The Retort

A Plea from the Sea

April 19th, 2010 by Nathan Morgan For The Retort

On a world covered by o much water, we often overlook the impact we have upon the sea with our diets. Yet the consumption of meat directly contributes to the devastation of our oceanic ecosystems.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, factory farms are the number one source of water pollution. In order to produce meat, these blasphemous factory farms crowd numerous living, breathing, feeling creatures into conditions incredibly cruel and unnatural. To satisfy the appetites of certain human beings, these animals are often given all manner of chemicals such as growth hormones or antibiotics. Antibiotics in particular are given to these animals because they are sick from living close to or within their own waste.

Consider the unfortunate pig, for instance. Eighty percent of pigs have pneumonia when sent to slaughter due to the gasses produced by their waste. This waste is often kept in large lagoons, where it escapes into streams, rivers, and groundwater through leakage or flooding. Once in a stream or river, this waste is carried to the sea.

Everyone has likely heard of the infamous Exxon Valdez, but how many have heard of the 1995 hog waste “spill” in North Carolina where ten to fourteen million fish were killed and three hundred sixty four thousand acres of shellfish coastal beds were closed by twenty-five million gallons of animal waste? This spill was not the first and it will not be the last. These contaminations will eventually reach the sea where they contribute to immense dead zones, like the one at the mouth of the Mississippi , as algae feeds upon the waste and uses up all the oxygen, killing marine life. Only by ridding ourselves of meat-eating will we see an end to this leading cause of water pollution.

Yet the story does not end here. The world is gravely endangered by the threat of global warming. As the world warms, the seas warm too. This creates a toxic environment that coral is unable to survive in. Without coral, many of the world’s oceanic ecosystems will perish. Global warming is deeply tied to the consumption of meat. A 2006 United Nations report discovered that animal agriculture produces more greenhouse gases than transportation. Meat production requires at least eight times more fossil fuels than producing plants would. Likewise, the raising of cattle for their skin and flesh produces methane from their digestion and waste further contributing to global warming. By not eating meat, a person directly reduces the amount of greenhouse gases and preserves numerous aquatic habitats.

Last, allow me to address fishing. Commercial fishing is one of the gravest threats to the continued existence of aquatic habitats. Species such as dolphins, whales, sea turtles and seahorses have found themselves caught in the nefarious nets of fishing fleets. Eighty-six percent of dolphins and whales are threatened by commercial fishing because once entangled in a net they are unable to free themselves and drown from the lack of air. Of the seven sea turtle species, six are critically endangered. Like dolphins and whales, sea turtles require air and when deprived of it in these nets, they too perish. A recent news article reported millions of sea turtles dying in fishing nets. Why are so many sea turtles dying? Only so that human beings, in their selfishness, can eat fish. Delicate seahorses are often caught as well; their tiny frames unable to survive the abuse of the fishing net as fleets looking for shrimp effectively bulldoze the undersea world. I cannot go into every species, so I only ask you to consider how you would feel as a crab, a fish, a lobster, a shrimp, a sea turtle, a dolphin, or a whale pursued, confined, and possibly devoured all for the insatiable appetite of so many uncaring human beings.

If people continue to consume animals, the sea will continue to bear the burden of human predation and pollution. Listen, the sea is pleading with you! She asks you to abandon eating meat, for if humanity continues with this selfish pursuit of animal flesh, all life will perish. Heed the plea from the sea, stop eating meat!