Cost of Eating Meat

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The Cost of Eating Meat

• A quick look at the environmental degradation
  caused by the livestock industry.

By Amanda Kern
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• Most of us dont know or choose not to
• know how meat is made because
• intensive production systems allow us the
• luxury of not thinking about how the
• implications of factory farming are affecting
• our natural world (SOTW, 2006).

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Factory Farming and the loss of animal husbandry

• The bottom line
• Produce as much meat as possible at the lowest
  cost.

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Environmental Impacts

• Climate change and air pollution
• Water depletion and pollution
• Land degradation

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Livestock cover a third of the terrestrial
planets total surface area, use more than two
thirds of its agricultural land and are found in
nearly every country.
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Steps Towards a Solution

• 1. Policy makers need to change prices on
  environmental resources to reflect their value
  taking into account the environmental cost
  externatilites of meat production
• 2. Industrial livestock production should be
  decentralized to accessible croplands where
  wastes can be recycled without overloading soils
  and freshwater

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References

• Rifkin, Jeremy. The Green Lifestyle Handbook
  1001 Ways You Can Heal the Earth. New York,
  Greenhouse Crisis Foundation, 1990.
• Melina, Vesanto and Brenda Davis. The New
  Becoming Vegetarian. Tennessee, Healthy Living
  Publications, 2003.
• Cunningham, William P., Mary Ann Cunningham and
  Barbara Saigo. Food and Agriculture.
  Environmental Science Eighth Edition. New York,
  McGraw Hill, 2005.
• Nierenberg, Danielle. Factory Farming in the
  Developing World. Environment 06/07. Iowa,
  McGraw Hill, 2007.
• Myers, Norman and Jennifer Kent, 2003. New
  consumers The influence of affluence on the
  environment. Proceedings of the National Academy
  of Sciences, Vol. 100, No. 8, 4963-4968.
• Fraser, David, 2005. Animal welfare and the
  intensification of animal production. Food and
  Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
  Rome, 2005.
• Steinfeld, Henning, Pierre Gerber, Tom Wassenaar,
  Vincent Castel, Mauricio Rosales and Cees de
  Haan. Livestocks Long Shadow Environmental
  Issues and options. Food and Agriculture
  Organization of the United Nations. Rome, 2006.
• Boyle, Eleanor. Climate Change and the Livestock
  Industry. Climate For Change. 2007. March 10,
  2008 http//climateforchange.ca/?qResources/Lives
  tock