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The days when those of us who don’t eat meat are in the minority could be numbered and sooner than you think. New research by scientists from the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) says that, unless the world’s population switches to a diet that is almost completely vegetarian over the next forty years, there will be “catastrophic” food shortages.
The reason? Water scarcity.
According to SIWI’s research, humans today derive 20 percent of their protein from animal-based products and one-third of the world’s arable land is used to grow crops to feed animals.
But protein-rich food from animals consumes five to ten times more water than a vegetarian diet does. If humans only derived 5 percent of their protein from animal-based products, there would be “just enough water,” say the scientists.
Widespread Food Shortages and Social Unrest
With the global population expected to grow by 2 billion by 2050 — to total 9 billion — massive food shortages are predicted, a situation exacerbated by the earth’s increasingly erratic climate. Already, “nine hundred million people already go hungry and 2 billion people are malnourished in spite of the fact that per capita food production continues to increase,” the scientists note.
Therefore, feeding 2 billion more people “will place greater pressure on available water and land” with ramifications for political and social unrest. In 2008, food shortages were the reason for civil unrest in 28 countries.
The United Nations and Oxfam have issued warnings that a second global food crisis could occur in the next five years. These fears have been heightened due to the severe droughts in the US and Russia that have meant prices for corn, wheat and soy are up by 50 percent.
There’s Only So Much Water
Competition between using water for food production and other needs will only grow, say the SWIW scientists:
The UN predicts that we must increase food production by 70% by mid-century. This will place additional pressure on our already stressed water resources, at a time when we also need to allocate more water to satisfy global energy demand – which is expected to rise 60% over the coming 30 years – and to generate electricity for the 1.3 billion people currently without it.
Vegetarianism is Hardly New
Pointing out that Gandhi and Einstein were vegetarians, as was the ancient writer Plutarch, a Guardian editorial says
Being a vegetarian can carry with it an oppressive aura of smugness, as each day being a carnivore gets a bit more like smoking – an act that is not only self-destructive but damaging the rest of the world too. …Going veggie is the only sane response.
It’s also not nearly as difficult, or as “weird,” to be a vegetarian as when I decided to stop eating meat thirty years ago. As Lagusta Yearwood writes in the Guardian, many cultures around the world have long traditions of meatless cuisine:
When kings and queens were busy dying from gout because of their overly rich diets, housewives in Sicily were making luscious caponata from aubergines and celery in a sweet and sour marinade; women in Oaxaca were wrapping corn dough around roasted chilies, seeds, and vegetables to make tamales filled with mole sauces; cooks in Egypt were frying onions in precious olive oil and topping their lentils and rice with them to make koshari; women in Africa were pounding peanuts to make rich stews laced with fresh greens and spices..
Eating vegetarian “tastes good and it does you good,” says the Guardian. This should be — along with ethical concerns about the conditions in which animals are raised and slaughtered — reason enough to forego meat.
The SWIW’s research shows why, before we know it, vegetarianism will not be a matter of choice but absolutely necessary in order to feed every mouth around the world.
Related Care2 Coverage
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Celebrate Animal Freedom Day Worldwide
Drought Raises Beef, Poultry Prices: Time To Go Meatless?
Read more: corn, extreme weather, famine, global food crisis, global hunger, meat, meatless, population, soy, vegan, vegetarian, water, wheat
Photo by NewZ2000
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+ add your ownThere are amazing mock meats out now such as vegan BEYOND MEAT sold in the tofu, mock meat section at Whole Foods, Sofie's vegan shrimp, crab cakes, fish and scallops sold in the freezer section of Whole Foods, etc. Every single animal is replicated either in Asian markets or Health food stores now.
"Americans" eat more than 1,000,000 animals per HOUR. These are NON-INDIGENOUS animals who have taken over all lands, forests, habitats of those who were here before the many invasive species crossed over the oceans in boats etc. My chief grandfathers signed contracts with John Smith, so I know the story of this invasion. All that is of true value has been from that time forward made profane.
Filthy Fact: The New Yorker, in a November 2009 review of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals, says “Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Eating Animals” says “Americans also love to eat animals. This year, they will cook roughly twenty-seven billion pounds of beef, sliced from some thirty-five million cows. Additionally, they will consume roughly twenty-three billion pounds of pork, or the bodies of more than a hundred and fifteen million pigs, and thirty-eight billion pounds of poultry, some nine billion birds.”
Just because something should be done, doesn't mean it will be done.
"The days when those of us who don’t eat meat are in the minority could be numbered and sooner than you think." - I will believe it when I see it.
I think, humanity will desperately cling on to the last morcels of meat (why is it called meat anyway? It's flesh, just a way of trying to make something nasty more appealing-> change the name, they'll never know!) when 2/3 of the world's population are already dead. Just like they won't stop using cars running on gas until the price for a gallon is up to 50$.
Call it laziness, call it shortsightedness, outcome is the same. People won't change unless their own life is on the line.
My guess is none of these people on the page are farmers. Ask them about taxes and revenue. Here in my state, MI, we still have small farms that families depend on for the money they earn. Should they give them up? Not everyone is cruel to their livestock. And as for Edison, people's ideas about animals HAS changed and we are more compassionate about using them in experimentation. JUST REMEMBER to turn off your lights and cinch in your plastic belts!
Consuming meat is like smoking cigarettes was. Smokers were THE group - non-smokers suffered from their desire to ruin their own bodies, damage the air, and infringe on non-smoker bodies. The results of meat eaters ARE the same - they infringe on the world. People jumped on the lady about taxing - okay, everything is taxed. Do it like cigarettes - TAX THE CRAP OUT OF IT!!! They should pay for ALL the damage their consumption is causing - the damage to the ozone, the starvation because of the meat consumption of grains which could feed FAR more people, the loss of rain forest & timber lands, etc. etc. etc. Forget that this has the extra element of CRUELTY. (I get sick of people who say their meat consumption, their dairy consumption, etc. is "cruelty free". Seriously? That cow just jumped up there & said, "take me. I want to be Joe's friggin dinner. My baby wants to die so that fat-butted human can have more ice cream." Quit excusing yourself and STOP CONSUMING ANIMAL PRODUCTS. Go vegan!!
Natasha S thinks that meat eaters should be taxed. Intriguing but yes, they already are. So is cat food and so are veggies. The government has us there, taxes galore. At least in Canada. They even tax books...sigh. Heartbreaking, taxes on books about chocolate.
Natasha: "Meat eaters should be taxed!!!" They are being taxed. EVERYONE is being taxed. Hunters pay for a license and then PAY for the tags needed for the animals to say that they legally caught them. As for the store, stores AND state tax everything. Now whether or not those tax dollars are going to help the environment is not the fault of common tax payers, but that of the government. I know plenty of hunters who say that they would like to see the money from the tags and the licenses go back to taking care of nature and the environment, mind you they are not sport "hunters" (legal poachers), but ones who do is for food.
If people can't be vegetarians, they should at least reduce their consumption of animal products! Why would a person have bacon and eggs for breakfast, chicken for lunch, milkshake and cake then beef for dinner? Why are animal products in every freaking meal?
What sense does it make to ruin our forests so cattle can graze on and then grow crops to feed animals that are marked for death,so humans can eat these animals??? I tell you it makes absolutely no sense...Meat eaters should be taxed!!! The sooner the better.
"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us “universe” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
-A. Einstein
Would send you a green star Diane L...but ran out of my allotment for the week...so gold star it is.
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