What the beef industry knew about its environmental impact — and how it spent decades blocking climate action.
Immediately following yesterday’s article on the BS Myth that ‘grass-fed’ beef is better, Vox published an article about the livestock industry’s four-decade-long effort to hide the massive impacts of livestock production.
You can read the entire article here.
The industry’s “strategic plan” can be downloaded here.
Nearly every acre of our public lands, that is not rock or ice, (even some of our National Parks) is devoted to livestock production and that has massive impacts on virtually every aspect of ecosystem function: Increasing soil erosion, reducing carbon storage, reducing primary production, destroying biological soil crust, destroying fisheries and riparian habitat, destroying wildlife habitat, fences, predator killing, etc. (and nearly all of this is paid for by our tax dollars.
Do you know why they bury ranchers only 2 feet deep…..So they can keep their hand out.
Below is a chart of vegetative conditions on a wide range of BLM Field Offices across the west.
Poor = 0-25% of potential
Fair = 26-50% of potential
Good = 51-75% of potential
HCPC = Historic Climax Plant Community 76-100% of potential
Most of the Field Offices have about 80% of their lands at below 50% of potential.
For those who have been duped by the savory BS, the arid west, prior to the European invasion, had no significant population density of large herbivores. The massive herds of bison people imagine were restricted to the Great Plains (where it rains). Check out the seminal Mack and Thompson. Or RMRS-GRT-169.
Researchers (not TED Talk hucksters) have carefully examined the savory BS and found it vacuous. Here are some of the top range scientist’s examinations here and here. I was a co-author on a review of the savory BS Holistic Management: Misinformation on the Science of Grazed Ecosystems
While cattle production is certainly the worst possible way to produce food and has, by far, the largest impact on our public lands, the issue goes way beyond just cattle.
Sure, raising chickens uses less land and produces less GHG’s but look at the issue of bird flu. When you raise chickens by the billions, you create the perfect incubator for various diseases, that at some point will jump to other species, like us.
The bottom line is that, back in the era when there were maybe 200 million humans on the planet, we could get away with eating animals, but now as we rapidly approach 8,500,000,000 we can’t.
I am sure this will generate lots of complaints from people who want to throw up excuses to cover for the fact they don’t want to make simple behavioral changes that will not only greatly benefit their own health and longevity, but the planet’s as well.
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