Green Meat? Sustaining Eaters, Animals, and the Planet

About this book

It seems an irrefutable truth that raising animals for meat has become unsustainable. Land is being eroded and destroyed, water resources overdrawn, greenhouse gases overemitted, and energy and crops unnecessarily diverted – all to satiate a growing and inequitable global overconsumption of meat. But is all meat unsustainable?

Sustainable food systems are multiple and varied and represent the diversity and complexity we see in the world. A range of socio-ecological and political-economic challenges and solutions are involved in the question of whether sustainable meat consumption exists. Green Meat? teases out some of that complexity in order to consider what roles animals and their products might play in the future as the world works towards new ways of living. Through an interdisciplinary lens, scholars and practitioners critically examine the multifaceted dimensions of "green meat": contributors confront the industrial production and slaughter of animals, ask what it means to be a carnivore, and consider the possibilities of regenerative animal agriculture and cellular agriculture. Green Meat? analyzes ongoing damage to the landscape, the climate, and water systems caused by conventional livestock production and looks at current debates about the place of meat in sustainable agri-food systems.

An expansive inquiry into food production practices, Green Meat? will inspire the kind of discussion and debate necessary to grapple with the complex issue of sustainability.

Contents

Tables, Figures, and Maps ix
Preface xi

PART ONE Problematizing “the Problem”
1 Introduction 3 / Sarah J. Martin and Ryan M. Katz-Rosene
2 Confronting Meatification 29 / Tony Weis
3 How Do Livestock Impact the Climate? 43 / Ryan M. Katz-Rosene
4 Does Meat Belong in a Sustainable Diet? 64 / Caitlin M. Scott

PART TWO Getting It Right: Case Studies and Specific Practices
5 The Evidence for Holistic Planned Grazing 89 / Sheldon Frith
6 Eco-Carnivorism in Garden Hill First Nation 107 / Shirley Thompson, Pepper Pritty, and Keshab Thapa
7 The Practice of Responsible Meat Consumption 133 / Alexandra Kenefick
8 A Feminist Multi-Species Approach to Green Meat 150 / Gwendolyn Blue

PART THREE The Future of “Green Meat”
9 The Promise and Peril of “Cultured Meat” 169 / Lenore Newman
10 The Structural Constraints on Green Meat 185 / Abra Brynne
11 Which Way(s) Forward? 206 / Ryan M. Katz-Rosene and Sarah J. Martin

Contributors 229
Index 233

Customer Reviews

Biography

Ryan M. Katz-Rosene is assistant professor at the University of Ottawa and a farmer in Wakefield, Quebec.Sarah J. Martin is assistant professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland.