In the last issue of New Scientist, there was an interesting commentary/analysis on meat consumption in the world. The environmental and health impacts of raising and eating meat seem to be economically interelated in a twisted, self-agrandizing inflation of the GDP (gross domestic product) -- the means by which we judge our standard of living.

GDP increases because meat consumption goes up -- farmers raise and sell more animals. Health care costs also rise and contribute to GDP. Issues such as obesity and heart disease, which everyone knows is the direct result of consuming too much fat, and meat has tons of fat. Then we raise more meat, negatively impact the environment some more (our farmed animals produce 10% of all greenhouse gases, including 25% of methane -- the most potent greenhouse gas), give more people heart disease, increase our GDP...

The average human only needs 1500 kilocalories a day. Eat twice that and most people become obese. Producing enough food for all of us is actually not a difficult task -- if we stick to a plant-rich diet. But feed the plants to the cows, then the cows to the humans and the money's flowing and the economy's booming.

Did you know it takes 100,000 litres of water to produce a kilo of beef? That's 200 times the amount of water it takes to produce a kilo of potatoes. And it's estimated that by 2050, the world's livestock population will consume enough plant life to feed an extra 4 billion people if it wasn't being fed to our meat. Four billion people. And all for the glory of consumption.

Of course, if I was feeling skeptical, I'd research the numbers more. Everyone's got a slant. The numbers quoted here come straight from that New Scientist article. The author mentions a "new report" by the Compassion in World Farming group. But it's not a "report", it's a new campaign to promote decreased meat consumption around the world. You can check out the PDF files for that campaign here -- the Mar 15, 2004 posting. The full report is called The Global Benefits of Eating Less Meat (PDF link).

I agree that we eat too much meat which is probably why I'm too lazy to check out those numbers just now (plus it's 1 in the morning and I'm supposed to be working on something else). But if I were you I'd research those numbers (maybe you can email me when you're done :).

I can't wait for my sister and my son to arrive for a three day visit! My son emailed today and asked if I wanted him to burn a CD for me. I told him, why don't you bring that CD up and we can listen to it, but I don't want a copy. Then he emailed and said, well, dad was going to give me some money but now he doesn't want to because I said I wanted CDs and he said I should just download the music. Ugh. Cringe. I haven't downloaded/burned/accepted any illegal music since I started working at EFF. I can't do it. I have a very strong moral conscience. I've been debating mentally for two weeks about how moral I'll be after I leave there, and I have to say I'm leaning towards the side of being legal and owning only legal music. Yeah, I probably spend a lot more money, but man does my little brain breathe freely.

I told my son to get that spending money from his father -- he'll need it for his trip. And maybe we'll run to Amoeba and he can buy some used disks. I told him I'd explain why he can't burn me that disk and why he shouldn't download music when he got here.