Meaty matters with Monbiot: can we eat meat and be ecologically responsible?

In his latest piece for the Guardian, George Monbiot has retracted an earlier article in which he claimed that veganism (or at least vegetarianism) was the only possibly ecologically responsible diet. Having read a new book by Simon Fairlie called Meat: a benign extravagance, Monbiot has admitted that he has been repeated various statistics that don't add up.

The book points out that the real enemy is not meat consumption or production per se but the ecologically disastrous industrialised meat production that comprises over 95% of all the meat eaten in western countries (and an increasing share of the rest of the world too). Such "factory farms" typically involve grain feeding, total confinement systems with liquefied manure, heavy use of hormones and feeding of antibiotics.
Not only are factory farms worse for the planet, they also generally involve much higher levels of animal cruelty.

And so, ecologically speaking, all flesh is not created equal in its impact. The kind of meat and the methods used to raise it are crucial. For instance, there is a huge difference between eating meat from animals culled due to overpopulation (such as kangaroo in Australia, or venison in Scotland) and eating industrially farmed beef or pork. Similarly, there are huge differences between different fish species, some of which are overfished and approaching extinction, while others are carefully managed.

As I've discussed before, I think there is a strong ethical case for serious reductions in the average meat consumption of westerners. This article has reminded me that it is particularly factory farmed meat that is the real culprit (see also here and this book).
How can you tell if the meat you're eating has been industrially farmed? If you have to ask the question, then it almost certainly is. This piece has some good basic suggestions for how to find non-factory meat.

Oil and political instability: a long story

This article was interesting reading: BP's long history of destroying the world.

Did you know that the 1953 Iranian coup orchestrated by the CIA and UK intelligence against prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh was conducted largely in order to protect the oil interests of the company that is today called BP?

That coup lead to the 1979 Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis that helped to bring down President Carter and his plans for an America less addicted to oil. The revolution also lead to a nine year war with Iraq, the latter being supported by the US. It also led to the 1983 Beruit barracks bombing and to the funding and inspiration of a global anti-Western Islamist terrorist movement.

Now of course, all this can't be laid at the feet of BP. Successive governments, both western and middle eastern, have played far more significant roles, as have various other groups and influences. Furthermore, I am no expert in twentieth-century history and realise that some of the material above is disputed. Nonetheless, it is important to connect some of the dots that lead from our oil-hungry way of life to historical and contemporary political instability and violence.