In this episode, the panel discusses the high greenhouse gas emissions caused by the animal-people livestock industry and how adopting a plant-based diet is one of the best solutions to combat climate change.
Master: If we all go vegan now, then we could even keep the old technology until all can be replaced, because a vegan diet takes care of 80% reduction of pollution that causes global warming, according to the calculation from the scientists’ evidence. And it is the easiest way, the quickest way, and the safest way that we can eliminate 80% of global warming, and almost immediately. And the rest, 20% from everything else, even cars, airplanes or everything else, can be taken care of by nature. (Thank You very much, Master, for Your comments.) Originally, nature can take care of even a little bit more than that. It’s just that we overloaded her capacity and we over-abused the Mother Earth’s resources. So we just have to reverse our actions. Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you so much, Dr. Jim. It’s nice to know that the government and everyone really go out of their way to help saving the Earth. I’m so happy.
(I have a quick question for you, Dr. Stewart, and it’s very similar to what Supreme Master was speaking about. My question is why is it that Al Gore never talks about veganism?)
Dr. Jim Stewart: I can’t answer for Al Gore, I can only speak for myself and for the facts. And the facts, as we have already discussed, are that if you do go vegan, you will help to save the planet.
MC：Jane Velez-Mitchell: But he has all these websites. And I’ve contacted those websites and I say, “Why are you talking about light bulbs and transportation when the biggest cause of global warming, according to the United Nations, is meat production?” And you know what they say? “We don’t want to go there.” I had that as a quote; I called as a journalist.
(Could you give us your perspective on the meat industry, please, what is its impact on our present situation?)
Professor Ryan Galt: Sure, I wanted to talk about the connections more generally also, between food and climate change. I want to start off by briefly highlighting two conditions of our world today that I think are important to keep in mind. One is agriculture; both the production of plants and animals is the single largest human land use out there on the planet. Agriculture contributions to greenhouse gases are quite enormous, as you were saying, in terms of carbon dioxide, 21-25% of anthropogenic, human-made emissions are from agriculture, about 60% of methane from agriculture, and 65-80% of nitrous oxides. And as Dr. Singh was saying, methane is 30 times more potent, approximately, than carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide is 200 times more potent, per molecule of weight, than carbon dioxide. So, these ones matter too; we need to address all of them.
And the other thing I want to highlight is the extreme inequalities in the world today that we have. We have a handful of billionaires who own more wealth or as much wealth as the 40 poorest countries in the world. And that’s about three billion people, about half the world’s population. This inequality in wealth also translates into food access. And so, we have between 800 million, and now maybe a billion or more people, without adequate access to food on this planet. That’s close to one sixth of the population.
We’ve seen food riots around the world in various countries as a manifestation of this inequality. And the world economic system basically doesn’t work for those people who can’t afford to purchase food. So, what I mean by this is that we basically have enough food. We do have enough food to feed everyone on the planet, but we’re not doing so. Millions of people have inadequate diets. So, I want to highlight those two propositions and then talk from there. Basically, as we’ve been saying, meat really matters.
The Agricultural Sustainability Institute here at UC Davis (University of California, Davis) recently had an international conference looking at the effects of “The Low Carbon Diet,” as we might call it, trying to move diets towards lesser climate change impacts.
And in the report coming out of the workshop – note: this is academics who typically highlight uncertainty – “The issue of plant protein versus animal protein is not a high priority for new research, as existing research is already overwhelmingly demonstrating that plant proteins are almost always environmentally superior to protein from livestock, from the perspective of energy intensity and greenhouse gas emissions.” So, we have about 56 billion (now over 100 billion) animals on the planet that are slaughtered annually. They consume about 80% of the world’s soybean crop and about 50% out of the world’s corn crop. It’s quite astounding when you look at it that way. Livestock’s production contribution to greenhouse gases is greater than the transportation sector. That’s quite amazing as well, in that we usually think of driving and flying when we think of reducing our own emissions or alternatives to driving and flying, like bikes and so forth.
So, why is this the case? I just want to highlight and go back to the food chain that’s feeding the animals. First, of course, fossil fuel inputs are used in the growing of the feed. So that means we’re turning natural gas into synthetic fertilizers. It is a very energy-intensive process; we burn gas to do that – modern pesticides, a very similar thing.
Also, we transport that grain using fossil fuels to feed the animals, since we have to disconnect down between concentrated feedlot operations and the feeding systems.
And the third, though, is the most important, and that is, whenever an organism eats food, it gets energy from that and also turns it into body mass. But during that conversion, you lose about 90% of the energy in that food. Yeah, it’s rough. So, as Howard was saying, “We have a situation in which it takes about 16 pounds (~ 7.26 kilograms) of grain in order to make one pound (~ 0.45 kilograms) of meat.” We must be reading the same books.
In addition to that, of course, we’ve highlighted the methane contribution, and that is, livestock contribute a great deal to other greenhouse gases, not just carbon dioxide. Animal agriculture is responsible for 37% of all anthropogenic methane emissions and is about 65% of nitrous oxides emissions – that’s animal agriculture alone.
And of course, we have a great deal of energy going into heating and cooling concentrated animal feedlot operations. And we also have a vast amount of energy that it takes to keep the meat cold once you slaughter it and move it to the consumer. All of that is very energy- intensive and therefore emits greenhouse gases. So in the scientific community now, people are embracing what’s called “Life Cycle Analyses,” to look at all the various inputs and the impacts that they have when you take something from the farm all the way to having it at your fork. So, when you do that and you look at a kilogram of beef, the equivalent of 36 kilograms of carbon dioxide are emitted for that. If we look at pork, it’s about six kilograms, so it’s six times more efficient. But if we look at dried peas or beans, it’s about 0.6 (kilograms).
If we look at it another way, dried beans, peas, an adequate source of protein per kilogram, are about 60 times more efficient in terms of greenhouse emissions than a kilogram of beef. Quite striking! So basically, plant-based diets are far more sustainable than diets based on grain-fed meat. Reducing our consumption of industrially produced meat will greatly reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases.
In addition to that, we also face challenges in terms of plant-based agriculture; it’s not just animal-based. We have to deal with the fact that most of our plant-based agriculture relies on fossil fuels both for mechanized inputs and also for fertilizers. So, we need to move away from this, of course, looking at the nonrenewableness of fossil fuels. We have to increase the use of legumes – that would be clovers and alfalfas – in order to make up for the nitrogen that we’ll lose through the synthetic nitrogen, that we won’t be able to use in the future.
And then, what I do want to say also is, just reducing meat and also increasing the sustainability of agriculture is not necessarily going to address the current food crisis. So that, even if we take all the grains or if we free up all the grains from all the meat that we eat, it won’t solve the hunger problem because it’s not caused by lack of food, it’s caused by lack of access to food, because of the lack of purchasing power of the poor. So we need to address its root, which is poverty.
And so I see the following as essential: we have to understand that our current economy actually concentrates power in the hands of the wealthy, and as Howard was saying, they have undue influence over our politicians. We also have to free ourselves of the ideology that free markets are going to solve our problems. Instead, see that the rules of the market – we actually have to set them by society to serve social goals.
So, in terms of solving the food crisis, we can talk about that at great length, but we basically need to allow developing countries to pursue food security policies rather than being opened up to our subsidized grains. And also, we have to empower the rural poor, give them access to land and the means to produce. A deeper democracy is basically what I’m talking about. So, basically to conclude, in the face of global warming and its quickening pace, we need to make wide sweeping changes, I would say, and fast. In the industrialized world, these changes include both changes in our diets, also in our transportation habits and the design in the places we live, in terms of houses and cities.
If we feel any sense of obligation to future generations and also to other people on the planet and other organisms, I think we should dramatically reduce our meat consumption. Our diet should be primarily plant-based. But it’s not just necessarily up to us; it is also up to us to influence policy. So we need to make the days of emitting greenhouse gas emissions with impunity, we have to end that, basically. We need regulations, we need incentives, a combination of those, and green taxes that will tax those most environmentally damaging activities.
Before I end, I was going to pose a question to Supreme Master Ching Hai, (Yeah.) and that is, we’ve heard a lot about industrialized meat production, I’d say made a good case in terms of going vegan, especially in industrialized countries, but there is also charges of neocolonialism – when the First World tells the developing countries what to do. So, what do You think about veganism and herding cultures – say, the Fulani and the Beduoin – and charges of neocolonialism?
Master: Thank you, Professor Galt. Thank you for bringing this up. You see, anything natural, it should be good. Otherwise, of course, it’s not good. But once our planet social structure is stabilized and the economy is in full bloom everywhere due to vegan diet and the blessing of Heaven and the new technology, etc., etc., then I think the herding practice will also be absolved naturally, as they are just a small percentage anyway, compared to the organized meat industry as a whole.
We, of course, should spread out the great benefit of veganism and elevate our spiritual level to an extent, so that all humans will understand that only a noble, compassionate way of life, such as a vegan lifestyle, is truly sustainable and benefits humans, as we are the crown of creation.
And, by the way, Jane, you have forgotten Mr. Al Gore has made a surprise visit to a meeting in Austin, Texas, on the 19th of July. He was speaking to the internet savvy political activists there. It was a Netroots Nation’s conference. When one journalist asked him about a vegetarian diet, he said, “It is true that vegetarian diet is good for people’s health and can save the planet.” So, he did say something, maybe not on the web, but he did say elsewhere. (Excellent! Thank You for letting me know. Thank You so much.) You’re welcome. (Excellent!)
I think he also began the vegan diet already. I mean not completely, but maybe he’s half or two-third already vegan. You give him a little time. It’s not that easy for many people, I have to say. Because this is all new to them, and they probably think, “What?! Without (animal-people) meat, how am I going to live?” They forgot the cow- and the elephant(-people), they are so big, and they live only on grass and simple leaves even. Alright, thank you. (Thank You very much, Master and Professor.)
Photo Caption: “The Sky and the Earth Are Still Benevolent, Humans Should Learn from Them Too!”
