Quote from: Lexy on May 14, 2011, 01:26:24
In terms of environmental impact, I think it's more a factor of excessive consumption. It's not necessary to eat a pound of meat everyday to live. It's just too much. They have to cut down rainforests just to make room for more & more cattle. People eat more meat then what is needed or even healthy for the body or the planet.
This isn't just about producing meat. Land has to be cleared for new fields to grow produce as well. This is more of an effect of people being disconnected from their food. It wasn't that long ago when most people grew atleast some of their food on their own land. Within a community almost, if not all, of the people's food was grown. It was consumed fresh and at its peak, supplying the best nutrients as well as energy.
Now few people, atleast in the US, grow any food at home. It isn't that they don't have the means, it is that they just don't. I drive around and see acres and acres of nicely mowed lawns. There are houses sitting on atleast 1 acre, though many times a lot more than that, with nothing but grass on them. What do they do with that grass? They just mow it. What a waste! If they wanted just grass the least they could do would be to put a cow or goat (or a few) out there to eat the grass and keep the 'lawn' trimmed and neat. Then at the end of the season they could have some meat, or have milk most of the year. A few animals do not require a lot of space.
If they wanted to, they could be growing atleast some of their food on a small patch of that, or all of it. In the time they spent mowing their yards they could have put time in growing some of their food. This would not only reduce the need to destroy forests for new mega fields, it would also provide them with fresher, healthier food and create a more stable and sustainable food supply.
Again the only reason we have these problems is because of industrial agriculture. Farming spread out in the form of small farms is much more environmentally friendly. Large concentrated mono 'crop' operations cause a lot of problems because they are not natural.