Eating meat has devastating effects on the environment

Question: Should you go vegan?
Position‹2 of 2: Eating animal products is unethical
Argument‹3 of 5›: Eating meat has devastating effects on the environment

The Union of Concerned Scientists lists meat-eating as the second-biggest environmental hazard facing the Earth

The argument

Proponents of this position argue that meat production is not sustainable for the planet, and that its environmental cost is what makes eating animal products an ethical question rather than merely a dietary one. The damage, on this view, is structural rather than incidental. Meat production pollutes through fossil fuel usage, through the methane animals produce and through effluent waste, while also consuming water and land on a scale that growing crops does not require. Removing meat from a diet therefore cuts both an individual's carbon footprint and the wider damage done to the environment. The mechanism supporters point to is the inefficiency of routing food through an animal first. Land, water and energy must be spent growing vegetation, which is then converted into a much smaller quantity of edible flesh. According to PETA, a cow must consume seven pounds of vegetation in order to convert it into one pound of flesh. On this account every pound of meat carries the full environmental cost of the crops behind it, plus the cost of keeping the animal alive, so meat can never match crops grown directly for human consumption on resource use. The water figures are offered as the clearest illustration. Raising animals for food is said to consume more than half of all water used in the United States, with 2,500 gallons required to produce a pound of meat against only 25 gallons for a pound of wheat, a hundredfold difference for a comparable weight of food. Supporters conclude that a practice imposing pollution, land conversion and water consumption of this magnitude, when a far less costly alternative exists, has devastating effects on the environment and cannot be defended as ethically neutral.

Premises

[P1]Meat production pollutes through fossil fuels, animal methane, effluent waste, and heavy water and land consumption, so it is not sustainable for the planet. [P2] Producing meat requires far more land, water, and energy than crops — PETA notes a cow must eat 7 pounds of vegetation to yield 1 pound of flesh. [P3] Raising animals for food consumes over half of all US water, with 2,500 gallons needed per pound of meat versus 25 gallons per pound of wheat. [C] Therefore, eating meat has devastating effects on the environment.

Counter-arguments

Some of the factors causing environmental damage are inevitable. The land taken up by animals is necessary even if we did not eat them and methane emission is natural. Also, there are many other causes of environmental damage that would - if regulated or stopped - have the effect of making our planet sustainable.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] Stopping the production of animal products would not fix climate change.