One thing we atheists seem to pride ourselves more and more these days over religious folks is our sense of morality – if we do good without the need for a supreme supernatural overseer to tell us to, then we must be morally superior. Is this really so I wonder? For starters, do atheists donate more to charity than the religious? Do we offer up our seats to the elderly more often? Do we treat our neighbours better, or contribute more to our communities? More often than not, I think, we would find that the answers to those questions would be a no. Of course, I am not in any way insinuating that atheism leads to immorality. Instead, I am trying to point out that if we want to claim to be morally superior, we have to put our money where our mouths are. Since this website is supposedly also advocating secular humanism, I should think these ideas aren’t very contentious. But what does vegetarianism have to do with anything? Well, here are some facts about the meat we eat everyday:

The Waste of Meat-Eating

Most of the meat we eat in North America come from factory farms, which are inherently extremely wasteful and inefficient. Consider that when we grow grains to feed the animals that in turn feed us, most of the energy in those grains go towards growing bones, skins, and self-repair mechanisms of the animals. In fact, it takes over 10kg of grain to raise 1kg of beef. How does it look like for other animals? Well…

Producing livestock requires a large amount of resources in terms of water and land on which to build farms and facilities. It also necessitates the use of even more land in order to grow the food to with the animals with. To put it into perspective, 1 hectare of land can feed 1 person per year if it produced beef, while it can feed 22 if it grew potatoes. The land used to produce meat would be several times more efficiently employed if used to grow soybeans, rice, corn, or wheat, both in terms of calories and proteins.

Growing meat, as it happens, also takes a huge amount of fresh water – a commodity the world is starting to seriously lack these days. Here is a chart showing exactly how much water that steaming juicy steak on your plate last night costs:

The world, as a whole, cannot sustain such a great strain on freshwater. This is especially true when the freshwater used for irrigation depletes rivers or underground aquifers faster than they are being replenished, as is happening in many parts of the world.

Really, eating meat is like driving a car to your next door neighbour’s for dinner – it makes no sense.

The Environmental Costs of Eating Meat
Cow vs Car
When asked about what the main contributors to global warming are, an average person would probably never pause to think about meat-eating. It would be pretty shocking then to find out that growing meat is actually one of the greatest producers of green house gases. This is because CO2 is produced when fossil fuels are burnt to produce fertilizers used to produce feed; methane is released from the breakdown of fertilizers and manure; fossil fuels are used during feed and animal production, and the transport of processed and refrigerated animal products.

A study in the New Scientist found that if an average American changed from eating meat to being vegan, he/she would manage to produce 1.5 tons less of CO2 per year, while changing to a hybrid fuel-efficient car would only save 1 ton per year.

Farm animals also produce methane and nitrous oxide, which, respectively, have 23 and 296 times the greenhouse effects of carbon dioxide. The decomposition of fertilizers and manure is responsible for 80 percent of agricultural methane emissions and about 35-40 percent of total anthropogenic methane emissions; and as for nitrous oxide, livestock produces 65 percent of the total anthropogenic emissions. Animal farming is thus one of the greatest contributors of global warming.

The Threat of Meat to Rainforests
Thanks to globalization and the reduction of trade barriers, the world is increasingly becoming a single market. This means that a global increase in meat consumption causes forests in other countries to be cut down to grow food for feeding animals. In Brazil, for example, vast areas of forest are being destroyed each year in order to grow soybeans that are exported to the US and Europe for feeding livestock. In 2002, 25,500 km of rainforest – an area the size of Belgium – was cleared, with the main reason being soyabean cultivation. All of this forest clearing then releases tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, while decreasing the amount of trees that soak up carbon dioxide.

The Ethical Dimensions
What Happens in Factory Farms
The chickens you buy in supermarkets are raised in very large sheds that hold tens of thousands of chickens, with each chicken given about an average of 96 square inches of room – the size of a standard 8.5 inch x 11 inch page of printing paper. In these sheds, chickens are unable to move without pushing through each other, unable to stretch their wings at will, or to flee aggressive birds.

These chickens suffer from a large variety of problems ranging from blindness, respiratory diseases, sores, and severe tearing caused by a build-up of feces, to chronic bone pain caused by having a growth rate many times the speed of normal chickens from selective breeding. As a side-effect of the selective breeding, these chickens have an enormous appetite, which if satisfied, will cause them to grow grotesquely large and die before reaching sexual maturity, and as a result, are consistently fed 60-80 percent less than their appetites desire.

Cattles, on the other hand, in order to be fattened as quickly and efficiently as possible, are kept on a diet of high-energy grains and corn instead of the roughage they eat normally. However, cattle’s digestive system evolved to break down grass, and when they do not eat it, a great amount of lactic acid accumulates in their rumens, causing gas problems so severe that cattle could suffocate from it. Liver abscesses are also another consequence of this. Giving cattle only corn to eat is equivalent to feeding humans with candy bars; and to prevent them from getting sick and dying before they can be slaughtered, they are injected with huge amounts of antibiotics.

So What?
As secular humanists, we should be cognizant of the ethical implications of our actions. It isn’t good enough to point out the moral sinkholes of bronze-age superstitions – we have to show the world that we can do better. It is frighteningly obvious that eating meat is a luxury for us living in the developed world, contributes to climate change, and is on highly shaky ethical grounds. So why wait? Do the right thing.

Sources and Further Reading

John Robbins, The Food Revolution, Conari Press, 2001
CAST (Council for Agricultural Science and Technology), 1999. Contribution of Animal Agriculture to Meeting Global Human Food Demand.

Livestock Revolution. Implications for Rural Poverty, the Environment, and Global Food Security, World Bank Report 23241, November 2001
D.Pimentel et al, “Water resources: agriculture, the environment, and Society,” BioScience, vol. 47 (1997), pp. 97-106.

J.L.Beckett and J.W.Oltjen, “Estimation of the Water Requirements for Beef Production in the United States,” Journal of Animal Science, vol.71 (1993) pp.818-826
D.Pimentel et al, “Water resources: Agricultural and Environmental Issues” BioScience, vol. 54 (2004), pp. 909-918.

Eshel, Gidon and Pamela Martin, “Diet, Energy and Global Warming,” Earth Interactions, May 2005
“Challenge to Fishing: Keep Unwanted Species Out of Its Huge Nets,” Otto Pohl, The New York Times, July 29, 2003

Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, 2nd edition, New York: Avon Books, 1990

J. Mason and P. Singer, The Ethics of What We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter, Rodale

I hate that living modestly is starting to be equated with disregarding the comforts that we’ve been given… instead of a noble and earth saving way of life.

I have a group of friends who all live together. In a maximum 6 person house (4 “real” bedrooms) there are 13 people. They have no television, only a couple of them have a computer, when I go over there are rarely lights on and they in no way went out of their way to buy new furniture or anything for the house. On top of these smaller things they also bike around – no one owns a car – cook together with vegan, organic, dumpster dived food and they run the house on grey water.

Just a quick summary for those who don’t know – dumpster diving is when you take food out of a dumpster to eat it. A lot of people get a little grossed out by this thought however having worked in a grocery store I assure you there is more than plenty of completely fresh and fine food being thrown out. Before knowing people who dumpstered I often thought “why would those dumpsters be locked???” but now I know that for whatever reason some grocery stores don’t want people stealing their garbage.

Grey water is essentially just reusing water. Most houses that are being built in Guelph are already implementing grey water systems directly into the house by connecting washing machine water to toilets. Said friends put the plug in during a shower and use shower water to flush toilets. And to be honest – the toilets don’t get flushed that often anyway.

For me, this would be an almost impossible way of living. I hate being cold, they never have the heater one. I live on my computer, they don’t have internet. I drink a liter of milk a day, they never drink milk. I will never will with a roommate ever again in my entire life unless I’m getting married, they live with 12 other people. It takes a lot of dedication and passion for the environmental movement to live this kind of lifestyle.

When I told my brother and a friend of mine about this they had the same reaction “that’s disgusting”. … I said that you would just have to get used it, but then they corrected me. Neither meant that it was physically disgusting, but that it was disgusting to see people choosing to live like “the poor”. They felt as though this was a mockery to people who couldn’t afford food, who couldn’t afford to live with just one family in a house and who couldn’t afford to keep their hydro on. Instead you have a household of by no means rich, but by no mean poor… group of kids who are choosing to not work and live like that. They choose to eat “garbage”, to be cold and to stay in the dark.

I brushed it off at the time, but it is now one thing that has been running through my head day in and day out. The only reason grocery stores throw out “almost” expired food is because if they lower the price people won’t buy the higher priced food - so they just keep it until it doesn’t make sense to sell it at the same price point and then toss out the perfectly good food.

Granted, dumpstering started out as a way to beat economic struggling but soon became a haven for “freeganism” (those who want to escape the consumerist life and culture) so it is backpacking off something poor people WERE doing. But with grey water… 50 - 80% of all residential water waste is from grey water.

Is what they are doing inherently wrong because they’re not taking advantage of all that is available to them? Or is it noble because they are not adhering to an overly comfortable lifestyle knowing what damage it does to the world.

I personally take the latter – I think that if you’re going to live in guilt or if you know that what you’re doing is wrong for the world and wrong socially then you just flat out shouldn’t do it. Sure, my friends aren’t taking advantage of a lot of “comforts” that are available to them, but they can also say that they are contributing less to huge problems. Continuing to simply “enjoy” and frivolously go about life without considering the impact that this “comfortable” life is doing is far more of a disgusting way to live than to try and do something about it.

If everyone here in Canada (or anywhere, really…) lived like that we’d have way less water waste, more food to distribute to the actual poor, we would create less of a carbon footprint in general and we’d be more in touch with the “real world” as opposed to being consumed in television and internet.

I can understand that people who have grown up in Canada or “western” life styles wouldn’t be comfortable living like my friends. However, unless you’re able to say that you are helping or lowering your over all impact on the world as much as they are – you should just shut your mouth. Living like that is a choice, it is not a mockery of people who can’t afford more “comfort” it is a choice to do the right thing for the world.

Best. Idea. Ever.

All we need now are for the regulations of the US crash testings to be lowered and we can all run on air powered cars! It also doesn’t run that fast, but honestly - if the amount of people that drove within areas that are about 50 - 60 km/hr had one of these it would make a huge difference in the amount of emissions.

Not to mention there is no problem is traveling slower I know no one wants to do that, but it is an option. So is driving more carfully and putting more restritctions on who drives so that the crash testings don’t have to be so hardcore. Less speed and more mature and carful drivers would decrease the amount of accidents, for sure.

I’ve always underrated a lot of art. I underrated the importance of art classes, art galleries and the meanings that art can portray. I always find it hard to see where the artist is coming from, unless there is really something there that I can relate to. The art that I found today most definitely had a thing or two I could relate to. Click on the pictures for a slightly bigger image of it, but check out the website for more detailed pictures, and other pictures.

Two million plastic water bottles; the number of water bottles used in the US every 5 minutes

Picture made out of 100 dollar bills equaling $12.5 million; the amount the US government spends every hour on the war in Iraq.

11 000 jet streams; the number of commercial flights made in the US every 8 hours.

60 000 plastic bags; number of plastic bags used in America ever 5 seconds.

426 000 cell phones; the number of cell phones retired in the US every day.

And some people still wouldn’t think that something is horribly wrong with our societies.

While I’m talking about really cool and striking art, I might as well link to this really amazing picture of evolution.

Again, click to see it larger…which you REALLY need to do for this one.

A bottle is just a bottle? Not when it’s being filled with tap water and sold… then it’s a bottle that is leaking chemicals into your water, selling for a ridiculous price and not being recycled. I was reading this month’s MacLean’s magazine and there is a big article in it about bottled water. The magazine sports quotes such as:

“Toting a natural resource that costs more than gasoline in a mottle destined to clog a landfill doesn’t exactly telegraph eco-cred”

“There’s mounting evidence that these containers are leaching toxins into the bererages we’re drinking and our children are drinking”

“There’s empirical evidence that these plastic ingredients are now in the bodies of every citizen … I am quite sure that a few years from now we will look back at these toxins and shake our heads and wonder ‘What the heck were we thinking?’ ”

“An estimated 88% of water bottles are not recycled. According to the Environment and Plastics Industry Council, Canadians sent 65 000 tonnes of PET beverage containers, many of them water bottles, to landfills or incineration in 2002.”

W.T.F.

Nearly 1 out of every 5 people in Canada drink bottled water exclusively. …another 3 out of every 5 drinking it once in a while. The United Church is calling for a ban on bottled water, not often do I side with a church.. .but I find myself siding with the United Church of Canada more often than not.

“If you’ve got $100 to spend on groceries each week, we don’t want people buying into some subliminal message that the water in their taps isn’t safe and that . . . they have to be spending $10 to $15 on a couple of cases of bottled water. In fact, they’re paying for their water twice. They’re buying that bottled water and they’re also paying taxes for water — crazy, if you’re on a limited income.”

Besides that I found out from my mom today that Nestle simply bottles the exact same water that the entire City of Guelph gets out of their taps, years ago Coke-A-Cola admitted that Dasani was simply tap water, as well. So why do people do it? The answer is simple - it’s a life style choice.

Bottled water such as Bling H20 is simply cool to carry around. Girls like to walk around university with bottled water so that people know she is exacerbating herself to the point where she must drink water all day. On the Bling H20 website they state that you can tell “a lot” about a person from the type of water they carry… Which is very true. People who carry Bling H20 are idiots, people who carry Nalgene’s full of tap water are hippies, and Madonna carries only blessed water. It’s a weird weird world. Last year the United States alone spent $11 billion drinking 8.3 gallons of bottled water. The average American consumed 28 gallons of their favorite brand comprising of up to $100 billion dollars for the global market of bottled water.

The price of the water is incredible. The new limited edition of Cobalt Bling costs over $500 for a case of 12. This really shows the power of marketing. You place a jeweled bottle on a girls photoshopped ass and you can charge $500 for water. A single serving of bottled water costs 1 - 2 dollars, depending on where you get it, the same amount of water from the tap costs a fraction of this. The Natural resources Defense Council in the US has estimated that, depending on the brand, bottled water costs 240 to 10 000 times the price of tap water… and this is for water that Coke and Pepsi just take out of their taps. Canone and Nestle just take it right out of the ground water. These companies are also not required by law to disclose the geographical location or source of their water.

Many people will say that bottled water is superior to tap water because it’s cleaner - but more and more peer reviewed journals are finding that there are disturbing amounts of toxic ingredients in water such as arsenic and mercury in bottled water. Again picking on Dasani, Coke had to retract nearly 1/2 a million bottles due to a bromate contamination. The NRCD ran a study with the following findings:

NRDC’s study included testing of more than 1,000 bottles of 103 brands of bottled water. While most of the tested waters were found to be of high quality, some brands were contaminated: about one-third of the waters tested contained levels of contamination — including synthetic organic chemicals, bacteria, and arsenic — in at least one sample that exceeded allowable limits under either state or bottled water industry standards or guidelines.

Bottled water is just so pointless. If it’s going to continue to be used, it should at least be different than what comes out of our taps. There should be stricter regulations and information readily available for what has gone into it, what tests have been made and why, exactly, it is so much better than what is coming out of our taps. And just as there is in BC - EVERYWHERE there should be deposit charges made on bottles! Then when you return them or recycle them you get some money back for the bottle. I think in BC it’s only $0.05 but it should be like $1.00 to give people more incentive to do it.

Don’t drink bottled water. …Really don’t drink Bling h20, if you do… you’re an idiot.