Lord Stern, the former adviser to the government on environmental affairs, narrowly over-shot the headlines this week when he claimed that we could all save the planet by not eating meat. There's so many angles on this that on further analysis, his point begins to resemble something that MC Escher would have said was 'bloody clever'.
The basis for this cruel hypothesis is that by not eating meat, the demand for 'fleshy goods' will drop, less of them will be reared, rounded up, shot in the brain and turned into McBurgers and stuff like that. So far so good, very Keynesian. There is a problem.
The demand for arable goods would now shoot up through the roof, amid the well documented lack of fertile farmland, unreasonable subsidies and pointless import/export laws. We've also now got cows, piggies, duckies and likkle, wickle chickeny-chickens on the Worldwide Wildlife Foundation's endangered watch list. After all, none of these guys have any natural habitats anymore, especially after your johnny-come-lately sense of guilt turned all that beautiful grazing pasture into the Cabbage-Patch Dolls new playground. Cute.
Don't forget that the major benefit of farming chickens is that you can raise, in a fundamental sense, 3.5 billion of them in an area no bigger than your washing machine. How are we supposed to feed the world on tomatoes, an example of flora that follows the same evolutionary route as Mariah Carey when it comes to making it's demands? If two-thirds of the world lives on rice, then that means two-thirds of us are vegetarian already, and there's enough work showing how rice field burning at the end of the season and when there aren't any buyers causes a huge amount of permanent damage to the farmland and the air above it. Cows on the other hand, have to die. It's just like, fate man.
Perhaps I'm just being over-sentimental. I'm a die hard meat-eater, I've killed chickens to eat myself, I've seen the whole process with all of Farmer Giles' little friends. It's not pretty, but neither is the prospect of a future of boiled beans and rice. It shouldn't be this complicated, why should I sacrifice my pork chops for an animal that would probably be extinct by now anyway if it hadn't been proven to be so lip-smackingly delicious when we decided to stop picking berries and stabbing mammoths with pokey sticks? (Incidentally this is an interesting book on why we farm the animals we do.) But good lord, who would betray that heritage?
My hairier and hungrier ancestors kept poking those much more terrifying but equally hairy elephants until one gave up, lay down and died for a reason. That reason is what I intend to have for dinner tonight. The biggest, juiciest most deliriously heady steak and chips I've ever seen.
I've sacrificed already because my parents and their parents were lazy and decided to mess the planet up and hope that we'd just come along and sort it all out. Please don't let them take my bacon sandwiches.
2 comments:
mmm ive been thinking about this topic recently too dear toby and ive come to the conclusion that a half way point should be met. True what you said about about there not being any buyers and it being harmful but the extent to which dairy cattle and laying hens consume land, water and resources is getting worse and worse especially now with population growth!AND with organic food becoming more and more popular more land is taken. Meat is so accessible now that unlike yours or my ancestors you can get it anywhere anytime and its usually the only thing on offer, breakfast, lunch and dinner.Our heritage was based on good old butchers but where are they now?...tescos and sainsburys is the future and they are only going to get worse..:( i say if we all eat 'less' meat than perhaps all our lives might be a bit easier..and healthier!.so thats my view...p.s im a full on meat eater not a vegetarian having a rant!!
yeah toby, you are massively missing the point that rearing animals to eat is hugely intensive on food and water consumption that could more rationally be fed to humans in the first place.
And not to mention the huge deforestation that occurs to rear cattle, which then go on to produce HUUUUGE amounts of methane in the forms of well, you know, I wont lower the tone.
Just chill on the meat maaaaan!
(as you well know, i love the fried chicken, steaks and all that jazz, but im really trying to chill my meat consumption)
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