Ask Auntie Civ: Why do environmentalists eat meat?

Ask Auntie Civ, the world’s first anti-civilization advice columnist!

Dear Auntie Civ:

Thanksgiving is here, which prompts me to ask about a matter that’s been bothering me for quite some time, namely, why are environmentalists and the social justice crowd not on board with vegetarianism?

To be fair, I’m not talking about people with allergies or sensitivities, whose eating options are narrowed for reasons not of their choosing. Instead, I’m recalling the countless environmental meetings where meat and dairy products are served without question, often at the expense of animal-free offerings.

As early as 1971, we had books like the Diet for a Small Planet, exposing the degradation and social injustice of mass meat consumption. There have been hundreds of books and documentaries highlighting the health, environmental, and social equity benefits of animal-free eating.

Currently, we have the book Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, who questions why we treat our individual companion animals with such reverence, while we imprison and slaughter sentient beings by the millions, under conditions that make Guantanamo Bay look like a spa.

What’s with the social justice and solidarity people who still endorse this system? Some even try to excuse themselves on the basis of the existence of local, humanely-raised meat, even though they are not motivated to seek it out.

Humane considerations aside, factory farming is a colossal contributor to global warming, pollution, and resource depletion. Do you see any hope for change?

– Anne

Dear Anne,

Thank you for your passionate and articulate letter! But I can’t give you any false hope. If we all quit eating meat tomorrow, would that stop the tar sands from dumping millions of gallons of toxic waste into the Athabasca River? Would it prevent the destruction of millions of hectares of old-growth forest? Would it clean up the Texas-sized island of plastic garbage in the Pacific Ocean, slow down the extinction of the mountain caribou and the spotted owl, or reverse runaway climate change?

In North America, pre-contact societies hunted extensively. Did they wipe out the buffalo, the salmon runs, the sea lions and the great auks? No, the “civilized” colonists did that.

Going veg can’t and won’t save the planet, because the problem is civilization, and civilization is not sustainable. Consider: every city, by definition, imports vast quantities of food, water, and materials of all kinds from outside its borders. The supply of food, water, and materials is finite, but the capacity to consume and waste is limitless, apparently. Threats to the ecosystem include factory farms and industrial agriculture, along with all the other side effects of an unsustainable culture.

The devastating effects of industrial agriculture were obvious decades ago, when the Dust Bowl was born from “wheating the land to death.” We now know that monocultures deplete soils and long-term irrigation drains aquifers and devastates ecosystems. The cumulative impacts of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides have damaged the entire web of life, from bees to whales. And commercial farmers still won’t give up the poison!

I don’t think there’s going to be a wholesale shift to suddenly reform and save this culture. I think it’s going to crash. Of course, caring people want to take action and stop this mayhem, but it goes beyond lifestyle changes. Instead of throwing water at the fire, shouldn’t we try to shut off the flamethrower?

Love,

Auntie Civ

xxx000

Related post – Auntie Civ: How to Bring it Down and Why

Advertisement