2136. Earth Has Lost a Third of Arable Land in Past 40 Years, Scientists Say

By Oliver Milman, The Guardian, December 2, 2015

The world has lost a third of its arable land due to erosion or pollution in the past 40 years, with potentially disastrous consequences as global demand for food soars, scientists have warned.

New research has calculated that nearly 33% of the world’s adequate or high-quality food-producing land has been lost at a rate that far outstrips the pace of natural processes to replace diminished soil.

The University of Sheffield’s Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures, which undertook the study by analysing various pieces of research published over the past decade, said the loss was “catastrophic” and the trend close to being irretrievable without major changes to agricultural practices.

The continual ploughing of fields, combined with heavy use of fertilizers, has degraded soils across the world, the research found, with erosion occurring at a pace of up to 100 times greater than the rate of soil formation. It takes around 500 years for just 2.5cm of topsoil to be created amid unimpeded ecological changes.

“You think of the dust bowl of the 1930s in North America and then you realise we are moving towards that situation if we don’t do something,” said Duncan Cameron, professor of plant and soil biology at the University of Sheffield.

“We are increasing the rate of loss and we are reducing soils to their bare mineral components,” he said. “We are creating soils that aren’t fit for anything except for holding a plant up. The soils are silting up river systems – if you look at the huge brown stain in the ocean where the Amazon deposits soil, you realise how much we are accelerating that process.

“We aren’t quite at the tipping point yet, but we need to do something about it. We are up against it if we are to reverse this decline.”

The erosion of soil has largely occurred due to the loss of structure by continual disturbance for crop planting and harvesting. If soil is repeatedly turned over, it is exposed to oxygen and its carbon is released into the atmosphere, causing it to fail to bind as effectively. This loss of integrity impacts soil’s ability to store water, which neutralizes its role as a buffer to floods and a fruitful base for plants.

Degraded soils are also vulnerable to being washed away by weather events fueled by global warming. Deforestation, which removes trees that help knit landscapes together, is also detrimental to soil health.

The steep decline in soil has occurred at a time when the world’s demand for food is rapidly increasing. It’s estimated the world will need to grow 50% more food by 2050 to feed an anticipated population of 9 billion people. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, the increase in food production will be most needed in developing countries.

The academics behind the University of Sheffield study propose a number of remedies to soil loss, including recycling nutrients from sewerage, using biotechnology to wean plants off their dependence upon fertilizers, and rotating crops with livestock areas to relieve pressure on arable land.

Around 30% of the world’s ice-free surfaces are used to keep chicken, cattle, pigs and other livestock, rather than to grow crops.

“We need a radical solution, which is to re-engineer our agricultural system,” Cameron said. “We need to take land out of production for a long time to allow soil carbon to rebuild and become stable. We already have lots of land – it’s being used for pasture by the meat and dairy industries. Rather than keep it separated, we need to bring it into rotation, so that that there is more land in the system and less is being used at any one time.”

Cameron said he accepted this would involve direct government intervention, funding for farmers and “brave” policymaking.

“We can’t blame the farmers in this. We need to provide the capitalisation to help them rather than say, ‘Here’s a new policy, go and do it,’” he said. “We have the technology. We just need the political will to give us a fighting chance of solving this problem.

1790. Book Review: The Ecological Hoofprint: The Global Burden of Industrial Livestock

By Jonathan Rutherford, March 30, 2015

Tony Weis’ new book, the Ecological Hoofprint is an outstanding work of activist scholarship. Even though, at a personal level, I was already aware of some of the problems associated with the industrial livestock industry, the book helped to both deepen my understanding and increase my moral and intellectual concern about the issues involved. I found Weis’ central contention – that ‘the deindustrialsation of livestock and the demeatificaiton diets are central to the hope of a more sustainable, just, and humane world,’ (p.12) – to be overwhelmingly persuasive.

The central aim of the Ecological Hoofprint is to challenge and expose the many unrecognized costs and problems associated with what Weis calls the growing ‘meatification’ of diets. The title is, of course, an allusion to the now well-known ecological footprint, which has successfully raised awareness about the unsustainable nature of high consumption lifestyles more generally. In the same vein, the Ecological Hoofprint seeks to draw ‘attention to the resource budgets and pollution costs that are embedded and under-accounted for in production and consumption’ of livestock (p. 129).

A related aim is to challenge the way in which dominant development narratives uncritically take for granted high-meat consumption. The livestock industry has used a range of strategies – most noticeably the (misleading) claim that meat is an indispensible source of quality protein – to reinforce the association between high meat consumption and successful societal development. Weis shows how this has influenced future development goals, such as the widely promoted imperative to ‘double food production’ by 2050. Such projections come with embedded assumptions about the continual ‘meatification’ of diets. As Weis points out ‘the scale of chronic hunger (nearly one billion) and malnourishment today, and expected population growth (more than two billion) still does not come close to adding up to a doubling scenario, which also must be understood to contain an uncritical expectation that meat consumption will continue to rise rapidly’ (p.3). 

The context for the book is the explosive, albeit geographically uneven, rise in meat consumption across the world, in the second half of the 20^th century. In 1961 just over three billion people ate an average of 23 kg of meat and 5 kg of eggs a year, but by 2011, 7 billion ate an average of 43 kg of meat and 10kg of eggs a year – in other words, there has been a quadrupling of meat consumption, and an even greater rise in egg consumption, in a mere half-century (p.1). At the same time, Weis shows that the meatifcation of diets is very unevenly spread across the globe. The global-regional inequalities are massive: average meat consumption in the U.S, for example, was 121 kg in 2010, compared to 7kg in South Asia. This picture, however, needs to be tempered by the fact that meat-consumption is growing most rapidly in some of the so-called ‘emerging economies’ – China, for example, saw per capita meat consumption grow from 4kg to 61 kg between 1961 and 2010.

The great value of the book is that it situates the growth of the industrial livestock industry within the context of critical political economy – that is, Weis seeks to show how the competitive pressure acting on producers in a capitalist market economy has shaped each stage in the growth of the industry. For example, in the early 20^th century economic competition had compelled U.S grain farmers to make a series of productivity enhancing technological innovations designed to simultaneously maximize agricultural yields while reducing labor costs. This, however, soon led to a food ‘glut’, as more food was being produced than could be sold, which threatened to undermine prices and agricultural incomes. Weis is quick to point out that this ‘glut’ did not mean that everyone in the U.S was being adequately fed: rather there was an imbalance between supply and effective demand – the latter referring to both the desire and ability to purchase a commodity. In a market economy, Weis reminds us, ‘the hungry people who can’t pay don’t register’ (p.72). Still, from a commercial perspective the glut was a major problem and while government purchasing of grain surpluses or third world food aid (designed to establish long term markets) could alleviate the problem for a while, a longer-term solution was needed. This was found, Weis shows, in the funneling of grain surpluses into livestock – animals which were increasingly separated from traditional farms, and systematically reared for food in specialized factory farms, warehouses and feedlots – in order to produce meat, eggs and dairy. Although the funneling of grains through livestock involves a net nutritional loss, still, the resulting meat could be sold at higher prices, enabling a new source of income and future growth for the sector. In this way, the growth of what Weis calls the industrial grain-oilseed complex, was increasingly tied to the industrial livestock complex: the growth of each reinforcing the other, to the point where, today, nearly 1/3 of all world arable land is used to grow grains for animal feed (p.148). 

Once established, capitalist growth imperatives have, of course, compelled the livestock industry to systematically increase and speed up the production of meat. This has particularly favored poultry production, with chickens especially well suited to the ‘technological innovations’ of industrialized livestock production. Poultry are also the most ‘efficient’ at turning feed into meat in the quickest time possible – their short lives lasting only a matter of months – even if the process inevitably involves, in the words of Bob Torres, neglecting ‘their interests to not suffer, their desires to be free and to live as beings in the world,’ and instead, subjugating them to the ‘productive ends of capital’ (quoted in Weis, p.142). 

In a powerful chapter, Weis shows the contradictory nature of this process. In a variety of ways the attempt to speed-up and intensify meat-egg-milk output, undermines basic biophysical processors. These then have to be ‘over-ridden’ by additional application of resources – most noticeably fossil fuel energy – which in turn generate mounting pollution and/or other problems. To give just one example, the sheer volume of often-contaminated biowaste generated at large (labor saving) factory farms, cannot easily be recycled back into the soil as was the case with traditional farms. Instead a variety of energy and water intensive processors are needed in order to remove the waste from factories and either transport off-site or funnel it into massive, often leaching, neighboring ‘lagoons’. 

The final chapter is an appropriately devastating summary of the true ‘hoofprint’ generated by the grain-oilseed-livestock industrial complex. At its heart, this is a challenge to the narrow conception of capitalist ‘efficiency’, which has shaped the development of the industry. In the search for profit, the industry has very ‘efficiently’ sort to increase meat-egg-dairy output while minimizing costs, especially labor costs. However, looked at through the lens of ecological and social impacts, the industry has been appallingly inefficient, generating multiple and mounting problems. These include, but are not limited to: 

• Magnified GHG emissions (livestock production is involved in nearly 1/5 of all anthropocentric GHG emissions);
• Increased land devoted to monocultural feed crops, which in several ways accelerates the decline and fragmentation of eco-systems;
• Increased water use, as well as pollution of waterways from fertilizer and pesticide runoff and leaching bio waste;
• Increased chronic diseases associated directly with high meat diets, and indirectly from the disease risks associated with livestock factory farms;
• The domination, abuse and violence inflicted on livestock animals; 
• The mundane, degrading and psychological unhealthy conditions experienced by animal industry workers. 

Weis concludes the book by discussing alternatives and strategies for change. On the supply side he argues for a gradual dismantling of the industrialized grain-livestock complex, to be replaced with bio-intensive organic farming. Bio-intensive farming, he argues, is capable of producing more ‘total nutrition per land area than monocultures owing to their capacity to grow a bigger range and overall number of plants, even if individual plants are lower yielding’ (p.148). The more direct use of agricultural land for (mostly plant based) food could open up space ‘for the renaturalization of forests, native grasslands, wetlands, riparian zones, streams and rivers’ (p.149). On the demand side, Weis encourages individuals to adopt more plant-based diet and discusses the debates that rage between meat minimizers, vegetarians and vegans. Still, he cautions against exaggerating the ‘impact of individual consumer choices’ worrying that ‘this could lead to self-gratification when what is needed is far more critical reflection and political engagement’ (p.154).

I felt this section could have done with further elaboration and discussion of the hugely difficult socio-political issues involved. Weis does not go into detail on some of the inevitable trade-offs that would come with such a societal shift. For example, while a transition to labor intensive bio-intensive farming may well have the advantage of increasing employment and defusing the ecological hoofprint, the costs would involve not just reduced meat availability, but also a less lucrative agricultural sector generally, as reduced labor productivity would eat into both profits and per capita incomes. Furthermore, a labor-intensive agricultural sector could undermine many sources of modern economic growth. Personally, I think these are costs worth making but the point is, when viewed in these terms, the immensity of the political challenge becomes clear. Which capitalist society today – all of which consider economic growth to be a fundamental societal goal, and most of whom are fully integrated into today’s neoliberal global economy dominated by huge Trans-National Corporations – are going to consider making the radical shifts Weis wants? 

Ultimately, Weis’ systemic analysis points towards the need for a new anti-systemic movement. This is especially clear when the hoofprint is understood as just one more set of problems that global-consumer-capitalist society is generating, and particularly when viewed in light of the emerging (savage) limits to growth. The book, in short, provides further ammunition for those who see a need for a reconceived ‘eco-socialism’, which, for this reviewer, might look something like Ted Trainer’s inspiring, albeit challenging, vision of a ‘Simpler Way’. 

Weis’ book stands as a fine achievement and a must read for anyone working for transition to a democratic, sustainable and peaceful world order. 

1774. The Myth of High-Protein Diets

By Dean Ornish, The New York Times, March 23, 2015

MANY people have been making the case that Americans have grown fat because they eat too much starch and sugar, and not enough meat, fat and eggs. Recently, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee lifted recommendations that consumption of dietary cholesterol should be restricted, citing research that dietary cholesterol does not have a major effect on blood cholesterol levels. The predictable headlines followed: “Back to Eggs and Bacon?”

But, alas, bacon and egg yolks are not health foods.

Although people have been told for decades to eat less meat and fat, Americans actually consumed 67 percent more added fat, 39 percent more sugar, and 41 percent more meat in 2000 than they had in 1950 and 24.5 percent more calories than they had in 1970, according to the Agriculture Department. Not surprisingly, we are fatter and unhealthier.

The debate is not as simple as low-fat versus low-carb. Research shows that animal protein may significantly increase the risk of premature mortality from all causes, among them cardiovascular disease, cancer and Type 2 diabetes. Heavy consumption of saturated fat and trans fats may double the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

A study published last March found a 75 percent increase in premature deaths from all causes, and a 400 percent increase in deaths from cancer and Type 2 diabetes, among heavy consumers of animal protein under the age of 65 — those who got 20 percent or more of their calories from animal protein.

Low-carb, high-animal-protein diets promote heart disease via mechanisms other than just their effects on cholesterol levels. Arterial blockages may be caused by animal-protein-induced elevations in free fatty acids and insulin levels and decreased production of endothelial progenitor cells (which help keep arteries clean). Egg yolks and red meat appear to significantly increase the risk of coronary heart disease and cancer due to increased production of trimethylamine N-oxide, or TMAO, a metabolite of meat and egg yolks linked to the clogging of arteries. (Egg whites have neither cholesterol nor TMAO.)

Animal protein increases IGF-1, an insulin-like growth hormone, and chronic inflammation, an underlying factor in many chronic diseases. Also, red meat is high in Neu5Gc, a tumor-forming sugar that is linked to chronic inflammation and an increased risk of cancer. A plant-based diet may prolong life by blocking the mTOR protein, which is linked to aging. When fat calories were carefully controlled, patients lost 67 percent more body fat than when carbohydrates were controlled. An optimal diet for preventing disease is a whole-foods, plant-based diet that is naturally low in animal protein, harmful fats and refined carbohydrates. What that means in practice is little or no red meat; mostly vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes and soy products in their natural forms; very few simple and refined carbohydrates such as sugar and white flour; and sufficient “good fats” such as fish oil or flax oil, seeds and nuts. A healthful diet should be low in “bad fats,” meaning trans fats, saturated fats and hydrogenated fats. Finally, we need more quality and less quantity.

My colleagues and I at the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute and the University of California, San Francisco, have conducted clinical research proving the many benefits of a whole-foods, plant-based diet on reversing chronic diseases, not just on reducing risk factors such as cholesterol. Our interventions also included stress management techniques, moderate exercise like walking and social support.

We showed in randomized, controlled trials that these diet and lifestyle changes can reverse the progression of even severe coronary heart disease. Episodes of chest pain decreased by 91 percent after only a few weeks. After five years there were 2.5 times fewer cardiac events. Blood flow to the heart improved by over 300 percent.

Other physicians, including Dr. Kim A. Williams, the president of the American College of Cardiology, are also finding that these diet and lifestyle changes can reduce the need for a lifetime of medications and transform people’s lives. These changes may also slow, stop or even reverse the progression of early-stage prostate cancer, judging from results in a randomized controlled trial.

These changes may also alter your genes, turning on genes that keep you healthy, and turning off genes that promote disease. They may even lengthen telomeres, the ends of our chromosomes that control aging.

The more people adhered to these recommendations (including reducing the amount of fat and cholesterol they consumed), the more improvement we measured — at any age. But for reversing disease, a whole-foods, plant-based diet seems to be necessary.

In addition, what’s good for you is good for our planet. Livestock production causes more disruption of the climate than all forms of transportation combined. And because it takes as much as 10 times more grain to produce the same amount of calories through livestock as through direct grain consumption, eating a plant-based diet could free up resources for the hungry.

What you gain is so much more than what you give up.

Dean Ornish is a clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and the founder of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute.

1470. Another Epidemic Hits Industrial Pig Farms and Threaten the Water Supply

By Stephanie Strom, The New York Times, July 4, 2014

The bodies are piling up fast.

A deadly virus, porcine epidemic diarrhea, or PEDv, is estimated to have killed, on average, more than 100,000 piglets and young hogs each week since it first showed up in Iowa in May 2013, wreaking havoc on the pork industry.

The number of hogs slaughtered this year is down 4.2 percent, according to the United States Agriculture Department, to roughly 50 million from more than 52 million in the same period in 2013.

That drop drove up the price of bacon and center-cut pork chops sold in the United States by more than 12 percent in May, compared with the same period a year ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Prices for bacon rose more than 15 percent, and pork chops were up almost 13 percent.

“I’ve been a vet since 1981, and there is no precedent for this,” said Paul Sundberg, vice president for science and technology at the National Pork Board. “It is devastatingly virulent.”

The fatality numbers are so staggering that environmentalists have grown worried about the effects of state laws requiring the burial of so many carcasses, and what that will do to the groundwater.

“We know there is a lot of mortality from this disease, and we’re seeing evidence of burial in areas with shallow groundwater that a lot of people rely on for drinking water and recreation,” said Kelly Foster, senior lawyer at the Waterkeeper Alliance, an environmental group.

Waterkeeper has asked the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to put a mass disposal plan into effect, and wants it to declare a state of emergency. On its website and YouTube, the organization has posted photos of dead piglets barely covered with earth and boxes overflowing with the bodies of young pigs, although it is unclear whether all were victims of the virus.

Steven W. Troxler, the state’s agricultural commissioner, has so far declined to seek an emergency declaration, saying in a letter to Waterkeeper that he thought existing disposal systems, including composting and the shipping of carcasses to rendering facilities, were up to the challenge. “We are not aware of any published scientific data that indicates any groundwater contamination as a result of PEDv,” according to the letter, which Mr. Troxler wrote in March.

Some of the huge hog operations in North Carolina have become ensnared in disputes over aerial photographing of farms, some of it unrelated to the spread of the virus, and industry officials have expressed concerns about the practice as well.

Three state lawmakers had proposed a bill that effectively would require state agencies to keep under lock and key any aerial photographs of agricultural operations that include global positioning coordinates. The move echoed an effort by United States Senator Mike Johanns, Republican of Nebraska, to impose a yearlong moratorium on the Environmental Protection Agency’s taking of aerial photographs of cattle feedlots and farming operations to monitor compliance with the Clean Water Act.

Mr. Johanns’s amendment, attached to a recent appropriations bill, was altered to require the E.P.A. to give the Senate more information about its aerial photography program.

Last summer, George Steinmetz, a photographer working for National Geographic, was arrested in Kansas under the state’s “ag gag” law after using a paraglider to take photographs of cattle feedlots and other agricultural operations for an article on the food industry.

Precisely how many pigs have died from the virus, which causes acute diarrhea that is virtually 100 percent lethal for piglets two to three weeks old, is unknown. The Agriculture Department did not require reporting of the disease until June 5, and it does not collect data on how many pigs the virus has killed, instead referring the question to the hog industry — which does not like to talk about it.

The National Pork Producers Council does not have a figure of its own but said it had heard that about eight million pigs had died of PEDv so far.

The U.S.D.A. said that as of May 28, nearly 7,000 samples submitted from 30 states to labs tested positive for the virus. Since May, there have been reports of pigs afflicted with the virus in a 31st state. “We do know that it is a particularly persistent virus, and it can survive long periods in less-than-ideal environments,” Joelle Hayden, a department spokeswoman, wrote in an email.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack recently pledged $26.2 million for a variety of efforts to fight the virus, including development of a vaccine. The largest amount, $11.1 million, is to be allocated to helping hog producers with infected herds enhance their biosecurity practices.

The money is badly needed. In an illustration of how indiscriminate the disease is, the virus was found in Vermont in March on a traditional farm with a small drift of pigs raised largely on pasture. “I was not as surprised as one might think,” said Dr. Kristin Haas, the state veterinarian. “Even though in Vermont and most of the Northeast we don’t have the same type of commercial swine operations that you find in Iowa and North Carolina, there is still a tremendous amount of livestock moving in and out of the state.”

Michael Yezzi, proprietor of Flying Pigs Farm just across the border in New York State, said farmers suspected that the virus arrived on a truck from Pennsylvania. “It’s a very big concern because we have young stock on the farm, piglets born on the farm and piglets brought in from regional breeders,” Mr. Yezzi said. “We have to make sure the farms we’re working with don’t have it, because it’s going to kill everything under a certain age.

“Nobody wants to lose 10 to 20 percent of their yearly supply of pigs, whether that would be 150 for someone like me or 15,000 for someone in Iowa.”

Prevention is no mean feat. At the Hord Livestock Company in north-central Ohio, for instance, trucks returning from feed deliveries are cleaned and disinfected and then the trailers are baked to 160 degrees for 10 minutes. Drivers wear disposable bootees, and farm supervisors are not allowed to travel between Hord’s farms.

And yet the company has just finished the four- to five-month process of eliminating the virus from one of its farms and is working to disinfect another and build up its sows’ immunity so they can pass it on to their piglets in their colostrum. The two farms had different strains of the virus, one more deadly than the other.

Pat Hord, whose family owns the business, would not say how many of its animals died from PEDv. “Even though the economic hit is definitely significant, it’s probably the emotional side that’s the worst of it for me and my family and the team here,” Mr. Hord said. “All we do every day is take care of the animals the best that we can, but there’s nothing you can do for them when this disease hits — it’s out of your control.”

The Hords, who also raise cattle, use composting to dispose of animal carcasses, laying dead animals on a concrete slab, mixing in sawdust and rotating the mixture as it decomposes to aerate it. Mr. Hord said disposal of the increased number of dead pigs had not been a particular problem. “The good news, if there is any in this,” he said, “is that baby pigs are very small.”

Waterkeeper, however, says that the sheer volume of dead animals poses an environmental threat.

“They’re very secretive about how many pigs have died in North Carolina, but we estimate that it’s about two million over the last year or so,” said Rick Dove, a retired Marine Corps lawyer who has taken aerial photos of pig farms for Waterkeeper’s North Carolina affiliate. “They can’t move those pigs off the farm because it will spread disease, so they’re being buried in ground along the coastal waterways where the groundwater level is high.”

State regulation requires the bodies to be buried at least two feet underground, which in many places means the dead pigs come into contact with groundwater, Mr. Dove said.

The virus does not infect humans. As the corpses decompose, however, they can become hosts for bacteria and other pathogens.

Each state has its own requirements for the disposal of carcasses. Iowa, one of the largest hog-producing states, has a set of disposal methods for use during emergency disease outbreaks. They range from burial and rendering to use of alkaline hydrolysis, a highly specialized process using chemicals and heat to break down tissues.

An Iowa State University publication describing various processes for disposing of carcasses during an epidemic estimated that it would take a pit six feet deep, 300 feet long and 10 feet wide to hold 2,100 pigs, and the pit would need to be covered with three to six feet of dirt in a site marked by GPS coordinates and regularly inspected.

North Carolina issued a warning to a pig operation for having an open burial pit on its property, Ms. Foster, the Waterkeeper lawyer, said. The organization brought the issue, which it documented with aerial photos of the farm, to the attention of the state agriculture department.

The North Carolina Farm Bureau contends that such photographs create unnecessary expenses for its members. “Third parties are making complaints to environmental regulators, and using aerial photography to document what they say are violations,” said Paul Sherman, director of the farm bureau’s air and energy programs. “The vast majority of those cases are unfounded, but farmers still have to deal with it, it eats up a good part of a day or two and often the same complaints come up multiple times.”

1441. How Veganism Can Help Save the World

By Kamran Nayeri, June 12, 2014

1. Introduction
In 2011, more than 58 billion chicken (more precisely, 58,110,000,000), nearly 3 billion ducks (2,917,000,000), more than billion pigs (1,383,000,000) were slaughtered worldwide. Other farm animals slaughtered for food numbered in hundreds of millions each: 654,000,000 turkeys, 649,000,000 geese and guinea fowl, 517,000,000 sheep, 430,000,000 goats and 296,000,000 cattle (Meat Atlas: Facts and Figures About Animals We Eat, Heinrich Böll Foundation, January 3, 2014, p. 15).

The great majority of these animals are raised in industrial farms under horrendous condition (see, for example, how chicken, pigs, sheep and cattle are raised in American industrial farms).  

Of course, consumption of non-human animals as food is not limited to farm animals. In 2011, over 156 million tons of seafood (capture and aquaculture) was consumed worldwide (FAO, “World Fisheries Production,” accessed June 2, 2014). There is also “exotic food” that in the United States includes alligator, alpaca, armadillo, bear, beaver, bobcat, caiman, crocodile, camel, coyote, capon, dove, frog, iguana, kudu, lion, llama, monkey, muskrat, opossum, otter, ostrich, pale, quail, turtle, venison and zebra meat (see, for example, this marketplace mail order for exotic food).  Other countries and cultures have their own choice of meat. In China, Korea and the Philippines cats and dogs are eaten.  Japanese prize whales as food.  The French eat horse meat. In Africa, bushmeat is treasured.  

In contrast, vegetarianism and veganism are spreading slowly across the world (John Davis, World Veganism: Past, Present and Future, 2010-2012).  Young people and an increasing number of older people are taking up vegetarian or vegan diet for a healthy life style, some for ethical reasons as well.  In the U.S. 4% of men and 7% of women describe themselves as vegetarians; in European Union it is 2% and 10% respectively. However in India, because of the influence of Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism, 30% (375 millions) of the population are vegetarians (Meat Atlas, 2014, p. 56). 

Even if one interprets this trend as a fad, it differs from most other current fads as it is directed to an essential human activity that has become both a key industrial sector of the world economy and a fetishized orgy of eating all that can be eaten. While, of course, a significant part of humanity goes without adequate access to nutrition.  

Moreover, those who take up vegetarianism or veganism often consume locally produced food that use organic, agroecological or permacultural methods and employing “fair labor practices.”  Vegetarians and vegans tend to be critical of agribusiness conglomerates that practice high-input large-scale intensive monoculture that use chemicals or genetically modified crops, bust unions and super-exploit workers. These facts should make present day veganism of interest to anyone concerned with radical social change.  

However, in his recent letter written in response to my criticism of his claim that the Great Recession was caused by natural limits to growth, ecological socialist Saral Sarkar takes a skeptical attitude towards vegetarianism and veganism. 

Criticizing my proposition that “…ecological socialism and anarchism or any other emancipatory movement should be based … on a positive world movement to reintegrate ourselves with the rest of nature,” Saral writes:

“That is too much for even the best eco-socialist or eco-anarchist. I wrote to you in my comments on an earlier essay of yours that going back to a hunter-gatherer way of living (that is what is required to reintegrate ourselves with the rest of nature) is for the time being impossible/unimaginable. It may be possible or even necessary after a great collapse, when human numbers have gone back to perhaps just one million or two. But for today, we should concentrate our discussion upon what is imaginable in the next 100 years. Even a theoretical ethical discussion must take note of the limits to what is technically possible and what not. One may then go further and issue ethical commandments: e.g. eat vegan or at least vegetarian, use for lighting only lamps that need only vegetable oil etc. But of what use are such discussions today? Such discussions (and possible decisions) have nothing to do with the question whether there are limits to growth or not. They may be carried on separately. The crisis we are facing today have little to do with such questions.” (All emphases in bold letters are mine, the italic is Saral’s emphasis) 

The entire set of propositions in the paragraph above are flawed, individually and taken as a whole.  

First, Saral objects to my proposition by asserting that it requires “going back to a hunter-gatherer way of living.”  But how could any ecological socialist deny that reintegrating humanity in the rest of nature is both desirable and necessary to overcome present-day world crisis?  Is not our estrangement (alienation) from nature the problem?  If Saral denies the need or desirability of such de-alienation he should simply explain himself instead of claiming that it requires a hunter-gatherer existence. I have never suggested this leap in logic. Why does Saral suggest it as if it is my point of view?  What I have proposed is a return to ecocentric world views similar to those of our forager ancestors but have offered modern ecocentric world views such as Deep Ecology and Darwinian evolutionary theory as examples from philosophy and from science. I have never held that there is either one ecocentric world view or that there is a best one.  What I have argued is that an ecocentric worldview is necessary for transiting to ecological socialism.  And I can vouch for its desirability the more I make progress in opening myself up to the rest of nature.  If Saral disagrees with the need or desirability for ecocentrism—and I will show below that he actually does disagree with it—he should simply explain and motive his point of view to move our discussion forward.

Second, Saral’s proposition that veganism or vegetarianism falls outside the“limits to growth paradigm” tells us more about his own interpretation of the causes of humanity’s problems than the alleged irrelevance of veganism for the emancipatory movement.  We know that Saral’s ecological socialism is inspired by the Club of Rome’s limits to growth simulations.  As I have argued earlier (see, Part 4 of my “Limits to Limits to Growth perspective”), as informative as these simulations are about the problems of the present day capitalist civilization they really are technical arguments without any explicit social theory, moral philosophy or policy prescriptions.  

Furthermore, it is  not really hard to see that the carnivore diet violates these technical boundaries that Saral surely respects.  Take, for example, global warming.  “Depending on how you count, livestock are responsible for 6 to 32 percent of greenhouse gases. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), it’s 14.5 percent. (Meat Atlas, p. 34, see, also EPA, Agriculture gas emissions).  For another example take fresh water scarcity: 70% of all fresh water is used in agriculture, one third of it for livestocks. So clearly, veganism if practiced universally will alleviate the problem of global warming and fresh water shortage. Why should Saral dispute its relevance to natural limits to growth “paradigm” and postpone a discussion of it for 100 year? 

Third, as Saral’s adopted “paradigm” of limits to growth is merely technical we can understand why he views veganism as an “ethical commandment;” because it does not follow from the findings of the simulation models.  But that tell us more about limits to limits to growth “paradigm”and Saral’s own conception of ecological socialism than the actual reasons why people become vegan: their own health, welfare of farm animals, and for the environment that is being poisoned by the meat industry and species and ecosystem diversity that is being reduced daily (think of emptying oceans of many fish species). Clearly, these concerns are valid (Saral has not objected to them so far and I doubt if he objects to them at all). So, why call veganism an “ethical commandment” that has nothing to do with the “crisis we are facing today?” 

Thus, the problem with Saral’s misjudgment lies in part in his limits to growth paradigm.  However, there is one more foundational conceptualization in Saral’s theorizing that contributes to such poor judgment. It is his humanist anthropocentrism.  Allow me to explain.

2. Ecocentric ecosocialism or anthropocentric ecosocialism? 
In the opening chapter of his Eco-Socialism or Eco-Capitalism (1999), Saral offers foundational concepts of his version of ecological socialism.  Included is a discussion of anthropocentrism and ecocentrism on pages 10-15. There he adopts humanism as his own standpoint. Humanism, including socialist humanism, is a variety of anthropocentrism. Thus, Saral writes:

“Since we are humans, our main (not our only) concern is the suffering of humans…This might be called anthropocentrism. But the reason for this anthropocentrism is very simple. It is because we are humans that we are anthropocentric. No philosophising is necessary, and no religion or mythology—no species wants its own extinction or increased suffering.” (ibid., p. 10). 

But the argument that humans view the world as humans so their worldview must of necessity be anthropocentric is flawed. In “Anthropocentrism versus Ecocentrism Revisited: Theoretical and Practical Conclusions” (SATS: Northern European Journal of Philosophy, volume 14, number 1, November 2013, pp. 21-37), Teea Kortetmäki finds two “conceptual confusions” to defend anthropocentrism.  One is the conceptual confusion “that is used to defend anthropocentrism is the view that as we can have only a human viewpoint, we are always anthropocentric.” (ibid. p. 32).  

Let me explain why Saral’s position is “conceptual confusion.”

First, it trivializes anthropocentrism that is in fact an historical and philosophical worldview as I have explained in “Economics, Socialism and Ecology: A Critical Outline, Part 2.”  

Second, it turns a historical phenomenon into a biological, natural one. As anyone who has read my earlier discussion of Saral’s writings knows; from his explanation of the Great Recession to his discussion of the population question he naturalizes the issues under discussion, perhaps because of his adoption of limits to growth as his “paradigm.”  Yet, as I document in “Economics, Socialism and Ecology; A Critical Outline, Part 2," a key conceptual progress in anthropology is the realization that the transition from ecocentrism to anthropocentrism is central understanding our history.  For millions of years our forager ancestors held ecocentrist world views. Anthropocentrism emerged as the ideological basis for the Agrarian Revolution thousands of years ago and became institutionalized by the rise of class societies and civilizations. 

Third, there are modern day counter examples including Darwinian evolutionary theory and Deep Ecology that provide scientific and philosophical basis for ecocentrism respectively. 

Thus not only it is possible for humans to embrace ecocentrism, to do so is essential if we are to initiate the process of de-alienation from nature, part of the process to transcend the capitalist civilization and all vestiges of class society and to end the 10,000 year old war against nature, so that we can begin to healing our bonds with it.  Ecocentrism is not an option but a necessity for transition to an ecological socialist society or any other social formation that hopes to exist in harmony with the rest of nature.

In Eco-Socialism or Eco-Capitalism, Saral engages in some discussion of James Lovelock’s Gaia theory and Deep Ecology and at time seems to feel at peace with them. However, Saral’s discussion involves other confusions and concludes with affirmation of his humanist anthropocentrism.  Thus, after admitting some scientific confirmation of the Gaia theory he writes: “But in matters relating to us humans and our societies, it cannot replace anthropocentrism.” (ibid., p. 11).  Saral also alludes to the animal liberation literature and Deep Ecology as other sources for ecocentrism.  He does not discuss the former and his discussion of the latter is mired in confusion (e.g., his discussion of Deep Ecology its reference to “species” as if it means “animals” only; or interpreting the evolutionary and ethical reference to “equality” among species to mean having equal power; see the quotation below).  He begins with the Deep Ecology’s proposition that arguments for human superiority are frivolous, a view that actually can be based on Darwinian evolutionary theory; that is, it has scientific basis. But he concludes: 

“One thing is clear: only at the beginning of our evolution were we really equals of other species. At present, this equality is only a wish and a theory. In practice, it is only a moral duty of ours. Even so, let us not arrogantly think the whole of the rest of nature is at our mercy. The enemy bacteria that we thought  we had eradicated—those that cause cholera, malaria, plague—are all coming back, and we have to kill them, otherwise they will kill us.” (p. 13).   

Though obviously sympathetic to ecocentrism, Saral’s theory of ecological socialism remains anthropocentric.  

However, anthropocentric ecological socialism will lead to wrong policies (as Saral’s paragraph quoted at the opening of this writing clearly demonstrates). Ecological socialism can only be meaningful if it is squarely based on ecocentrism. Let Kortetmäki explain what this ecocentrism is and how it would differ from anthropocentrism in everyday policy decisions we must make:

“In contrast to anthropocentrism, ecocentrism is then characterized by the carnality of ecosystems or biosphere, varying degrees of egalitarianism between species and valuing the nonhuman species, ecosystems and life itself regardless of its use-value for us.  Reasons for environmental concern arise not only out of human interests, but also from seeing the biotic community as having moral standing in itself.  The difference from anthropocentrism is obvious when we consider the notion of ‘sustainability’ in an ecocentric sense: as all life forms and their flourishing are valuable in themselves, exploiting nature cannot be called sustainable when it threatens the flourishing of other life forms and species, though not yet human flourishing.  This argument has practical implications also to climate policy: at the moment some emission mitigating practices (for example, producing certain types of biofuel crops) can be accepted by anthropocentrists due to their carbon emission mitigating impacts, but ecocentrism cannot accept a practice that so greatly reduces biodiversity in the crop area and, in addition, is merely a short-sighted tool that does not advance changing the unsustainable practices that actually cause the problems.” (Kortetmäki, 2013, pp. 33-34). 

3. Anthropocentrism and political economy of food
Political economy of food deals with how food is produced, transported, retailed and consumed in the capitalist economy (For a pictorial history of the meat industry in the U.S., see, A History of the Meat Industry).  Radical political economy of food addresses larger issues neglected by mainstream analysis such as the wellbeing of workers in the industry, its impact on peasants and small farmers, issues of hunger and food security, its effects on the environment and health, and perhaps even ethics of raising and slaughtering industrial farm animals.  Dealing with these topics are outside the scope of this writing.  Here I merely like to point to the fact that radical studies of the present-day food system show that no radical social transformation is possible without building an alternative food system from the ground up (see, for example, Peter Goering, Helena Norberg-Hodge and John Paige explain in From the Ground Up: Rethinking Industrial Agriculture, Zed Books, 1993, Vandana Shiva, The Violence of Green Revolution: Third World Agriculture, Ecology and Politics, Zed Books, 1992, Michael Pollen’s Omnivore Dilemma, The Penguin Press, 2006). 

There are valid concerns with healthy diet and food safety (see, for example, “Meat Consumption and Cancer Risk,” ,”Antibiotics, the Meat Industry and Superbugs,” “Film Review: Forks Over Knives,” and The China Study) and environmental sustainability and ethics (Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, 1975, Gary L. Francione’s Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation, 2008).  

Today's meat industry is a highly centralized capitalist industry with relatively few giant firms operating worldwide. Among the top ten are the following firms listed with their “home country” and latest available revenue figures: JBS (Brazil, $38.7 billions), Tyson Food (USA, $33.3 billions), Cargill (USA, $32.5 billions), Vion (Netherlands/Germany, $13.2), BRF (Brazil, $12.7 billions), Nippon Meant Packers (Japan, $12.8 billions), Smithfields Food (USA,  $13.1 billions), Marfrig (Brazil, $12.8 billions), Danish Crown AmbA (Denmark, $10.3 billions) and Hormel Food (USA, 8.2 billions). 

Closely tied to these is the animal genetics industry that literary manufactures prototype animals for meat. The largest are Charoen Pokphand Group (Thailand), EW Group (Germany), Genus (U.K.), Groupe Grimaud (France), Hendrix Genetics (The Netherlands), Smithfield Foods (U.S.) , and Tyson Foods (U.S.).

Industrialization of meat production, distribution and retailing has spread a culture of meat eating to the entire population in the industrial capitalist economies and more recently to middle class layers of the rest of the world.  It has done so by making meat more available to the world and by reducing its market price. Thus, according to the National Chicken Council, dressed chicken was retailed in the U.S. for $6.48 a pound in 1930 (in today’s dollar) but retails these days for $1.57 a pound.  

Why such a drop in price of chicken? 

“Costs came down partly because scientific breeding reduced the length of time needed to raise a chicken to slaughter by more than half since 1925, even as a chicken’s weight doubled. The amount of feed required to produce a pound of chicken has also dropped sharply.” (“Industrial Farming and Your Diet”, March 12, 2014)  

Poultry Science journal has calculated that if humans grew at the same rate as modern chickens, a human by the age of two months would weigh 660 pounds! 

Among the scientific techniques used to raise farm animals in increasingly cramped spaces is the intensive use of hormones and antibiotics. 

Meanwhile, there has been a rapidly expanding mega-retail chains, conditioning, responding to and consolidating demand from the expanding middle classes worldwide.  

Thus, the rapid rise in meat consumption worldwide even though consumption of meat in the West has stagnated or declined due to recent awareness of health and environment issues and a sense of compassion for the farm animals. 

“Meat, a luxury in many parts of the world only 10 or 20 years ago, is now a part of the daily diet for a growing number of people in developing countries. Big supermarket chains such as Walmart from the USA, France’s Carrefour, the UK’s Tesco and Germany’s Metro are conquering the globe. Their expansion has sparked huge investments by domestic supermarket companies. The process has been well researched. The first wave began in the early 1990s in South America, in East Asian tiger economies like South Korea and Taiwan, and South Africa. Between 1990 and 2005, the market share of supermarkets in these countries rose from 10, to 50 or 60 percent. The second wave, in the mid-to-late 1990s, focused on Central America and Southeast Asia. By 2005, supermarkets accounted for 30–50 percent of the market share there. The third wave began in 2000 and washed over China and India, as well as big latecomers such as Vietnam. In only a few years, supermarket sales in these countries were growing by 30 to 50 percent a year. 

“Why this huge shift? It is not only due to the rising purchasing power of the middle classes, but also to more fundamental changes in society. In Pakistan, for example, cities are expanding so quickly that traditional methods of supplying meat and dairy products cannot keep up with the demand. The city of Lahore is growing by 300,000 people a year. The result is product shortages and poor quality, factors that drive the middle classes into the supermarkets, says the Express Tribune, a Pakistani daily. Working women, who are still responsible for cooking for their families, have no time to go from shop to shop to check the meat quality or haggle over prices. (Meat Atlas, p. 16)

Of course, none of this would have been possible without the prevailing anthropocetic culture that justifies a carnivorous diet and the violence that goes along with it.

4. The Anthropocentric culture and treatment of non-human animals
Almost all the animals served on the dinner plate have long been considered sentient, that is, they are shown to have feelings and capable of experiencing pain and suffering (see, Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, 1975). Clearly, systematically raising or capture of trillions of non-human animals to kill for food each year exceed all accounts of genocide  committed in human history—unless, of course, one trivializes these animals’ lives and magnifies our own.  And yet, all political currents, almost all intellectual traditions, including Marxists, and most world religions are silent or otherwise complacent in this abominable violent culture.  

Our culture prettify animal slaughter and meat eating.  As a child growing up in Tehran, Iran in the 1950s, I vividly recall a poster framed on the wall of butcher shops of an angel delivering a sheep to prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) who looked about to sacrifice his son (presumably Ishmael) to God.  The suggestion was evident even to a child: Why not sacrifice the sheep?  Thus, the idea that killing other animals is better than killing humans or eating other animals is fine but cannibalism is a sin.  Meanwhile, the half butchered skinned carcass of a cow or a sheep hanged from a nail secured on the butcher shop’s ceiling.  I also recall seeing how the butcher slaughtered a sheep, her legs tied with a rope and the blood running into the street’s gutters.  Of course, with the “progress” of modernity in Iran it was increasingly rare to see such violence in public. Instead, I recall when riding the city bus on a particular route there was a stop called Koshtargah (Slaughterhouse). Those days, the slaughterhouse was inside Tehran.  These days slaughterhouses are moved into far corners of rural areas hiding the violence that goes on inside every moment.  Today, worldwide “…ten corporations slaughter 88 percent of the total number of pigs. The global capacity of the companies is hard to believe: Tyson Foods…slaughters 42 million chickens, 170,000 cattle and 350,000 pigs – every week.” (Meat Atlas, p. 14)

In the 1980s, some of my fellow socialists worked on the “kill floor” of the American slaughterhouses.  This was part of our strategy to root ourselves in industrial unions to build a fighting labor movement capable of taking power and ushering in the socialist alternative. It never occurred to anyone involved how a working class that does not object to such violence against other animals would be capable of ending all violence we have endured in class society.

How do we account for our complacency?  I suggest it is our alienation from nature.  We can empathize with fellow human beings (unless they belong to the “other” group with which we are in conflict). But we cannot empathize with hundreds of species that we kill to eat.  If my argument for human alienation from the rest of nature is correct—that it is helped cause and became a consequence of the Agricultural Revolution--it is that alienation that explains common acceptance of the blood thirsty society we call civilization.  

In Eco-Socialism or Eco-Capitalism Saral points to two traits of human beings that he suggests are unique to humans: to kill other human beings and altruism of taking care of our sick and old.  If it was not well known in the 1990s, it is commonly understood now that other species kill members of their own species (e.g., chimpanzees, lions, even not-neutered domestic male cats fighting for turf for food and females) and that other species are capable of altruist behavior (see, the wikipedia entry).   However, is it not amazing that Saral did not notice what is truly a unique trait of us humans: the very violence we commit daily on such colossal scale to support our carnivorous habit?  Similarly, no other species commit anything like genocide.  Again, key to understanding this behavior is alienation.  In the case of other species, it is alienation from nature. In case of genocide or other systematic act of oppressing and exploiting groups of humans it is social alienation. African slave trade was part of the primitive accumulation of capital that helped institutionalized capitalism not only in Western Europe but also the United States.  Germans participated in or kept silent when fascists systematically sent 6 million Jews to their death. A century later, Turks still deny genocide against Armenians committed by the Ottoman empire.  Most white South Africans tolerated or actively participated in the Apartheid regime.  Jewish people who fled fascism in Europe colonized Palestine and have systematically driven out or oppressed millions of Palestinians. These criminal acts have been/are only possible by claiming moral superiority for the oppressor and relegating the oppressed to a subhuman status. We do the same to non-human animals to justify their subordination, oppression, exploitation and systematic killing. 

Of course, our focus is on food. But how many other ways are there that we abuse non-human animals? Each year hundreds of millions of “laboratory animals” are systematically subjected to what amount to torture and large majority finally killed. This is done in the name of human welfare (however, evidence is mounting to the contrary. For example, recent research show that animal models in laboratory medicine are not generalizable to humans. See, John J. Pappin, “”The Failing Animal Research Paradigm for Human Disease,” May 20, 2014). Less benevolent is the military use of animals. U.S. military uses live pigs for shooting practice and dolphins to detect underwater explosives. It’s use of sonar hurt whales and dolphins. How about the “pet industry?”  Not only dogs and cats are bred to fit human fancy (think about “toy dogs” or “Persian cats”), but each year a “residual” of untold hundreds of millions that have gone feral are estimated to be put to death worldwide. There is also a growing “exotic pet” industry. In the United States they include African wild dogs, armadillos, Asian small-clawed otters, bears, bobcats, coyotes, dolphins, foxes, giraffes, hedge hogs, lemurs, lions, lynxes, monkeys, penguins, porcupines, raccoons, sloths, tigers, wallaroos, wolves and zebras (for a marketplace for exotic pets see here).  Bullfighting and cockfighting are consider entertainment and in the case of the former, a tourist attraction.   Hunting and fishing are considered "sport" supported by large industries.  More socially acceptable are the zoos and circuses.  But animals suffer in captivity and circus animals are routinely mistreated (“trained”) to preform tricks.  Let’s not forget roadkills.  These are animals who have managed to cope with human population expansion (“development”) but remain at risk of getting hit when they cross a road. We also routinely exterminate other animals simply because they are inconvenient or at cross purpose to human activity as in gardening and in agriculture.

As humans increase in number and expand geographically we occupy more living space on Earth. Increases in our per capita consumption, including of fresh water and land drive other species out of existence.  Tens of thousands of chemicals are released into the environment allegedly at levels safe for humans but without any consideration of their toxicity for other species. The same is true of human waste. The anthropogenic climate change, ocean acidification, and nitrogen and phosphorus release into the environment all threaten untold number of species. 

We have turned the planet into our play ground that is in effect depleting it of biodiversity that is the basis of life itself.  I submit none of this is possible without an anthropocentric culture that regards the rest of nature at best as “our natural resources.”  The problem of production and consumption of food is one aspect of how present-day civilization views the rest of nature. 

5. History of food, lifestyle choices and emancipatory world views
Never our species consumed so much meat as we do today in the industrialized capitalist.  Estimated current per capita meat consumption in kilograms for industrialized capitalist countries/regions follows: beef (U.S. 26.5; Australia 22.9; Canada 20.2; New Zealand 19.1; EU 11.1; Japan 6.8); pork (EU 32.4; U.S. 21.1; Australia 20.0; Canada 16.7; New Zealand 15.5; Japan 14.9); chicken (U.S. 44.4; Australia 38.8; Canada 32.6; New Zealand 31.6; EU 20.8; Japan 12.8); lamb (New Zealand 8.8; Australia 8.4; EU 2.0; Canada 0.9; U.S. 0.4;  Japan 0.2). While the rest of the world consumes much less meat, their meat consumption is increasing fast due to the expansion of the middle classes.  (Meat Atlas, p. 47). That is, on average in a year an American eats an estimated 26.6 kilograms of beef, 21.1 kilograms of pork, 44.4 kilograms of chicken, 0.4 kilograms of lamb.  That is 92.5 kilograms or 203.5 pounds of meat a year!  

For millions of years our forager ancestors relied on gathering food from plants. Paleontologists know this because of the wear and tear of teeth of such foragers that can be only caused by plant fiber.  

However, it is also true that eventually humanoid foragers ate meat as well; first as scavengers and then as occasional hunters.  

“During the 400 millennia in which Homo erectus evolved into Homo sapiens… gathering did lose some of its importance, perhaps because of climatic conditions (the period concerned is 430,000 to 40,000 BC), only to recover it again as game became scarcer.” (Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, A History of Food, Blackwell, 1992, p. 72). 

Still, an increasingly carnivorous diet with high calorie animal proteins contributed to population growth, emigration and spread of our ancestors across the world.  An increasingly varied diet contributed to more developed intellectual capacity.  With the discovery of fire, cooking food became possible. There is still dispute about a gender division of labor in food gathering and hunting (ibid. pp. 39-40). But there is no dispute that proportion of plant food vs. meat varied by geography and across time.  Where little greenery existed, more meat was consumed and vice versa.  Still, for hundreds of thousands of years hunting provided almost everything to the foragers: the principal food, clothing and tools and instruments like the fat-burning lamps. (ibid., p. 72)  But, hunting itself went through a period of expansion and then decline as the game became scarcer. 

Stock-breeding emerged from hunting.  The earliest indications from archeology is from the region that is now the Negav desert north of Siani some 30,000 years ago where gazelles and fallow deer were herded.  For practical and cultural reasons (there was aversion to eating scavenger animals like hyenas who Egyptians tried to eat) herbivores rather than carnivores were herded, tamed and then domesticated. (ibid. p. 94) As stock-breeding took hold, hunting for food was gradually given up. 

Except for herders who relied heavily on their animals for food and for fishing cultures, meat was never a large part of the diet of most people until recently.

So, given what I have outlined above why should an ecological socialist or anyone who adheres to an emancipatory vision for humanity refuse to become a vegan?  Is there no relationship between lifestyle choices and our worldview?  

Instances when modern humans or our ancestors were mostly carnivores are few and relatively brief: several hundred thousand years when hunting predominated among hunter-gatherers, among herding and fishing cultures throughout history and in the industrial capitalist societies and among the middle classes worldwide. From what we know from archeology, anthropology, history and nutrition science, there is no grounds for meat eating being integral to human life.  For millions of years hunter-gatherers lived on a vegetarian diet and today hundreds of millions of people live on vegetarian and vegan diets and enjoy  active and healthy lives.  In fact, there is considerable evidence that a vegan diet is healthiest for people and a carnivorous diet can cause serious illnesses. 

At the same time, bioethics and moral philosophy, the animal rights movement, Deep Ecology and some religions like Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism hold that it is immoral to enslave and/or kill other animals for food.  

Ecology and environmental science tell us that industrial agriculture and the meat industry that provide the bulk of meat, dairy and seafood worldwide are destroying the ecosystems and poisoning the environment. 

Given all this, becoming vegan and advocating veganism become an obvious choice. 

Of course, anthropocentric ecological socialists like Saral, may still feel not quite convinced. But if we advocate reducing wasteful world consumption, as Saral does, veganism should be among his top policy choices. 

As Saral know well, ultimately, all species live off energy that arrives on Earth via sunshine.  Through photosynthesis green plants (primary producers) convert solar energy into sugars. They consume about half of it for their own livelihood. What remains is called Net Primary Productivity (NPP).  The NPP is the basis for all animal life. Herbivores eat plants to gain energy for their livelihood (primary consumers). Finally, some carnivores live off herbivores (secondary consumers).  Some omnivores eat secondary consumers (tertiary consumers).  The final link in the food chain is the decomposers that live off the organic matter of plants, herbivores and carnivores.  In each step in the food chain about 90% of the energy is lost. 

Thus, by going vegan much more food will be available for humanity. If we get rid of the capitalist production, distribution and consumption of meat, dairy and seafood and adopt a vegan diet, not only there will be more food per capita produced, it will require fewer resources, making more vital resources available to other species.  By adoption of cruelty free permacultural methods (even the best permaculturists can be anthropocentric, see, my Book Review: Gaia’s Garden, March 15, 2012), methods that mimic how nature works, by producing locally and by involving the community in growing their own food, we will be taking key steps to a simpler, ecologically, environmentally and ethically more sound and more communal way of life.  In the process more of us will also adopt an ecocentric worldview. That would be the key requirement for an ecological socialist society.  In the 1970s, we used to proclaim that women liberation is human liberation. Today, we should also proclaim that without animal liberation there would be no human emancipation. And live our lives accordingly.  

Related posts:

1311. Understanding the present-day World Economic Crisis: An Ecosocialist Approach

1332. Limits of the Limits to Growth Perspective: A Discussion of Saral Sarkar's Explanation of the Great Recession

1338. Letter from Saral Sarkar: In Defense of the Limits to Growth Explanation of the Great Recession

1375. Did Natural Limits to Growth Cause the Great Recession?

1385. Karl Marx or Club of Rome?: Why Naturalizing Causes of the Great Recession Undermines Efforts to Transcend the Capitalist Civilization

1393. Are paradigms, theories, methods value neutral?

1417. On the Population Question: Malthus, Marx and Beyond