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| Healthy Grazing and Grasslands |
published in the Pacifica Tribune January 2020
What’s Natural?
No Meat for You!
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio recently announced NYC’s
New Green Deal and his plan “to save our earth”. He stated NYC will reduce
beef purchases by 50% and phase out ALL purchases of processed meat by 2030. It’s
not clear how he defines processed meats, but the World Health Organization defines
it as "meat that has been transformed through salting, curing,
fermentation, smoking, or other processes to enhance flavor or improve preservation."
Processed meats evolved before the era of modern
refrigeration for good reason. Salting, curing, fermenting, and smoking meat
increased the shelf-life of a limited food supply and thus increased human survival.
But now processed meats are demonized. Certainly, some chemical additives are unhealthy,
but demonizing all processed meats is just wrong. With good labeling people can
freely choose what foods they trust.
But de Blasio’s edict would mean any institution run by NYC
will no longer serve chicken nuggets, hotdogs, sausages, bacon, pastrami, ham,
baloney, salami, pepperoni, corned beef and jerky. Fresh beef meals will be cut
by 50% to “save the planet’s climate” from cow farts. How far will these government actions go?
Dairy cows fart too. Will milk, whip cream, cheese, yogurt and ice cream be
next on the hit list? Will they later extend their ban to all of NYC? What if Mayor
de Blasio ever became America’s president? Fortunately, de Blasio’s authoritarian
actions are why so many Americans rightfully argue we need limited government!
There is no place for authoritarian diet control. We all
experiment with our best personal diets. I went vegetarian for a few years. I
liked learning to make tastier vegetables. But eventually I reverted to
carnivorous ways. Most studies suggest our
bodies evolved to eat both plants and meat, so I resent those who try to shame me for naturally
eating meat. However, one PETA article did argue if you see dead animals on the side of the road, but are not
tempted to stop and snack on them, you are
naturally a herbivore. Really?
Nonetheless, vegetarians make a very valid point. Over-grazing has been bad for the environment.
Studies of temperatures in Arizona and Mexico determined lost vegetation from
overgrazing caused soils to dry, raising regional temperatures by as much as
7°F compared to un-grazed adjacent lands. Over-grazing converts biologically
diverse grasslands into barren deserts. But counter-intuitively, without
grazing animals, grasslands still convert to deserts. Grasslands benefit from natural
grazing and “holistic grazing” has been shown to prevent “desertification”. Unfortunately,
overzealous radical vegetarians don’t understand - holistic grazing is a
win-win for the environment and meat eaters.
Grasses do not decompose immediately. Nutrients get locked
up for years while the accumulating
“thatch” blocks the sun and inhibits the growth of new grasses. Accumulating
thatch also enhances wildfires. Grazing animals not only remove thatch, their
manure freely fertilizes the soil and promotes next year’s growth. Holistic
grazing has demonstrated if we mimic the natural migrations of huge herds, as in
Africa’s Serengeti, we can prevent desertification. Overgrazing typically
happens when herds are confined to small pastures, too small to support the
cattle’s needs.
I encourage everyone to google Allan Savory’s hope-filled TED
talk titled “How
to Fight Desertification and Reverse Climate Change”. Savory is originally
from South Africa. There, cattle were removed from lands destined to become
National Parks and Savory was charged with studying the results. His studies revealed the park’s grasslands
continued to degrade into desert despite removal of all cattle grazing. The “only”
remaining explanation pointed to elephants. Regretfully he recommended culling
elephants to sustainable levels. Such a recommendation was blasphemous, so government
experts initiated another study. Unfortunately, government experts agreed. Too
many elephants were ripping up vegetation. So, thousands of elephants were
slaughtered. The result - the land
continued to degrade from grassland to desert.
Savory eventually understood holistic grazing was the only
solution. If cattle were managed to imitate natural grazing, the land could be
restored because cattle grazing would remove thatch, freely fertilize the
ground, and supply a protective layer of moisture-holding mulch. Holistic
grazing reversed desertification and stopped excessive warming of surface
temperatures caused by overgrazing. And holistic grazing increased the storage
of carbon in the soil.
The anti-meat-eating crowd often argues eating meat is a
shameful, immoral and inefficient use of calories. They argue meat provides only
a small fraction of the calories we would otherwise obtain by directly eating the
grains fed to cattle. But that is a narrow perspective. By raising cattle
holistically on grasslands, we efficiently obtain calories and protein that we
could never acquire otherwise from inedible grasses. Globally there are huge
swaths of land unsuitable for growing edible plant food, and where human
populations must totally rely on grazing animals for survival.
So, feel no shame! Meat eating is not the ticket to climate
hell! Holistic grazing is a win-win for meat eaters and the environment.
Jim Steele is director emeritus of the Sierra Nevada Field
Campus, SFSU and authored Landscapes and
Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism.
