INTRODUCTION - MEAT: A Benign Extravagance - page 2

The state of affairs that Monbiot describes is unambiguously iniquitous; if there is one
single injustice for which our economic system could be held responsible above all others,
it is the fact that it has, time and again over the last 200 years, diverted food out of the
hands of the hungry and funnelled it down animals' throats to provide meat for the rich.
Nothing written anywhere in this topic should be taken to imply that depriving the poor of
food to provide luxuries for the rich is anything but, as Jeremy Rifkin puts it, 'a form of
human evil'. Nowhere in this topic do I put the case for eating lots of meat, because there
isn't one. Meat is an extravagance.
However, to conclude that veganism is the 'only ethical response' is to take a big leap
into a very muddy pond. The fact that some people get all the meat, while others starve, is
not in itself an indictment of meat, any more than the fact that some people can afford their
own car while others have to walk is an argument against buses (though it is an argument
against private cars). The vegan response brings to mind the Tupamaros' slogan: 'Every-
body dances or nobody dances'. 3 This is fair enough; but is it not better that everybody
should have the opportunity to dance, rather than nobody? And if there is not enough space
on the floor for all to do so at once, why not take it in turns?
This topic is concerned with the environmental ethics of eating meat. The central ques-
tion it asks is not whether killing animals is right or wrong, but whether farming animals
for meat is sustainable. From this springs a range of secondary questions: Is meat-eating
a waste of resources? Is meat a way of robbing the hungry to fatten the well-fed? Does
meat-eating cause disproportionate levels of global warming? Does the rearing of animals
for meat deprive wild animals of habitat and the world of wilderness? These are charges
that many vegans and vegetarians have levelled against meat-eaters and there is substance
in them. They deserve addressing, and when I began this topic I was not aware that anyone
had ever tried to do so very comprehensively - though now, five years later, it is a hot topic.
Meat: A Benign Extravagance began as a personal enquiry, grew into a research project,
and has ended up as a collection of essays with pretensions to the coherence of a book. I
embarked upon it because I like eating meat and keeping livestock, and I wanted to ad-
dress doubts I had about the sustainability and environmental justice of my way of life. The
conflict between vegans and animal farmers has loomed large in my life: as an agricultur-
al worker, smallholder, environmental journalist and hippie, I have frequently come into
contact with both. Too many farmers have a narrow perspective of the social and environ-
mental issues that confront us; and too many vegans have an equally limited understanding
of the way nature works. It helps me, and I hope others, to get the issues down on paper.
I also embarked upon it because a gap appeared in my life where I had time to spare,
but no opportunity to get away. The evidence I produce is not, alas, derived from splodging
around farms in Wellington boots or trekking across savannah with nomadic herders. It
consists of a trawl through what academics pompously call 'the literature', though whether