A Bud Light in the Attic
I normally enjoy and concur with George Monbiot, which is why I've read all but a couple of his books. But a column he published earlier this month, "Strong Meat," seemed below his usual standards to me. The column is a response to some criticism Monbiot received from author and environmental advocate Simon Fairlie, in Fairlie's book Meat: A Benign Extravagance. Fairlie took exception to a statement Monbiot had made that veganism "is the only ethical response to what is arguably the world's most urgent social justice issue." Instead of rebutting, Monbiot gives deference to Fairlie--albeit with several qualifiers.
Judging by my secondhand knowledge of the book from Monbiot's column and the publisher's synopsis, Fairlie himself uses a lot of qualifiers in his defense of animal agriculture. I myself am not a die-hard advocate of vegetarianism or veganism. I think adopting a vegetarian or vegan diet is one of the most socially and environmentally responsible things you can do in the Global North, but in the Global South there are areas ill suited to plant agriculture where, I think, people really have a legitimate need for animal protein (and thus a strictly vegetarian diet would be resource-heavy). But I don't live in the Global South, and nor do George Monbiot or Simon Fairlie.
What puzzles me about Monbiot's deference to Fairlie is that, as far as I can tell from what I can cull from the internet, Monbiot has more scientific credentials than Fairlie. Monbiot has an advanced degree in zoology and has held fellowships and visiting professorships at various universities, while Fairlie, according to his publisher, "worked for 20 years variously as an agricultural labourer, vine-worker, shepherd, fisherman, builder and stonemason before being ensnared by the computer in 1990." (I'm reminded of what climate change blogger James Hoggan wrote about Bjørn Lomborg, the famous "skeptical enviromentalist": "Lomborg is not a scientist (his Ph.D., in political science, concentrated on game theory), and his previous work has been widely and publicly criticized for its inaccuracy.") Nonetheless, Monbiot trusts Fairlie's book to be "objective and forensic" and "an abattoir for misleading claims and dodgy figures." In the next several paragraphs, we're treated to a summary of Fairlie's review of the facts about animal agriculture and his advocacy for consuming products from companies that practice better animal agriculture ("low energy, low waste, just, diverse, small-scale"). I don't know about the rest of the Global North, but in the United States, such idealistic animal farms are almost the stuff of fantasy.
Fantasy or reality, the companies that practice the most ideal animal agriculture should not be compared to the companies that practice the worst plant agriculture. It's a disingenuous comparison. But that's not going to stop Monbiot from this bit of paraphrasing: "[Fairlie] also...reminds us that even vegan farming necessitates the largescale killing or ecological exclusion of animals: in this case pests." If we're going to talk about exceptions, if we're going to talk about ideals, let's take the kind of animal agriculture Fairlie advocates and compare it to the kind of plant agriculture described in the documentary The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, or some of the Indian farming traditions Vandana Shiva describes in her books.
Although it's good to think outside the box and push for ideals, to some extent we should be prepared to work with what we have--the worst of both plant and animal agriculture--until we can reach a critical mass (or until responsibility and sustainability, instead of financial clout and powerful lobbying, are what earn the help of government subsidies). Jonathan Safran Foer, in an Atlantic Monthly interview, answered whether he would eat meat, "assuming that there was a farm somewhere where...everything was as humane and gentle and kind as possible." His answer was no, and he gave this as his explanation:Salmon farming was originally created to take pressure off of wild salmon populations, because it's been clear for a long time that they're going to run out. But what happened was, when more supply was created, there was more demand for wild salmon, because our eating habits are contagious. There was more salmon on the menu suddenly, and you see your friends eating salmon, and so you eat salmon--that has more power than does conscientious eating.
If we work with what we have, I think eating little or no meat is the best approach we can take.
As I said, Monbiot and Fairlie both give plenty of qualifiers to their defense of an omnivorous diet, but a lot of people, prone to selective reading, will probably miss a lot of those qualifiers. And I can't help but wonder if the reason Monbiot is so sympathetic to Fairlie's position is that Monbiot tried unsuccessfully to become a vegan (oops!).
Judging by my secondhand knowledge of the book from Monbiot's column and the publisher's synopsis, Fairlie himself uses a lot of qualifiers in his defense of animal agriculture. I myself am not a die-hard advocate of vegetarianism or veganism. I think adopting a vegetarian or vegan diet is one of the most socially and environmentally responsible things you can do in the Global North, but in the Global South there are areas ill suited to plant agriculture where, I think, people really have a legitimate need for animal protein (and thus a strictly vegetarian diet would be resource-heavy). But I don't live in the Global South, and nor do George Monbiot or Simon Fairlie.
What puzzles me about Monbiot's deference to Fairlie is that, as far as I can tell from what I can cull from the internet, Monbiot has more scientific credentials than Fairlie. Monbiot has an advanced degree in zoology and has held fellowships and visiting professorships at various universities, while Fairlie, according to his publisher, "worked for 20 years variously as an agricultural labourer, vine-worker, shepherd, fisherman, builder and stonemason before being ensnared by the computer in 1990." (I'm reminded of what climate change blogger James Hoggan wrote about Bjørn Lomborg, the famous "skeptical enviromentalist": "Lomborg is not a scientist (his Ph.D., in political science, concentrated on game theory), and his previous work has been widely and publicly criticized for its inaccuracy.") Nonetheless, Monbiot trusts Fairlie's book to be "objective and forensic" and "an abattoir for misleading claims and dodgy figures." In the next several paragraphs, we're treated to a summary of Fairlie's review of the facts about animal agriculture and his advocacy for consuming products from companies that practice better animal agriculture ("low energy, low waste, just, diverse, small-scale"). I don't know about the rest of the Global North, but in the United States, such idealistic animal farms are almost the stuff of fantasy.
Fantasy or reality, the companies that practice the most ideal animal agriculture should not be compared to the companies that practice the worst plant agriculture. It's a disingenuous comparison. But that's not going to stop Monbiot from this bit of paraphrasing: "[Fairlie] also...reminds us that even vegan farming necessitates the largescale killing or ecological exclusion of animals: in this case pests." If we're going to talk about exceptions, if we're going to talk about ideals, let's take the kind of animal agriculture Fairlie advocates and compare it to the kind of plant agriculture described in the documentary The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, or some of the Indian farming traditions Vandana Shiva describes in her books.
Although it's good to think outside the box and push for ideals, to some extent we should be prepared to work with what we have--the worst of both plant and animal agriculture--until we can reach a critical mass (or until responsibility and sustainability, instead of financial clout and powerful lobbying, are what earn the help of government subsidies). Jonathan Safran Foer, in an Atlantic Monthly interview, answered whether he would eat meat, "assuming that there was a farm somewhere where...everything was as humane and gentle and kind as possible." His answer was no, and he gave this as his explanation:Salmon farming was originally created to take pressure off of wild salmon populations, because it's been clear for a long time that they're going to run out. But what happened was, when more supply was created, there was more demand for wild salmon, because our eating habits are contagious. There was more salmon on the menu suddenly, and you see your friends eating salmon, and so you eat salmon--that has more power than does conscientious eating.
If we work with what we have, I think eating little or no meat is the best approach we can take.
As I said, Monbiot and Fairlie both give plenty of qualifiers to their defense of an omnivorous diet, but a lot of people, prone to selective reading, will probably miss a lot of those qualifiers. And I can't help but wonder if the reason Monbiot is so sympathetic to Fairlie's position is that Monbiot tried unsuccessfully to become a vegan (oops!).