As worldwide demand for meat and dairy continues to grow, so does evidence showing animal agriculture, as currently practiced, is harming the environment.

Advocates are making the case for widespread adoption of a vegan diet, avoiding animal products, as better for individual health and the environment. It is estimated between 11% and 20% of all greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide come from animal agriculture and livestock grazing has degraded up to 20% of the world's pastures.

Marco Springmann, research fellow in climate change, food systems and health at University College-London and senior environment and health researcher at Oxford University, said a vegan diet would bring a number of benefits.

"Adoption of a completely plant-based, or vegan, diet has many health, environmental and even cost benefits," Springmann explained. "If more people adopted such a diet, it would result in general benefits for climate change, land use as well as population health."

Maryland is home to more than 160,000 cattle, with a $91 million beef cattle industry and a $185 million dairy industry.

Veganism has attracted more attention in recent years, thanks in part to advancements in lab-grown meat technology; however, it's still not a very popular diet, with surveys indicating fewer than 5% are vegan. The prospect of billions of people deciding to eliminate animal products from their diets seems unlikely. Feeding a vegan world would require growing many more plants than we do now.

Springmann pointed out there is enough cropland to meet the nutritional needs of Earth's population through plants alone.

"At the moment, we feed about a third of all grains to livestock," Springmann emphasized. "Which means that if we wouldn't have so much livestock anymore, we actually would have lots of cropland available to grow other things in addition to not having, for example, all this need for pastures anymore."

He said if we shifted to a healthy plant-based diet, then we would still have a net reduction in global cropland use of about 10%.

Benefits of a global vegan diet include an estimated 3 billion hectares of land freed up for other purposes and a 6 billion-ton reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions annually. It is also estimated more than 2 million additional hectares of tropical rainforest would be preserved each year. Springmann added another benefit is cost.

"If you recompose your diet to something that is not made up of those processed products but is just generally healthy, then we calculated that purely on the cost of ingredients, a plant-based diet might actually be much cheaper," Springmann stressed. "Up to a quarter or even a third in high-income countries."

This story is based on original reporting by Seth Millstein at Sentient.


get more stories like this via email

As Oregon legislators consider the possibility of allowing a nuclear reactor in Umatilla County, opponents rallied at the State Capitol this week to voice their concerns.

In 1980, Oregon voters approved Measure 7, a statewide ban on building new nuclear reactors. But House Bill 2410 would exempt Umatilla County from the ban and allow local voters to decide on building a small modular reactor.

Kelly Campbell, policy director of the environmental advocacy group Columbia Riverkeeper, said what the state actually needs is more clean energy alternatives.

"This is a new program that costs new money that we don't have," Campbell contended. "Especially with this kind of budget forecast, the idea of wasting money on a 'pie in the sky' nuclear fantasy when really, we need more solar, more wind, more battery storage, more energy efficiency."

On Monday environmental groups, tribal leaders and northeast Oregon community groups held a No Nuclear Day of Action, including meetings with state legislators.

Small modular reactors are built in factories then shipped to sites. They typically produce 300 megawatts or fewer of electricity per unit. Industry experts cited their lower cost over existing gigawatt-scale reactors. But a 2022 study found the units produce a greater volume of waste, which is also more reactive.

The bill would allow high-level radioactive waste to be stored on site so long as the federal operating license is in force. It does not resolve the issue of permanent storage. Campbell noted Umatilla County is already one of the most polluted places in the state.

"It is somewhat of a sacrifice zone," Campbell stressed. "It's seen as a place that you could do things like this.
It's a place where people have nitrates in their drinking water, way over the EPA limits. It's a place where things get dumped."

Measure 7 forbids new nuclear reactors until two conditions are met: a national waste repository has been built and Oregon voters statewide approve a new nuclear plant site certificate.

Two coal plants in Arkansas have received an exemption from the Trump administration and will have two additional years to comply with updated clean air regulations.

As part of an amendment to the Clean Air Act, former President Joe Biden required additional limits on mercury, lead, arsenic and other toxins be in place by 2027. President Donald Trump has given 68 coal plants an additional two years to comply.

Tony Mendoza, senior staff attorney for the Sierra Club, said while Trump is within his constitutional rights, the move is perplexing.

"The president is allowed to extend compliance for two years if he finds that the technology to reduce the emissions is not available and there's a national security interest," Mendoza explained. "I don't think allowing these Arkansas plants to emit more mercury into the air is a national security concern."

The exemptions come on the heels of a Trump executive order to boost coal production. The two Arkansas locations are the White Bluff plant between Little Rock and Pine Bluff and the Plum Point plant in Northeast Arkansas. The White Bluff plant is scheduled for retirement in 2029.

Members of the Sierra Club said they will urge plant operators to curb the pollutants coming from the facilities. Mendoza noted research has shown exposure to pollutants is responsible for countless deaths, heart attacks and asthma.

"More mercury in fish, more mercury in water, more advisories against eating fish in certain rivers and streams and lakes," Mendoza outlined. "Mercury is a serious neurotoxin that causes harm to newborn children. Babies are at harm if their mother is exposed to too much mercury."

The Trump administration invited power plants to apply for the exemption. The president also wants to exempt coal mining projects from environmental reviews, remove restrictions stopping companies from mining coal on federal lands and require the Energy Department to provide funds to support developing coal technologies.

The Washington State Pollution Control Hearings Board is ordering state officials to rewrite pollution discharge permit regulations for concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs.

The order was issued after a challenge from community and conservation groups, complaining that previous regulations violated state and federal law. The complaint alleged that the state failed to control the discharge of excess nutrients, bacteria and other pollutants from dairy factory farms.

Tyler Lobdell, a staff attorney for Food & Water Watch, said the state must better protect its water, wildlife and communities.

"The state of Washington hasn't been requiring what are called nutrient management plans or the newer pollution prevention plans to be robustly developed by every CAFO," he said, "and they haven't required those plans to be available to the public to make sure they're actually doing what they're supposed to do."

The ruling ordered the state Department of Ecology to require CAFOs to control pollution from animal waste runoff. CAFOs are industrial farming and dairy operations that can generate substantial amounts of animal waste, which must be appropriately managed to prevent water and air pollution.

Lobdell said it's essential that the order stipulates the public's right to review and comment on all regulations before they are issued, noting that the state has a poor track record of protecting waterways from nitrate pollution. He said having the Environmental Protection Agency involved strengthens the process.

"The state of Washington issues a single, combined permit that covers both the Federal Clean Water Act, which is authority delegated by U.S. EPA to Department of Ecology," he said, "but it also covers Washington state law, which is more expansive."

Several conservation groups, including the Waterkeeper Alliance, the Center for Food Safety, Friends of Teppenish Creek and the Sierra Club, participated in filing the complaint. The appellants were represented by the Western Environmental Law Center.


get more stories like this via email