...pushed this line about global warming on Bill Maher a couple of weeks ago, although without any of the criticism of environmentalists.

an environmental group. It is an animal-rights group, and I think it's important that people are aware of that distinction.

~Holly

There are lots of reasons to be vegan/vegetarian and one of them is environmental.  The waste that is generated from factory farms is overwhelming.  The idea of the family farm is hardly true in this country and is being used to model farms in other countries now.  No one wants to live near factory farms, which are by far how most meat eaters in this country get their meat. Animal production (so cold, they are living beings) is extremely resource intensive, wasting tons of water and grain that could be used to feed humans.  
I'm not a fan of PETA, I don't like their campaigns for the reasons stated in the article, but I think that being a vegetarian or at least someone that eats very little meat of any kind is vital to the lessening of global warming.  
May I suggest reading Fast Food Nation, or Beyond Beef.  Our farming practices and eating habits are going to be the death of us, as well as, our world.  

I am more than a little tired of reading this garbage in grist. I would have given up my subscription a long time ago if it were not for all the other folks that will inevitably agree me with me in subsequent posts. Eating dead animals in this country is bad for the environment, the evidence is absolutely overwhelming. People who disagree simply refuse to face the facts. The climate crisis aside, raising animals for food is incredibly wasteful and destructive. As far as being a carnivorous environmentalist, since humans cannot survive as carnivores, I will assume this guy means omnivorous environmentalists, which is, in fact, an oxymoron.

Like I said, I wish grist would stop publishing such non-sense; I'd expect as much from some right-wing soapbox such as Fox news. As far as, facilitating debate, just like the supposed debate on global warming, there is no debate, eating animals is bad for the environment. Shame on you grist for perpetuating such misinformation and confusion. Kudos to PETA for doing the right thing.

Folks who are still eating meat, fowl, and fish in 2007 remind me a lot of people who used to smoke tobacco way back in the 1980s. Touchy, is how I would describe them.

We now all know just how bad smoking is for you and for everyone around you even though its taken a generation for many people to recognize it.

But instead of all the rhetoric about holier-than-though and the like, let's see a discussion about the reasons why eating animal products is good for people and the planet. If eating animals is a good thing, it may not get me to change my diet, but at least I'll stop encouraging people to eat lower on the food chain. What do you say?

Tom Kelly

Statements like this are divisive and totally counterproductive.  This is PETA saying "our cause matters above all others, if you don't agree with us, you might as well burn your trash, drive a hummer and (gasp) have voted for Bush".  

Not to mention they are flat out lying when they say "Meat is the #1 Cause of Global Warming". Nice statistic.  Who is collecting PETA's data?  Pee-Wee Herman and Captain Crunch?  Get real guys.  

I've been a vegetarian most of my life... But I'm not an idiot.  This isn't going to garner PETA any more support and will likely turn a lot of people off.

A huge portion of the earth's surface is not suitable for cropping, but is great for growing permenant grass and pasture.  That green stuff can very nicely be converted to usable protien for humans by ruminant animals (cows, sheep, goats etc.).  Eating grass fed beef, lamb, and so forth is not a bad option.  The weathiest and the poorest folks on earth seem to have this option, interestingly.  Not sure how to make it more available to those in the middle... BUT acting as though meat eating per se is terrible is not a very useful strategy, unless you are just trying to establish your virtue in some sort of 'eat your way to heaven/nirvana' approach.

smsweitzer

"Eating dead animals in this country is bad for the environment, the evidence is absolutely overwhelming. People who disagree simply refuse to face the facts."

None of us disagree with you. Did you read the letter at all?

Eating plant-based foods instead of animal-based foods is so much better for the earth, our health, and of course, the animals! It just makes sense to go vegan--everyone benefits.

Whoa, is that your guilty conscience talking, Alex?

Obviously, PETA is using hyperbole to make a point. Duh. Any activist group worth its salt does that. And the reason they do it is because it works. Look at how PETA managed to get global warming and animal agriculture's impact on it covered by the New York Times. Seems like they  must be doing something right.

The point is: Animal agriculture--local, regional, global, intergalactic--contributes to global warming and host of other environmental problems on a huge scale. This is a plain fact. But it is one that is being largely ignored by many environmental groups. PETA is absolutely right to point out this glaring elephant on the plate that everyone is trying to nibble around.

Unlike the folks that are ready to throw in the towel on the Grist cause of their position on this... I know that the Grist is good, just apparently not perfect.

If we don't want to appear strident in our message and play nice-nice, that's fine. But don't slam the message of other groups making solid points just cause they are willing to be more 'in yo' face'.

Yes, PETA would likely be in the top 5 of groups who are consistently willing to be strident and maybe even get extreme to make a point (gotta concede, even if with a chuckle, that a guy in a chicken suit in a Hummer would qualify) but lets face that such methods work.  Or have we already forgotten the strident cries of the Swift Boat campaign?  And those guys weren't even telling the truth (Dole went down about 50 points on my scale with that and he only had about 6 points to begin with).

Anyway, Grist... ummm... stop whining.  In this case, PETA is not only on the 'right' side of the issue - you are looking like total SCHMUCKS for not espousing their point if not their methods.

You can still pick on PETA if you want... but give them their due.  Simply 'minimizing' damage in this area isn't enough.  There is so little that individuals can do while this country elects leaders like Bush.  Each individual needs to start focusing on EVERYTHING they can do... not just the minimum.  I see it all the time with many causes... people going through the motions of the minimum necessary to be politically correct so that they can think of themselves as 'good' and be a bit self righteous.

Guess what? Grist you are guilty of exactly what you are accusing PETA of... being self righteous and judgmental.  Kudos.

I'm a lifelong vegetarian, environmentalist, and animal advocate.  I am not a fan of PETA's platform or its methods - but that is a soapbox for another day.
Factory farming is an environmental nightmare.  Small, sustainable, personal farming is not.  It is entirely possible to eat meat and be an environmentalist, if one supports sustainable, humane farming; consumes reasonable (small) quantities; and speaks out against Factory Farming methods.  In fact, it is probably the meat eaters who have the biggest clout in changing the horrendous methods under which most meat is produced! Unfortunately, most of them are uninformed about what really goes on, and most of the rest don't care.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA....

I have a great friend that works for the EPA.  He's a subscriber to Mother Jones... and got into that path cause of his passionate interests in the environment dating back to the 70s. So yea, he's an old fart now.

He's the most incensed person I've ever seen about the EPA. He stays there hoping he can make some small difference now that he's further up the food chain.  Fact is though, he's DISGUSTED with every report that has come out of the place.  Everything is skewed to facilitate to 'concern du jour'.

So, your logic is that if cars are the number one cause of global warming, we should just throw our hands up and ignore numbers 2-200?

Brilliant.

YEP, YEP, YEP... PETA is a bunch of terrorists.  All the government agencies tell us so and we can go on believing it.  Brilliant.

Does ANYONE ever notice political extremism?  Someone comes out with an outlandishly extreme position on something... gets LOADS of publicity cause they are such nuts and are dismissed.  Or are there?  After such campaigns, studies can often indicate that the median position on the subject shifted in their direction.  Maybe to a miniscule degree..but there it is, a shift.

Ingrid Newkirk was quoted (but not nearly so frequently as other quotes) saying that PETA is a PUBLICITY WHORE.  If you put that in the context... the recipe doles out a delightful indication of why their position evolves as it does.

Yes, they also have a point in saying we should all give up our pets.  Sure you love them and I love them...but what about the millions that aren't loved?  Are you selfless enough to contemplate giving up your emotional satisfaction of making something dependent upon you and then thinking you're great for it, long enough to realize the cruelty/neglect that would prevent and eradicate?

Yes, dogs and cats are carnivores (of varying degrees).  Cats are FAR more dependent on meat than dogs.  And guess what, people are NOT AT ALL.  It's purely some sort of elitism to say that 'well meat is expensive and I am not going to feed it to my cats and dogs if I can't eat it too'.  Tradition is NOT the same as Biology.  

Sheesh... do some of your own research sometime instead of just making self serving knee jerk reactions... can't ya?

Don't know why you'd even write this. PETA's methods are not to start a discussion or even pretend to have one. They're methods are just designed to make you feel guilty for not agreeing with them. Well and to get people to write about their extreme stance and tactics so they get even more PR. I certainly hope to never live in a world where PETA's vision for animals comes to pass. Although it would be amusing to see the faces of the people who didn't really realize what they were agreeing to.

"Cats are FAR more dependent on meat than dogs."

Cats are obligate carnivores which means they can't survive on anything but meat.

Dogs like humans are omnivores. Show me a vegan that can eat a natural, healthy diet without eating fortified food or taking supplements and maybe I'll change my mind that humans are meant to be omnivores.

There's a big logical leap from "Factory farming is bad" to "People who eat any meat don't care about the environment (and probably kick kittens too.)"  What about eating local and organic meat? What about catching it yourself?  What if you eat factory-farmed meat, but you've worked tirelessly to protect large swathes of land?  Some perspective, please.

This strain of self-righteous veganism is really counter-productive.  If you want people to stop eating meat, stop talking down to them and start being helpful.  Bust out the delicious meat-free recipes and take baby steps.  

Encourage people to buy local, organic meat in the meantime.  You're not going to stop industrial farming overnight.  But the people whose dollars actually drive factory farming can be persuaded to put those dollars towards more sustainable practices.  That's a step in the right direction.

wow... bringing that up.

Did you ever bother to read the follow up story?  PETA was guaranteeing a HUMANE end for those animals.  There IS a limit to what we can rescue.  5 Million animals die per year cause there aren't enough homes.  do you know that each person in the US would have to have 5 dogs and I forget how many cats (not 5 per household... 5 per person) to eradicate euthanasia as a way of dealing with the 'excess'.

The shelters that PETA visited with that van were using gasing.. yes just like concentration camps... en masse to kill animals. Do you wanna picture that one?  Crowd some animals into a space and assuming fights don't break out immediately you can be sure they will when they panic.  Course that only lasts a few minutes (not a few seconds) as the gas does its grisly job.

PETA took those animals and euthanized them in a way that we have to call humane, if only by comparison.  The poor approach in disposing of the bodies was the bad decision of a young PETA employee.  Not an excuse... just a fact.  Don't confuse what they did and why they were in a position to do it with what happened.

By the way, I lived in the Virginia Beach area at the time... and knew the shelter in NC that was central to the brou-ha-ha.

If you think for one second that you are going to convince Americans to stop eating meat you have lost your mind. Yes we should all eat less meat, but when you force this down their throat, no progress will be made. Most likely they will say, look at the wackadoo hippie environmentalists, they are sooo silly. Its hard enough to get normal people to make good decisions about the environment without the "YOUR GOING TO HELL" complex turning the general public against the movement. Promote eating less meat. Calling the typical meat eating American the devil, you will get no positive results. What reaction are you trying to get? What good are you truly doing but beating your chest, look at me I am meat free!! Burning bridges with the meat eaters will only make it harder for us to do the right thing. Maybe just say a chicken nugget has X carbon emission while a Tofu nugget has this. Make your statement positive. This statement from peta makes me wanna go eat a burger. WITH CHEESE!! mmmm cheese.

"And in its rush to judgment, PETA snubs the millions of meat-eating environmentalists who encourage such improved agricultural practices by seeking out locally grown, humanely-raised, pasture-fed meat from farmers' markets."

It is no more environment-friendly to eat these kinds of cattle than factory-farmed cattle. This kind of farming still damages the environment in the same way the factory farms do: it takes up land, creates huge amounts of waste, emits methane gas, and kills animals. As much as you try to escape the fact, eating meat= harming the environment.

I find the "environmentalists do this and environmentalists don't do that" blanket statement ridiculous. "Environmentalist" is a self-identification.

I happen to be a vegetarian. If somebody who was a vegan told me that she perceived my egg-eating as inconsistent with her view of environmentalism: fine. Then we could have a discussion about why I live and eat the way I do, and why she lives and eats the way she does.

But if she came in and said "you obviously aren't an environmentalist, you egg-eater you" that would piss me off. Who are you to tell me that my self-identification is wrong? The very idea of someone else mandating how you see yourself is ludicrous.

No wonder everybody's so pissed off. Imposing your agenda on someone is no way to sway them to your side, or even to get them to respectfully disagree with your point of view. This issue wouldn't be nearly so divisive if we were all a tad more open-minded: willing to let go of the idea that our own way of doing things is the Only Right Way.

Why some of the most good-intentioned bleeding heart environmentalists refuse to believe that animal production produces enormous amounts of greenhouse gases.  Whether that cow or sheep you plan to eat is farting locally, or at some distant factory farm, his methane is warming the earth ounce for ounce a lot more than CO2.  

In the article above, Roth says that PETAs stance isn't fair for those who 1)want to capture their own meat or 2)participate in better agricultural practices.  But the AP synopsis of the Lancet article on meat affecting climate change addresses both of these assertions.  1)Wild is fine, but there isn't enough to go around for the developed world's meat lust. We still would have to cut back significantly.  "The amount of meat eaten varies considerably worldwide. In developed countries, people typically eat about 224 grams per day. But in Africa, most people only get about 31 grams a day."
2) Well, they spell it out.
"Other ways of reducing greenhouse gases from farming practices, like feeding animals higher-quality grains, would only have a limited impact on cutting emissions. Gases from animals destined for dinner plates account for nearly a quarter of all emissions worldwide."  

I don't care for PETAs methods (driving a hummer around the country, while claiming to stump for the environment!) and they are NOT an environmental organization, just an opportunistic animal rights group.  But they are right.  We need to drastically cut back our meat and dairy consumption, as painful as that might be to hear.  Not only would it significantly reduce green house gases, it would free up plenty of hay and corn fields to be real habitat.  Maybe we could reverse some of the habitat fragmentation to some allow animals and plants to shift their range north.  The change is coming.  The question is, how much are we willing to give up to lessen the blow?  Every action counts.  

As I chomp down on my chicken cesar salad I wonder if we have lost our collective minds in America. Just like with religion there are those who will question how righteous others are in their beliefs. Are we going to start witch hunts next to determine who is "truly" green and who isn't? If eating meat is the new litmus test then check my name off the green list.

Vicki Stokes
San Francisco, CA

if you go to the official US statistics on carbon emmissions, and look at the diagram on page 15, it will be quite clear that oil, gas and coal generate the vast bulk of GHG's.  I agree that factory farming of cows, pigs, and chickens is disgusting and horribly inefficient and should be shut down, but the facts just aren't there for the ridiculous statement about meat causing global warming.

While I'm not going to wade into the debate over the ethics of eating meat, I will contribute this:

Raising farm animals can contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, but not necessarily just because of CO2 emissions.  Large scale factory farms do generate mountains (and lakes) of manure, which can produce nitrous oxides and methane emissions (both much more potent greenhouse gases than CO2).  Ruminants also exhale methane, courtesy of the bugs that live in their guts.

The IPCC has even developed methodologies for estimating greenhouse gas emissions (particularly NOx and CH4) that result from farming and animal husbandry activities.  Apparently they thought it a potentially important enough emissions source to mention it.

Not to bang the drum:  Industrial farming seems at least as dangerous as pissing away fossil fuels to produce electricity or run Hummers.

People love to hate PETA, including me.  They're the reason I can't tell most people that I'm vegan.  But no matter who the messenger is, or how it's delivered, it's true. The earth is warming, and we caused it to happen. What are you going to say to your grandchildren in 2050 when they ask you what you personally did to prevent global climate change? Are you going to tell them that someone hurt your feelings, so you decided it would be better to proudly eat your hamburger than participate in real change? Okay, so unpopular PETA was the one to speak up first.  Still, the emperor has no clothes.

Grist and PETA both affect a quirky sensibility - make a big deal about what's fashionable.  Whatever. The "top 15" lists are popular with a digital nation that grew up watching David Letterman. Etc.

Meat consumption really is a big deal, environmentally, and Grist would be foolish to ignore this environmental issue.  Likewise, for a group like PETA, meat production is a huge moral issue -  to make a big deal about fur jackets and ignore hamburgers would be pretty idiotic.

Grass-fed local beef production, and free-range chicken living off the fallen fruit and wheat seed heads and various bugs in your backyard - no problem environmental or morally. People living simply in harmony with local ecology, very permaculture.

We really are in desperate straits ecologically, and few Americans know anything real about the food situation because, for one, so few of us have anything to do with food production.  I've heard it said that students should visit a slaughterhouse and a sewage treatment plant as part of their schooling.  Besides that, have a look at "The Final Empire" (just Google it), available free as pfd files on the Web.

Stephen Brown (Sharon, PA)

"Unfortunately, many people mistakenly believe that being an environmentalist means being a shrill, opinionated extremist who tells others how to live their lives. Many associate environmentalism with exaggerated factual claims and an insufferable holier-than-thou attitude."

So how is this argument helping the environmental cause?

It reminds me of conservative Christians telling liberals that they can't be Christians, and vice versa.

Doesn't help, and does a helluva lot to hurt.

To Matt Prescott: Thank you for joining this conversation.  As an advocate for animal rights, I admire PETA for many things that you people have done over the years, and am glad that you have devoted yourself to promoting vegetarianism and veganism.

Nevertheless, I must tell you, most regretfully, that I deplore PETA's style.  An organization calling itself "People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals" has a pitifully narrow idea of what ethics means, if they believe that they, the enlightened ones, are entitled to shame, bully and blackmail the uninitiated and unevolved.  One might have thought that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals would want other people to LEARN how to treat animals ethically.  But in order to do that, YOU have to learn how to treat people ethically, patiently, with respect, and not with violence.

On comparing the benefits of switching to a hybrid car to those of switching to veganism, some calculations have been out for a few years.  In "The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter," Peter Singer and Jim Mason write (page 240):

<<
Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin, of the University of Chicago, studied the greenhouse gases emitted by the production of animal products, and concluded that the typical U.S. diet, about 28 percent of which comes from animal sources, generates the equivalent of nearly 1.5 tons more carbon dioxide per person per year than a vegan diet with the same number of calories.  By comparison, an average driver switching from a typical American car to one of the more fuel-efficient hybrids would save 1 ton of carbon dioxide per year -- making the switch to a vegan diet a more effective way of reducing one's contribution to climate change.  (Though it would, of course, be better still to do both.)
>>

They cite New Scientist, 17, December 2005, p. 19,
 www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg18825304.800.

To RobFDavis: Yes, PETA's pontificating decrees on euthanizing animals whose lives PETA has decided by its own wisdom are not worth living, e.g. feral cats, homeless cats and dogs, Knut the orphaned polar bear, and the live pitbulls retrieved from Michael Vick's property, amply illustrated by the discovery in trash cans of the bodies of animals killed by PETA workers, are very troubling.  That arrogant, from-on-high attitude has sadly provoked a kind of schism in the animal welfare community.

But on another matter, I do not think you argue well, when you say that because you feed meat to your cats and dogs, it makes no sense for you to deny meat to yourself.  Well, you do what you want, and eat what you want; I shall certainly not criticize you.  But you should realize that the relation of your cats and dogs to meat is entirely different than yours.  They are natural carnivores (the dogs being a bit more omnivorous), and eating meat is for them instinctual.  For us, however, meat is not necessary for our good nourishment; also, we are moral agents, with the capacity to make choices.

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

Eating vegetables kills animals. Anyone who even has a garden knows this. Most of them are just not cute. And not as big.

Now, don't tell me that even hand-picking and smashing bugs is not OK. If you want vegetables you have to fight other living beings for them.  

I have my doubts that there would be half as much of an uproar about the impact on the environment from PETA (or friends) if meat eaters switched to eating insects. This is not about the environment or killing animals - this is about killing animals we can feel for.

Cows do not give milk if they do not have a calf every year. 50% are bulls. So if you consume milk products you can actually calculate pretty well how much beef you should eat to get rid of the bulls.

The evil is not meat-consumption, the evil is meat production designed to produce cheap meat in huge quantities. The tolls on animals and environment are high and should be re-thought and certainly talked about. PETA started a discussion. Well done. I wish it would be honest and include all facts as well as drop the viewpoint that some animals are worth sympathizing for while others are not. The torturous and ecologically damaging living conditions, transport, and slaughter of the animals that are the consequence of modern meat production need to be looked at. If those conditions did not exist, meat consumption would be acceptable from a ethical and environmental point of view.

Karsten PolluteLessDotCom

PETA has killed over 14,000 animals they could have helped found homes for with the approx $30 million they rake in each year. Instead, they opt for the cheap way out for these animals. 90% of animals brought to PETA are killed by them. I don't believe people that call PETA believe that is the fate of their pet they can longer take care of, or a stray they believe PETA could help find a good home.

Michael Vick killed far less - and he lost an NFL contract.

PETA kills 14,000 and no one seems to take notice? PETA shouldn't shout "animal rights" and "we have no right to kill them" when they are doctors of death themselves. I guess if they do it then it is fine.

Better programs, better processes, better education, etc... can bring about real change - not million dollar ads with Pam and friends. Use the money wisely and to help, not kill is what I'm trying to get at.

I used to support PETA, but do not any more for 4 reasons:

Funds being used unwisely - marketing campaigns over helping homeless animals
Wanting to ban breeds
Wanting us to no longer have pets
Killing dogs and cats and being hypocrites about it.

I love all this talk about supporting
"sustainable," "family" farms. Does anyone who says this have any idea how many animals are killed every year to "sustain" America's meat habit? It's something like 25 billion, if you include the billions of fish vacummed out of the ocean (but not including the millions of dolphins, turtles, birds, and other sea animals killed as "by-catch.")25 billion! That's, what, 4 times the human population of the entire planet?

Anyway, the point is, we are eating too much meat to be sustained by "sustainable" farms. We simply have to cut back our meat consumption to put a dent in the vast quantities of resources being wasted.

Oh, and one thing people seem to be forgetting--even "sustainably" raised animals produce manure and methane, and most of them have to be fed grain and other feed, which would be more efficiently used if it were fed straight to humans.

Documenting the global warming impacts of eating meat and trying to convert folks to veganism as a response is a valid point and as an environmentalist, I have no problem with it being part of the movement.  It will only be a subset of the movement (as converting hook and bullet groups, business leaders, evangelists, and others is far more necessary to stopping global warming and that will not happen with a vegan platform) but it is certainly a good personal change worth organizing receptive enviros into adopting.  But saying you can't be an environmentalist and eat meat, which will alienate most burgeoning enviros is a a clear attack on the environmental movement; just as is PETA's billboard using Al Gore's image.

Of course, that's not new to PETA, which used to run the greenmeanies website urging members to stop contributing to their environmental organizations because those organizations had no stance on using animal testing to assess chemicals toxicity (silly us, we're just trying to get the 3,000 new chemicals created each year to be tested AT ALL, but apparently we're supposed to do the animal rights movement legislative work for them as well).  And then there was their wonderful "charismatic megafauna" billboards by whale watching tour sites - attacking enviros and nature lovers for spending resources on saving the whales.

I've worked in the corporate-responsibility and grassroots environmental movements for a good while now, and from that I've come to see the worth of many ideologically purist groups within the movement.  I'll never live in a purely green designed, zero waste commune, but from communities such as those new ideas and new technologies are born.  But those groups don't attack potential friends all the time, and PETA does.  I doubt many of their members would agree with it if they knew the pattern.  They may donate to PETA to protect the rights of animals, but many also donate to environmental groups because they understand the value of enviros' work as well (namely stopping the mass extinctions engulfing our planet).  It's not the same work, environmentalism is about saving ecosystems and species, not all individual animals, but it is work almost any animal rights supporter can and does get behind.  

I never thought I would issue a call such as this about any group - I believe in having more organizations in the movement, not less, and I've always seen infighting among organizations as the ultimate sin, but PETA has already lauched this  attack with almost every major environmental group, so here it is:

If you are an animal rights supporter and an environmentalist, don't give to PETA.  Not one dime.  Give to the Humane Society instead - they're a legislatively saavy group that gets far more results.  And unlike PETA they don't try to hurt the other causes and movements critical to building a just and sustainable world while doing it.  The road ahead for the world we all want to build is too long and too steep for us to carry PETA any longer.

Many people replying to this article seem to be attacking PETA on the basis of their so-called "radical" means of protest. To these people, I ask:

Does history remember best those who fought for justice, or the people who sat and did nothing?

Like the quote says: "All my heroes have FBI files"

Did you ever bother to read the follow up story?  PETA was guaranteeing a HUMANE end for those animals.  There IS a limit to what we can rescue.  5 Million animals die per year cause there aren't enough homes.  do you know that each person in the US would have to have 5 dogs and I forget how many cats (not 5 per household... 5 per person) to eradicate euthanasia as a way of dealing with the 'excess'.

My wife works in a no-kill animal rescue that has over 1500 animals currently. They are mostly cats and dogs but there are horses and other farm animals as well as a few abandoned raptors. They have never had to kill an animal because they "don't have room". If someone dropped off 100 animals tomorrow, they would create room, build them shelter and take them in for as long as they wanted to live. Of course they have a $2 Million yearly budget and a couple hundred acres of land to support this. However, I am sure there are other similar shelters of varying degrees to help find home for the animals that had to be "humanely put to death".

Has anyone been in a calm, unexcited debate about vegetarianism?  I find them quite rare, and this article is no exception.  Any of the scores of issues brought up in the comments above could be the basis of long debate, so I'll just weigh in on the article.

Basic points in the article:
 * PETA went too far by calling meat-eating environmentalists non-environmentalists.  Fair point, but this is what PETA does - it's their strategy to ignite debate.  There are other organizations out there making calmer, less incendiary arguments - but I doubt you've heard of them.
 * Eating meat isn't as bad as they say it is.  No, it's as bad as they say it is.  Sure, it doesn't have to be that bad - you can eat only meat that gathered its food from the wild.  But other than non-farmed fish, most people in the US never run across this kind of meat.  Just as it's a bad argument that ethanol can be made only from fallen fruit that wouldn't be used anyway (whereas in reality most is from farmed corn), saying it's ok to eat meat because it could be farmed in sustainable ways is a bad argument.
 * Eating meat doesn't make you a non-environmentalist.  I agree.  I encourage people to live as greenly as possible.  But everyone needs to find a happy balance.  

Someone stated many were attacking PETA - I may be one of those in reference....but I call it like I see it....if they are being hypocrites then I will call them on it. I would hope someone would do the same for me in order for me to change my behavior as warranted.

I'm in agreement with this blogger. Climate change is not so much about eating meat, which humans are anatomically designed to do, but about factory farming practices and using 20 times the resources to produce meat as what it yields in calories. It's the massive quantities of meat that Americans produce and consume that create both environmental and health problems. I think PETA's philosophy is,in general, ethnocentric and anti-human, and I think they do harm to the sustainable culture movement and environmentalism with stupid ads like the Gore billboard.

Bong Hits 4 Jesus

Uh, manure is a good thing. Makes plants grow. You know, a significant component of compost. Just thought I'd remind you.

Bong Hits 4 Jesus

Clap, clap, clap, clap. Bravo, Matt! As a PR professional I LOVE your statement about meat-eaters not being environmentalists!

Have you seen the way the site lit up? Kudos to both you and Grist for picking such a hot topic.

Keep doing what your doing.

Best,
OsoEco

I am not associated with Humane Society, nor do I know anyone who works for them.  I gave them as an example as I respect their abilities.  They might not be happy about being cited this way, but they are in my opinion a far better group at getting results for the animal rights cause.

Thinking about it, I don't like my call for folks to never again give to PETA.  I modify that call to withholding 1 contribution this and telling them why you are doing so.  The problem with PETA is they are only tactical thinkers - really the amount of people  the environmental is converting to become conscious of their personal ecological impact is a huge opportunity for them to then convert a percentage of those folks to their cause of veganism.  But they only think at the level of tactics; those tactics being shock and controversy.  And thus they damage the overall future their members want as well as their own cause.  PETA members need to use a respectful amount of pressure to make them change course and embrace a more positive, and longer-term a more productive approach to engaging the environmental movement.

Concerning my reasoning on stopping my vegetarian ways - I enjoy sharing a roasted chicken with my dogs. I know you may not understand...but it is my reason....I had one of my dogs die of cancer in 2005....one of the things I had stopped doing was eating meat at the time....do I wish I could go back and purchase him a roasted chicken and have fun sharing with him? Yes I do...before I stopped eating meat we used to do that several times a week. Dinners are about bonding. So I eat meat now and share with my other dogs as well. Could I have just bought the roasted chicken and gave to them and not eaten? Of course - but the chicken is already dead and my dogs enjoy the sharing as much as I do.

I do believe I make moral choices everyday....I can attempt to be as humane as possible by purchasing grain fed and cage free chickens and eggs. I can also petition my representatives to pass humane killing laws for animal farms and producers. I can support organizations that help animals in need. These are things we can do that can minimize animal suffering. Some of us, however, will minimize the suffering more than others.

I like to say that for each person that buys from a breeder, they kill 7 puppies,

Now that is probably not even true, but it gets the point across that as long as people support/buy from breeders instead of a shelter, dogs WILL unnecessarily die.

For anyone who is going to purchase a dog from a breeder, I suggest you first go to a local shelter and watch them put dogs down. Really watch. Look in the dog's eyes and watch them take their last breath.

Here, Here! Thank you Alex for your smart words. I so agree with your sentiment about the drum-beating environmentalists. Comments such as "you can't be a meat-eating environmentalist" are seriously destructive. I know so many people who don't really get on board with the whole "green" thing, because they are afraid that they'll have to give up meat, wear hemp shoes and never use paper towels again. It's not the way to motivate people into action. Instead, the message should be "one change makes a difference - by all means go on eating you filet mignon but why not make sure it's grass-fed" or "by all means, wear your fancy non-organic clothes, but have you thought about perhaps buying one organic t-shirt?". People are open to making small changes and should be encouraged to do so if we want the green movement to go mainstream. Comments such as the stupid one you mentioned, only serve to marginalize environmentalists.

Gorgeously Green

Broad sweeping statements and campaigns are offensive to counter culture individuals.I run a "Green" store, I am a stout advocate of toxic reduction and anti-big Pharma. I also hunt deer with a bow, which I use all meat, fat, hide etc. and I fish. This supplies my family and friends with necessary protein, essential for some people for chemical balance. Get away from such statements in the name of one cause, only in unity will we achieve a true peaceful and healthy planet.

Contributes to global warming.  You cannot surf the web and be an environmentalist...?  In fact, it's probabaly easier to eat meat (which does require murdering an animal) without contributing to global warming than it is to read this explosion of posts wihtout sending up the temperature.

Save the planet, kill a tree...

Paradoxes abound in this mixed up world of ours.  That's what makes it so much fun.  Now I'm going to go get me a free range burger and turn this blasted thing off.

KC

to Karen, TwinsFanatic, frustrated gardener and others, so we debate the global warming consequences of meat on a more rational basis.  I have to "digest" all this information (little meat-debate joke, there).

I just want to add that people generally don't appreciate how many cars and how many car-miles there are, and how many coal plants spewing what they spew there are, so even all the lakes of cow manure don't get anywwhere close.  

Another issue, I don't know if this has been brought up, is that I've read, if my memory serves me, that it takes 1500 pounds of water to make 1 pound of cattle meat.

Finally, any direct links to that UN report?  

To WayneLuke: Please send your wife my heartiest congratulations!  The animal-welfare organization which I know best, and which staunchly promotes a no-kill policy, is Best Friends, based in Kanab, Utah.  Their director, as well as the editor of their magazine, Michael Mountain, recently criticized PETA, while remembering gratefully that PETA has been very good on many issues.  He said that PETA has fallen woefully behind the times by not acknowledging the terrific success lately of no-kill shelters.

To Activist247365: I join you in endorsing the HSUS, which style-wise is far superior to PETA.

To RobFDavis: Of course I understand why you eat meat, now that you explained it as you did.  This is a totally different argument than the one you used before, and anybody who lives with a dog, and who loves that dog, will know exactly what you are talking about.  Eating with those we love is a blessed event, a communion, a sacrament.  So of course you want to share chicken with them.

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

Everything on this planet is energy. All species from bacteria to animals consume energy to survive. Thought, self awareness and morals play no part in basic survival. Your philosophy is interesting but not realistic. Living in civilization has no impact in my self definition. Here is the definition of environmentalist that I use "any person who advocates or works to protect the air, water, animals, plants, and other natural resources from pollution or its effects". I will call myself that and I eat flesh.

To caniscandida.... yes leaving that part out didn't complete my whole story.... :-)

Thanks!
Robert

The point is not that everyone needs to be perfect, but when faced wih the facts that meat production is such a big cause of global warming, Al Gore should promote a vegan diet. Hybrid cars, energy-efficient light bulbs, etc., are great -- and I applaud everyone who uses them -- but if you are always talking about ending global warming, you can't just ignore the evidence against animal agriculture. Al Gore has done a lot to help save the planet--and I'm far from the perfect environmentalist myself--but I'd really respect and listen to him more if he were a vegetarian.

Grist has become such nonsense it should just close shop.  If the bloodthirsty Grist staff can't stop promoting animal killing, they  should do something for the population problem and visit a slaughterhouse through the animals' door.  

Then Grist animal killers can take birth in pigs' wombs to help understand what it's like to live in a factory farm and then have them cut your throat.  With pig brains maybe they will understand a little better.

I've been reading Grist e-mails and participating here practically since its beginning.  Now that Grist is actively promoting animal slaughter, I'm not sure whether I should unsubscribe from the mailing list now or just keep this up until one of the animal killers at Grist deletes my profile here.

Fifteen years ago I wrote a research paper in college showing that meat eating causes so much environmental harm that it is impossible to be an environmentalist and eat meat.  Now I'm finding that it's impossible to read Grist and keep my self respect.

Our almost-vegetarian cats are better environmentalists than the Grist staff.  They eat vegan cat food supplemented by our leftovers and an occasional vole they catch; and they don't drive.  They also don't speak hypocritical nonsense like Grist.

Just so you know, eating meat isn't just the number 1 cause of global warming.  The taste for blood is also the ultimate cause of war.

For the moment, let's just forget about being "environmentalists", ok? That implies a lot of ideas that are confusing this discussion.

Vegetarianism is just the HUMANE thing to do. Its a humane way to treat animals and a humane way to treat humans.

For example, the Nobel Peace Prize winning buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh writes:

"UNESCO tells us that every day, forty thousand children in the world die because of a lack of nutrition, of food. Every day, forty thousand children. And the amount of grain that we grow in the West is mostly used to feed our cattle. Eighty percent of the corn grown in this country is to feed the cattle to make meat. Ninety-five percent of the oats produced in this country is not for us to eat, but for the animals raised for food."

Caring for animals, is to me, the basic point of empathy, but if you need more convincing look no further than how it affects ourselves.

"Environmentalism" though, typically means someone cares about more than just humans, more than even animals. They care about protecting tiny little plants and flora and even microorganisms. I've heard environmentalists say they even empathize with water itself.

So "Environmentalism" is a step BEYOND vegetarianism, since you can be a vegetarian and not an "environmentalist". Someone can still earn the title of "vegetarian" by refusing to eat meat, even if that person doesn't typically get behind "environmental" issues or candidates.

As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields. -Leo Tolstoy

Do you want an ideologically pure sect or do you want effective actions that will help stop global warming?

PETA's "if you like to eat hamburgers, you must like clubbing baby seals" rhetoric is counterproductive. They preach their way is the only one true way to save the planet. Unfortunately few people will follow their way, and the shrillness and the hostility of their ads are off-putting.

Effective action to stop global warming needs broad support from society as a whole. Measures that are seen as too extreme by most people are not realistic goals. Infighting and extremist demands are a waste of time and energy.  

"Unfortunately few people will follow their way"
Why?  That doesn't seem to be a very good world-changing attitude.  Maybe only a few people will switch to flickering compact flourescents.  Maybe only a few people will drive a hybrid.  And fewer still an electric car.  But the reality is that changing your diet can have a far greater global impact.

I understand the distaste for PETA's tactics.  But why does everyone have such a harsh reaction to this particular change of lifestyle?

Well,
Peta neither road the backs of the UN nor did they create the Facts. I have been Vegan for the better part of 10 years now, and for 10 years I have been saying that you really can't be a true greeny unless you give up meat and dairy (notice I skipped eggs and honey but that is another story) Even in the post factory farm happy cow in the field happy chicken in the barn smiling pig in the meadow world. they still use a minimum of twice the resources that plant based alternatives do ....and you cannot eat beef without cutting down rainforest it takes almost 25 acres of land per cow not to mention the vast resources of water to raise each cow. And milk directly effects health and environment of every region it's in world wide

But really why eat meat? Haven't we evolved? The cave man ate meat I would like to think my family has evolved quite a bit in the last 20000 years. And knowing what I know about nutrition what is the point of growing vast fields of soy beans, wheat, millet just to feed to animals when the soy beans, Wheat & Millet have more usable protein & Vitamins than the meat of the animals they kill to feed to human animals.

I think the real issue now is that the western diet if extended to the entire population of the planet so all 6.7 billion of us ate 100 kilos of meat per years we would need about 9.7 earths to do so if the same number of people just ate plant based food well we can all have children and restore about 50% of our farm land to wildlife.
The numbers add up and they are well documented do your own search you will find what I found.

one report I read about 3 years ago claimed that 40-60% of all fossil fuel was used in the production, transport refrigeration and storage of meat, next time your in the grocery store just look how much of the fridge section is dedicated to storage of meat and dairy. The list goes on an on. Sorry meat eaters this is not a football match that you can win or loose we either all win or we all loose. And I for one think that if there is hope it come from compassion not asserting our dominance over the world but trying to live in our world...

First off, I'm definitely not a huge fan of Matt Prescott's statement that omnivores can't be environmentalists. Though I think it would take a whole lot of effort to rationalize the cognitive dissonance of being a meat-eating environmentalist away, I also think it's counterproductive to promote exclusionist environmentalism. But that's PETA's modus operandi. They say or do something shocking in order to get an idea across. We react strongly. They do it again. After awhile, the idea becomes mainstream (see also: PETA's campaign against fur). And, as Holly noted, "PETA is not an environmental group. It is an animal-rights group."

That said, Roth's arguments are ridiculous and then some. He writes, "Of course, most of us carnivorous environmentalists do sometimes eat factory-farmed meat, just as vegans sometimes eat products made from industrial soybeans." Uh, Mr. Roth? It takes a much smaller toll on the environment to grow a pound of industrial soybeans than it does to raise a pound of meat.

According to "Choosing Nature, Three Times a Day: The True Cost of Food" on the Sierra Club website, "It takes up to about (some estimates are higher) 2,500 gallons of water to
produce one pound of grain fed beef. With the same water, farmers could produce . . . enough soybeans for three pounds of tofu".  And that's just the water.  Pound for pound, raising meat takes more land and pesticides and creates more pollution and waste than growing plants.

Roth also writes, "PETA also shoves aside the report's conclusion that many of the environmental harms caused by livestock production can be mitigated through better agricultural practices". Yeah, but as anyone who's taken Biology 101 knows, even with better ag practices, raising livestock still takes way more energy than growing plants. From the College of Agriculture Sciences at Penn State, "In a food chain, an animal passes on only about 10 percent of the energy it receives." That's why it takes about 10 pounds of grain to get one pound of beef.

Then he states, "To me, being an environmentalist simply means supporting policies and practices that promote a healthy environment". Everyone from the UN to the University of Chicago is publishing evidence that by switching to a plant-based diet can lessen one's impact on the environment by as much or more than switching to a hybrid vehicle. So, by his own definition of what it means to be an environmentalist, Roth should, if not adopt a plant-based diet, at least support those who do, and at the very least, keep his yap shut when others promote veggie diets for environmental reasons.

He continues, "These days, climate change is known to be exacerbated by most human activities, from stir-frying tofu to watching videos of endangered baby harp seals." True enough. But some activities exacerbate climate change more than others. From the UN report:

"The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. . . The livestock sector is a major player [in climate change], responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2 equivalent. This is a higher share than transport".

Some behaviors are also easier to change than others. Reducing my carbon footprint by driving less and biking more has proved more challenging than adopting a plant-based diet, by at least a degree of magnitude. So, if eating meat creates a huge amount of greenhouse gases and it's fairly easy to avoid eating meat, why eat meat?

Roth continues, "No, what is most astonishing about a person like Prescott is that someone evidently so well-intentioned can simultaneously be so counterproductive and so irritating". Funny, I was just thinking same thing about you, Mr. Roth.

Since when have humans been herbivores!  We've been omnivores for millions of years, why should that be different now.  I agree that how the meat is raised now days is wrong, but becoming a vegetarian doesn't solve that problem.

The real problem isn't that people eat too much, or that they eat the wrong things (both of which are true).  The biggest problem is that we are over populated.  Soon it won't matter how efficient we are with producing our food or green we try to be, we simply can not healthily support a population our size for any extended period of time.

The problem I have with PETA's position is that it isn't based on any sort of wholistic analysis of what the future is apt to be like (assuming we want it to be sustainable), but on a narrow moral position that doesn't account for ecological realities and makes sense only within a very short temporal framework. Its simply not possible to have a sustainable agricultural system (not to be confused with the current industrial mess that supplies most of the food) without having animals in it. And if people have animals, they will exploit them for meat and other foodstuffs. Its our evolutionary history.

Think practically. When petro fuel makes long distance transportation of most goods, including food, prohibitively expensive, will preparation of land for planting be done by:
a. Biodiesel or vegetable oil fueled machinery.
b. Horses, oxen, or other draft animals.
c. Biological "no-till" methods, such as "chicken tractors."

All of these methods require additional land in addition that actually used for growing the vegetable crop.

The first must have additional land left fallow to recover from the biomass removal invovled in producing the oil seed for fuel. It provides a motive source. It saves labor, but requires a large industrial infrastructure to support.

The second and third options require additional land for support of the animals, either directly (pasture and hay for the horses/oxen) or indirectly (land not used for growing the crop that the chickens are rotated onto). Like the first option, these both save labor. But in addition, these options can enhance the fertility of the farmland so its not "mined" of nutrients and retains tilth. And they provide something else that our bodies have evolved to take advantage of: protein and nutrients that have been concentrated by other animals. They are also self-replicating; industrial infrastructure isn't needed to create and maintain horses and chickens. And a dead horse or chicken can be recycled much more easily than a dead tractor. Think compost. Think dinner. Think food for the dog that keeps the coyotes away from the chickens.

I think that any discussion that doesn't base its view on a possible future society that is sutainable in the most basic sense is shortsighted and not very useful, given the crisis that our species is causing in the biosphere (and not just from climate change). And ultra-vegetarianism is not systemically sustainable.

Steve E.

PETA withdraws support from the industrial meat culture and instead supports industrial vegie-culture. Neither of these is sustainable.

This comes down to how you define the problem. PETA doesn't give a rat's ass about climate change. They believe that eating animals is immoral. Their newfound discovery of climate change is simply an ad campaign of convenience.

I define the problem differently:
What would a sustainable food system look like for humans on this planet?

I don't believe its possible without having animals integrated into the system. And if there's critters available, people will use them for everything useful our inventive minds can come up with, including food.

Steve E.

Steve says, "And if people have animals, they will exploit them for meat and other foodstuffs. Its our evolutionary history. "

... and I don't disagree.  We don't need to treat animals nicely, not eliminate them.

I'm a vegetarian who keeps several farm animals, mostly to serve to them as a token apology for my childhood eating meat and on behalf of the human race; but they also contribute in various ways without having to kill them.

The thing about keeping animals like this is that we don't need many.  It's nothing like a feedlot.  It looks more like a rustic backyard.

Here's a little census, with their contributions:  

1 cow (4 year old heiffer): manure for garden, religion, mows the lawn.  If we breed her, she may provide our milk for as much as 10 years.

3 sheep: wool, fertilize pasture
2 goats: mohair, fertilize pasture

11 guinea fowl: eats bugs, announces visitors
5 cats: preys on mice & voles
1 dog: just a friendly vegetarian dog.
1 macaw parrot: ? (he was a rescue)
a frog: (I staunchly refused vivisection in college, saying I could learn more from live animals than dead ones.  The frog is a reminder of that.)
a tank of fish:  Adding ambiance to the temple room, the fish are blessed to be in view of our Deities and hear our daily chanting of Hare Krishna.

...the UN report is excellent, and I'm trying to go through it.  Off the top of my head right now (a little late in the evening), it seems to me that the  figures they calculate have a very high possibility of error. That doesn't mean they are wrong, but I don't think we should get hung up on whether livestock is the worst offender ghg-wise.  As the report states, it is way up there and a huge problem -- and the ghg problem is probably not even the biggest problem.  The biggest problem, in my view, is that the entire global agricultural system is simply unsustainable (biofuels will make this worse), and we are headed for a real catastrophe if we don't turn this around.

Here is an excellent thought, from IPreferTheRain:

<<
"Environmentalism" though, typically means someone cares about more than just humans, more than even animals. They care about protecting tiny little plants and flora and even microorganisms. I've heard environmentalists say they even empathize with water itself.
>>

Probably some people will disagree.  But my own feeling is very close: the fundamental value of environmentalism is the good life of the entire community of living creatures.  "Good life" of course needs to be defined in the respective contexts of those creatures.  And while water is indeed precious, I am not sure I "empathize" with it as though it were a living being.

To my good friend Pandu:

I do not understand the writers and editors of Grist to be endorsing or promoting the slaughter of animals for their meat.  If there can be said to be a Grist consensus, they seem to be suggesting that environmentalists who choose to eat meat should be allowed to do so in peace.  They may also be suggesting that the claim, made by some vegetarians and animal-rights supporters, that the raising of livestock, especially cattle, for food is a principal source of GHG emissions, even surpassing some sources that receive frequent and regular attention in Grist, is a bit exaggerated.  But I am not sure that they would agree with that.  Anyway, please do not leave.

I do not know what exactly you feed your dogs and cats, so as to vegetarianize them.  If they like what you give them to eat, then I am happy for all of you.  But please remember that cats are naturally strict carnivores, and dogs are largely carnivorous omnivores; to tamper with those facts of nature might look like a form of violence.  At least your cats have the opportunity to catch and eat voles (but hopefully NOT birds).

Macaws are among the most beautifully colored of all creatures.  Surely your macaw's contribution to your household, a splash of sensational tropical splendor, merits more than a "?."  : )

To NRFreeburg, on evolution and the human diet: It is true that our ancestors were meat-eating omnivores, and that even now most people continue to rely on such a diet for their nourishment.  But it just as true that our intellect has evolved, so that we understand how to feed ourselves well without including animal products in our diet; and our morality has evolved too, so that we can be moved by the sufferings of animals, and can conceive of our exploitation and killing of animals, for some material benefit to ourselves, to be a form of wrong-doing.

There is absolutely nothing unnatural or anti-evolutionary about veganism.

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

I am in complete agreement with Matt Prescott's advocacy of a meatless diet.  There is no question that the meat industry makes a huge contribution to global warming, as well as to general degredation of the environment.

I am extremely proud of the fact that my extended family of 15 are all vegetarians, one of whom is a vegan. My very healthy dog is a vegetarian, as well. I drive a Prius, use fluorescent light bulbs, recycle every item possible, have no lawn, and support numerous environmental organiztions and all legislative proposals to reduce negative impacts upon the environment.

I do believe, however, that it is important to award credit to all individuals who take steps, however small, to enhance the quality of our environment.  It is most likely counterproductive to be hypercritical of those who do not live up to the expectations of the "ideal" environmentalist.  Education on the measures that can be taken to reduce harm to the environment will surely produce more positive results.

Marylou Noble

     I live in a town in the pacific northwest  with a 50% first nations population.  Traditionally  they harvested salmon, shellfish, seals, deer and moose.  And they did it sustainably.  The Inuit in the Arctic used to eat an diet based entirely on  raw meat from fish and seals. Neither of these diets is is based on high ghg emissions.  The idea that you can't be an environmentalist and you can't live sustainably if you eat meat is preposterous.  As many of the above comments have mentioned it's the kind of meat that you eat that's important.

     I don't own a car.  But I don't preach about it to other people.  As much as I'd like to see a world without cars it doesn't help to tell people to stop driving cars.  You can be much more effective if you are indirect.  If you get people to think about environmental problems and what choices they have that's half the battle.  Being holier-than-thou is always counterproductive.

Hello,

I just discovered that many of the links to articles, studies and websites I posted to this discussion didn't make it in working order to Grist.  

If you'd like to receive these links, just drop me a line at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_NyfEGK0BzX').innerHTML = output; //]]> .  I'll be happy to send them to you.

When I was pregnant with my first child, I ate a largely vegetarian diet, as I did when breastfeeding him, because as a newly-minted dietitian and environmentalist, I KNEW it was the best thing for my child.  Who threw up 3 out of every 6 meals.  Despite the fact that "breastfed babies are healthier, have fewer digestive problems . . ."  (He didn't read that book.)  Turns out he became sensitized to the plant and milk proteins I was consuming because of a genetic tendency toward allergy.  He has anaphyllactic reactions to legumes, dairy, seeds, nuts, shellfish. I avoided those foods completely while breastfeeding my other two, who have environmental allergies but not food allergies.  Vegetarianism is not always an option.

I don't see why this is such a controversy. Not eating meat is as easy as not driving a Hummer, and it far is better for the planet (if you don't believe PETA, then believe the UN).  

Thanks, CharlesJustice, for bringing a very interesting perspective to our issue.  From your use of "First Peoples," I surmise you are in British Columbia, and not in Washington or Oregon.

On page 229 of their "The Way We Eat," Peter Singer and Jim Mason write:

<<
In his otherwise useful book So Shall We Reap, Colin Tudge claims that unless it is the case that everyone in the world ought to become vegan, there can be no moral obligation on any of us to do so.  He points out that for many people living in difficult environments at high latitudes or in semi-deserts, vegetarianism is not a viable option.  He then draws on the 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant as an authority for the view that "no ethical principle is really acceptable unless it could in principle be recommended to the whole world."  He concludes that vegetarianism and veganism fail this test and therefore cannot be ethical principles.

... But to understand Kant as Tudge suggests turns his moral law into nonsense.  It would mean, for example, that it would be unethical to become a teacher, because if everyone in the world became a teacher, there would be no farmers to grow food for them.  It is perfectly possible to restrict the application of moral principles to specific contexts, and we do this all the time.  We tell people to keep their promises, but not when the only way to save the life of a road accident victim is to break your solemn promise not to be late for the start of the school concert in which your daughter is playing the violin.  Similarly, we could say, "Be vegan, unless the circumstances in which you live prevent you nourishing yourself properly from plants alone."
>>

(It is a subtly entertaining aspect of reading this book, to guess which parts were written by Singer, and which by Mason.  We are here presumably in Singer territory.)

Whether Singer and Mason are themselves actually pronouncing the imperative, with qualifier, in that last sentence, is not perfectly clear.  But let us assume that they are.  In that case, they are being a good deal more moderate and negotiable than other supporters of animal rights would be.  And those other supporters might even accuse Singer and Mason of being disgracefully anthropocentric.

Anyway, at least it should be amply clear that not all vegans and supporters of animal rights wish to urge your neighbors, and other members of the First Peoples, to relinquish their traditional diets.

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

There is no doubt that you could possibly be a meat eating "enivronmentalist".  The meat industry causes more water pollution in the U.S. than any other industry.  According, to the EPA raising animals for food consumes more than half of all the water used in the U.S.  
Pollution from factory farms often emit irritatating and health threatening pollutants into the air.  Ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, particulate matter and health threatening  pollutants into the air.  
Energy:  raising animals for food requires more than one-third of all raw materials and fossil fuels used in the U.S.  Producing a single hamburer patty uses enough fossil fuel to drive a small car 20 miles.  Health is another issue.
Albert Einstein, George Bernard Shaw, Leonardo Da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, 14th Dalai Lama, Steve Jobs, and many more geniuses throughout history have observed a vegetarian diet and affirmed its necessity from the standpoints of both morality and logic.  So people can say the need to eat meat but it is only an excuse to not further investigate a truly healthful vegetarian diet.
We are just beginning to see the impact of a meat eating diet and the implications on this earth, I highly recommend reading John Robbins book "Diet for a New America".  It changed my life.

What about the Hummer they'll be driving around?

Seriously, Peta is long past any point of credibility. They've attacked Steve Irwin, Al Gore, and just about every other person who contributes to envrionmental or conservation education. Peta can't compete with these people, nor can they keep up with the other more credible environmental orgs. The Humane Society is much more reliable source for animal issues.

But to be fair to the issue. Meat production is indeed a major contributor to global warming with both methane emissions as well as Co2 due to production and transport. WWF has acknowledged this, Jane Goodall has acknowledged this, and so have others. A meat based diet contributes to global warming pollution as well as other forms of pollution including water and crop contamination due to waste run-off. Those are the facts.

But to attack potential allies as Peta constantly does is hideous and irresponsible. The millions of people they could have brought into their mission by embracing Steve Irwin and paying tribute to him, gone because their egos were too big. The millions more they could be recruiting by supporting Al Gore, gone because of their radical views. They've lost potential allies and it's rather upsetting and should make us question their intentions even for animal issues.

I'm a vegetarian not only because of the impact meat-based diets have on the environment, but also because of health factors associated with eating plant-based diets, and my own ethical personal choice not to consume animals who have suffered and felt pain. But I don't demand the same of everyone. We all have our own journey.  

...it's heartening to see how often the positive relationship between environmentalism and vegetarianism has been confirmed in this thread, even as many denounce Peta's provocative approach.

To those who feel that Peta's in-your-face approach will lose them allies: I really don't think they are trying to win any popularity contests or get you to join their jolly club. Or to get others to join your jolly club for that matter. If just a few more Grist readers have started making the connection between their eating habits and their environmental aspirations as a result of discussions like this then I would guess they'd think they've succeeded.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

I'm vegan and though I support PETA's work, I'm more partial to the philosophy of Vegan Outreach -- that the harder I make being vegan look, the less likely people around me are to try it (i.e., going to a restaurant and ordering dry toast simply becuase the server can't tell me if the veggie burger has eggs in it or not). The same may be said of environmentalism -- the harder we make it look, the less likely people are to try it. As much as they may be connected, I generally treat veganism and environmentalism as separate issues. If I were an environmentalist already considering veganism (or vegetarianism), maybe the fact that it helps the environment would push me over the edge. But if I were a meat-devoted environmentalist -- especially someone new to the movement -- maybe I'd feel deflated that my progress isn't good enough. It took me years to make the vegan commitment (first only fish ... then only dairy ... etc.) -- not for the environment, but for the animals that it's not necessary to kill in order for me to live.

I agree with your comments, Meredith, but I don't think that's what PETA is saying. I don't think they're saying "either be a vegetarian or your efforts are worthless." They're not saying they are "better people" than everyone else either.

I think they are saying that vegetarianism is just the right thing to do. That doesn't mean attempts that don't quite live up to that are worthless. They're just not ideal.

I would be one of those people that believe vegetarianim is right, but I just am not quite disciplined enough to do it.

The key is that I'm trying, though.

Why people find that so hard to say?

As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields. -Leo Tolstoy

Sir Richard Owen is a semi-hero of mine.  Although he seems to have stuck with a more or less literal interpretation of the biblical creation, nevertheless he was the first to describe dinosaurs as a separate taxon of reptiles, and to give them the name "dinosaur."

As for the author of Genesis 1, we should exercise care.  That is the same guy who has God tell the first people, "You have dominion over" all creatures.

To WKLawrence: Yes, PETA has a very complex record, and they are responsible for many good and worthwhile things.  Spaceshaper makes the excellent point that this too is a happy success, that they have now got people to think about the connexion between carnivory and global warming.   But do not worry about alienating them, if we criticize them about anything; they seem insensate to criticism.

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

Hey, if you disagree with PETA's tacitcs that is fine. If you don't like them, that's your choice, even if it is an ignorant one. But to call them "terrorists" or "extremists" is just a smear.

That just undermines any kind of intelligent and constructive debate.

Furthermore, their message is one that is worth debating. It is also the focus of this article which you seem to sidestep, in favor of starting a PETA witch-hunt.

Anyone can argue about whether or not vegetarianism is required for environmentalism.  By name-calling you completley undermine any solid logic their arguments hold.

As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields. -Leo Tolstoy

Okay, I rarely get worked up enough to sign up for a blog, but this topic ignited my pilot light.

This past week I read an article about how obesity can be by zip code. The surveys showed that highly affluent neighborhoods with sidewalks and ammenities out the whazoo - had thinner people. Not to mention these people had access to fresh produce - organic produce - at nearly every turn.

Gee, imagine that - these people were significantly thinner than those in a zip code with less income.

A prime example is the fact that I just moved less than 15 miles away from my old affluent neighborhood into a more, well, let's just say "diverse rural population." These new neighbors boast of the deer they kill and eat - but it feeds them all winter long. They see me as the "whacky vegetarian neighbor."

Okay - make them eat produce instead? I think not. The nearest market is not within walking distance, and is at a very expensive grocery store. The closest store is our trusty ol' community destroyer, Wal-Mart and guess what? They have no produce, they have no REAL food. Everything that is within the grasp of those unfortunately impoverished, is rich in MSG, High Fructose Corn Syrup and everything else that is called "food" but isn't.

Before we begin to scream vegan/vegetarian, meaties or meatless - let's discuss how to feed the poor who depend on these animals to survive long winters with their families.

Instead, let's get riled up about a government that spent a trillion dollars on a war, when today, even the middle class in the this country can barely afford to buy anything more than packaged, processed nutrition-lacking foods, GMO vegetables, antibiotic latent meats, and dairy products full of hormones.

irritation aside, is it honestly that hard to not eat cows?