It's time for Californians to talk about the cow in the room
No one can deny that we're in the mother of all megadroughts.
The seven hottest years on record have happened in the last seven years. The U.S. Drought Monitor just reported that 93% of California, including the Bay Area, is in severe drought and 35% is in extreme drought. Last year, dangerous heat killed hundreds of people in Oregon and Washington and nearly buckled California's power grid. Federal forecasters say that this year conditions will worsen in California and the West with hotter-thannormal temperatures and little chance of rain.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is urging Californians to cut water consumption, but is reducing residential usage — taking shorter showers, pulling out lawns — really an effective solution? As it turns out, not so much. According to Pacific Institute, a leading nonprofit research and policy group based in Oakland, only 4% of California's water footprint goes to direct household water consumption.
So, where is our water going? In the midst of the turmoil over our diminishing water supply, an often-overlooked industry operates without scrutiny, consuming the lion's share of California's diminishing water, churning out massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions and polluting our environment with impunity.
Few realize that meat and dairy production devour a full 47% of California's water, their huge water footprints due to the amount of water-intensive feed required to raise the animals. In fact, the largest water-consuming crop in California is the alfalfa grown to feed animals. The third largest? Irrigated pasture, again, for animals.
“Almonds are made out to be the villain in our drought story, but blaming excessive water use on this crop is simply not true,” sayidMohan Gurunathan, a local environmental activist. “In fact, the water used to grow just animal feed — not including water to grow and slaughter them — uses more than double the water used to grow almonds and pistachios.”
As California grapples with drought and a year-round fire season sparked by a rapidlywarming climate, the hefty costs of water usage, environmental harm and global warming from meat and dairy production have been largely ignored — until now.
A new bill, Assembly Bill2764, sponsored by Assembly members Adrin Nazarian, DVan Nuys, and Alex Lee, D-Milpitas, would halt construction and expansion of factory farms and slaughterhouses in California.
Why so long to take action? The meat and dairy industries typically fly under the radar and regulations are often lax, filmmaker Raven Deerbrook said. Her recent investigation of “One World Beef” (a major Costco supplier) in Brawly and resulting short documentary, “Imperial Dust,” found numerous violations of the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, including routine misuse of electric prods on “downed” (nonambulatory) cows.
Meat and dairy producers habitually disregard regulations in their quest for profits. In fact, 96% of slaughterhouses in the United States are in violation of wastewater regulations; the EPA has been sued for failing to enforce effluent standards.
The livestock industry produces 35-40% of all humancaused methane emissions. Because this key greenhouse gas accounts for 25% of global emissions and is 86 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat over a 20-year period, reduction is essential. NASA has identified a large methane “hot spot” over the Central Valley, the second largest one in the United States.
Shifting to a plant-based diet reduces food's associated greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 73% and cuts in half the water needed to produce our food.
We urgently need to make smart choices to ensure the habitability of our planet. So, by all means, tear out your lawn and take shorter showers. But if we really want to make an impact, we need to put plants on our plates.
Karen Rubio is a co-founder of Plant-Based Advocates, a Los Gatos group that is working to address climate change, increase human health and alleviate animal suffering by accelerating the shift to plant-based diets.