Divine Nature
1: A Planet in Trouble
2: Meat and the Environment
3: Toward a Spiritual Solution
4: Science, Nature, and the Environment
5: A Science of Consciousness
6: Karma and the Environment
7: Rural Communinties of ISKCON,
Part of the Widening Circle
8: The Environment of the Soul
Bibliography
Notes
Resources
A Spiritual Perspective on the Enviromental Crisis
DN 1: A PLANET IN TROUBLE
1
A PLANET IN TROUBLE
“The environment is burning in a hundred, in a thousand places
worldwide. But there is no fire escape here, no ‘out,’ no other solution than a
shift in knowing who we are.”1
Jim Nollman,
Spiritual Ecology
About sixty miles southwest of Melbourne, Australia, in rolling
hills studded with gum trees, lies New Nandagram, an environmentally
sustainable community of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.
Gokula Däsa, the development director of New Nandagram, is supervising the
planting of trees along the border of the property. Not only will they be
aesthetically pleasing, but they will also provide extra forage for the
community’s dairy cows. Expressing his concern about the degradation of the
planet’s ecosystem, Gokula Däsa says, “There is a sanctity about earth. Even
lifelong urban dwellers are revolted by lakes of oil, stacks of crunched
automobiles, unclean air, stinking sewage systems, dying forests, ugly garbage
dumps, and unswimmable lakes and rivers.”
But what’s the cause of this? “A polluted environment grows out of
polluted consciousness,” says Gokula. “It’s like Gandhi said—there’s enough on
earth for everyone’s need but not for everyone’s greed. We’re trying to run
things on that principle at New Nandagram. We have a plan for providing all of
our residents’ needs in a sustainable way. And that takes some careful
decision-making about what we really need to live happily and peacefully. It
all comes down to accepting a simpler and more natural way of life.”
Unfortunately, a simpler way of life proceeds from different
systems of values than most people hold. In both “developed” and “undeveloped”
regions of the world, people are seeking constant improvement in personal
comforts, entertainment, and personal wealth. This quest seldom has discernible
limitations. People seem to have a relentless, almost unconscious drive to have
and enjoy more than they really need.
Writing for the (London) Observer News Service in 1972, Arnold
Toynbee described the cause of what he called “the world’s malady” as
spiritual. “We are suffering” he wrote, “from having sold our souls to the
pursuit of maximizing material wealth, a pursuit which is spiritually wrong and
practically unattainable. We have to recognize our objective and to change it.”
Many people are seeking such change. Gokula Däsa and other members
of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) have chosen to
explore an alternative worldview and way of life based on an ancient wisdom
that offers long-term solutions to the seemingly intractable problems of the
environment.
Although most members of ISKCON live in cities, they still embrace
the concept of “simple living and high thinking.” But a significant number are
now living in dozens of intentional rural communities throughout the world,
where they practice a life of voluntary restraint based on spiritual values.
Concern for the environment is a natural part of these communities.
In the hills of the Atlantic Forest region of Brazil’s São Paulo
province, Rüpa Goswami Däsa, development director of the Hare Kåñëa farm
community there, supervises the planting of crops that stem erosion on
deforested hills. (He wins praise from local environmentally-minded officials.)
At the Hare Kåñëa farm community of Gétä-Nägaré, in rural Pennsylvania, Sétä
Däsé trains a young ox to respond to her simple vocal commands. When grown, the
ox will help plow the fields, freeing the community from dependence on
tractors. In the former Soviet Union, some Hare Kåñëa members are leaving the
food and housing shortages in the cities to start self-sufficient farm
communities in the countryside. In England, Ranchor Däsa submits a proposal to
the Worldwide Fund for Nature for reforesting India’s Våndävana district, an
area sacred to worshipers of Kåñëa for thousands of years. The project is
approved, with work now underway.
But there is lots of work yet to be done. Living in all parts of
the world, the men and women of the International Society for Krishna
Consciousness are in a good position to witness firsthand the environmental
crises now facing our planet. We have witnessed the air pollution in Mexico,
the deadly aftermath of the Chernobyl accident in the Soviet Union, the
destruction of the rainforests in Brazil, Swedish lakes dead from acid rain,
and the horror of the chemical disaster in Bhopal, India. Wherever we look, we
see a planet in trouble, a planet in need of spiritual healing. It’s not
difficult to identify greed as a root cause of pollution as we briefly survey
the state of the world’s ecological predicament.
DN 1.1: Wildlife
Wildlife
Unrestricted hunting of animals threatens the existence of many
species. About 1,000 are officially recognized as endangered. During the 1980s,
the number of African elephants shrank from 1.5 million to 600,000.2 In October
1989, to stop the killing of elephants, the Convention on International Trade
in Endangered Species voted to ban the trading of ivory. In Germany, half of
the indigenous plant and animal species are extinct or endangered.3
DN 1.2: Rainforests
Rainforests
Rainforests are victims of the lumber and meat industries.
Millions of acres are cleared and stripped annually to graze cattle for meat
and to grow billions of tons of soy that is exported to feed beef cattle.
The world’s rainforests occupy 3.5 million square miles, about the
size of the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii. We lose about 45,000
square miles a year,4 an area about the size of Nicaragua. At that rate, all
the rainforests will be gone in about 80 years.
Besides the tropical forests, other forests throughout the world
are also in danger. Jose Lutzenberger, Brazil’s secretary for the environment,
said that if Sweden, Russia, Canada, and the United States continue chopping
down their remaining primeval forests, “the results could be just as
devastating for the global ecosystem as the destruction of rainforests in
Africa or tropical forests in New Guinea—and should be condemned by
international public opinion.”5 Much of the wood from these forests goes for
paper. Each German, for example, consumes 440 pounds of paper each year.6
DN 1.3: Soil Loss
Soil Loss
Among the main causes of topsoil loss is the big-business,
single-crop method of farming. This involves intensive use of fertilizers that
leach and otherwise devitalize soil.
In the United States, beautifully red, perfectly round, and
uniformly sized tomatoes sit in even rows in thousands of supermarket displays.
These tomatoes often have thick skins, and their insides are made up of an
almost tasteless red pulp. But because they have enticing product names, look
attractive, and feel firm, they command high prices. Their thick skins enable
them to withstand fast-moving harvesting machines and all the subsequent
dumping and packing operations that help make the massive quick-pick-and-pack
techniques profitable. Unfortunately, this type of factory farming tends to
destroy topsoil quickly. Since 1950 the world has lost about one fifth of its
topsoil from agricultural lands.7 In Germany, every year an average of 25 tons
of topsoil per acre is lost to erosion.8
DN 1.4: Trash
Trash
Mountains of rubbish have become symbolic of people who have more
than they need. This is especially true in the industrialized nations, where
the typical resident uses 10 times more steel, 12 times more fuel, and 15 times
more paper than a typical resident of the developing nations.9 In 1990, more
than 182 million tons of industrial and household garbage ended up in German
garbage dumps, more than two tons for each German citizen.10
Leaders in so-called underdeveloped countries are therefore
sometimes irritated when ecologists from developed countries attempt to impose
restrictions on third-world industrial growth in the name of preserving the
environment.
DN 1.5: Toxic Waste
Toxic Waste
Exotic chemicals such as dioxins and PCBs are not the only source
of danger. Common heavy metals like lead, nickel, mercury, chromium, and
cadmium all have poisonous effects on humans. For example, lead, found in old
house paint and water pipes, is known to cause anemia, decreased intelligence,
and other health problems in children. When trash is burned, poisonous heavy
metals go into the air, and when trash is buried in landfills the heavy metals
often migrate into human drinking water.
In 1980, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
set up a “Superfund” for cleaning up the country’s most hazardous toxic waste
sites. As of 1990, 1,218 sites had been designated for top-priority cleanup,
but only 35 sites had been cleaned and removed from the list. As of 1993,
Germany had 140,000 known sites where toxic wastes had been dumped illegally,
and officials estimated another 240,000 sites unknown.11
Another problem with the chemical industry is the occurrence of
major accidents. In 1985, a valve broke at the Union Carbide chemical plant at
Bhopal, India, allowing 30 tons of lethal methyl isocyanate gas to escape. More
than 2,000 people living nearby were killed, and another 17,000 received
permanent injuries.12 Such dangers compel us to question just how much industry
we really need to function as sane human beings and live happily.
DN 1.6: Toxic Trade
Toxic Trade
In August 1986, the city of Philadelphia (USA) loaded 15,000 tons
of toxic ash from its trash incineration plant onto an oceangoing freighter,
the Khian Sea. This ship spent 18 months in the Caribbean, looking
unsuccessfully for a place to dump its dangerous cargo. Five continents and
three name changes later, the ship allegedly found a place to legitimately
offload the toxic ash, but Greenpeace says the waste was actually dumped
illegally in the Indian Ocean in November of 1988.13
Philadelphia had to export its ash because of the increasing
difficulty in finding places to dispose of it in the United States. Many
European cities have the same problem.
The U. S. and Europe are therefore engaging in the questionable
practice of exporting toxic waste to developing nations, where there is far
less public knowledge about (and hence less opposition to) the dumping of toxic
waste. In 1990, German factories produced 9 million tons of toxic waste, of
which 522,000 tons were officially exported to other countries.14
DN 1.7: Pesticides
Pesticides
To keep profit margins high, factory farming routinely uses
chemical pesticides to protect crops from insects and animals. The many good
biological, nonchemical, and nontoxic methods are seldom used. The pesticide
industry vigorously markets its products and promotes vast savings for growers.
The dangers of pesticides have become well known in the
industrialized countries, and many governments have banned the use of certain
kinds, but these very same pesticides are still manufactured and exported to
other countries.
For example, one quarter of the pesticides exported by U. S.
companies cannot be sold in the U. S. for any purpose.15 Ironically,
agricultural products sprayed with banned pesticides return to the U. S., which
imports about 25 percent of all the fruits and vegetables its population
consumes.
Children are especially at risk. They have smaller bodies than
adults and tend to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables. Therefore they are
exposed to a much higher concentration of cancer-causing pesticides than
adults—about four times higher.16
DN 1.8: Nuclear Waste and Accidents
Nuclear Waste and Accidents
The most toxic waste is nuclear waste, and its safe disposal is a
problem yet to be solved. Nuclear plants in the United States are holding in
temporary storage over 16,500 tons of high-level waste, which will remain
harmful to human beings for about 250,000 years.17
Accidents are another problem. On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl
nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded, releasing radioactive materials into
the environment. Officials said two men died in the initial blast, and thirty
firefighters were killed while trying to control the blaze. Hundreds of workers
and firefighters were hospitalized, and about 135,000 people—everyone living
within a 20-mile radius of the reactor—were evacuated. Fallout from the
explosion blanketed much of Europe.
In the spring of 1991, the Economist magazine reported: “Vladimir
Chernousenko, the scientific director of the 20-mile exclusion zone around the
reactor, claims that the number of immediate Chernobyl deaths—still officially
listed as 31—in fact could total as many as 7,000.”18
Reactors in the United States and Europe are said to be safer than
the Chernobyl reactor. But in 1993 at nuclear power plants in Germany there
were 193 incidents requiring registration under German law.19 In 1985 American
reactors were shut down for emergencies 765 times. Eighteen of the shutdowns
occurred in connection with serious accidents.20 The situation could be much
worse in other countries.
The most serious nuclear power plant accident in the United States
occurred in 1979, when a reactor at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania
partially melted down, releasing dangerously radioactive materials into the
atmosphere.
DN 1.9: Water Pollution
Water Pollution
The most spectacular kind of water pollution involves massive oil
drilling mishaps. A 1979 accident at Ixtoc21, an exploratory well in the Gulf
of Mexico, spilled 140 million gallons, covering 10 percent of the Gulf.
Transporting oil is also dangerous. In an average year, accidents
dump about 120 million gallons of oil into the sea. But “roughly six times more
oil gets into the ocean simply through routine flushing of carrier tanks,
runoff from streets, and other everyday consequences of motor vehicle use,”
says Marcia D. Lowe of the World Watch Institute.22
Much life on earth depends on fresh water, which is becoming
increasingly contaminated not only by the oil industry but also by the
meat-packing industry and many manufacturing industries. About 1.75 billion of
the world’s people have inadequate or contaminated drinking water.23 This
phenomenon is not confined to the Third World. The water in European nations such
as Germany is also found to be contaminated with dangerous amounts of residues
from the chemical, pharmaceutical, and metal-working industries.24 In 1992,
Germany experienced 1,825 documented accidents involving releases of
water-polluting substances. In 90 percent of these accidents, groundwater was
polluted, the supply of drinking water was endangered, or both.25
DN 1.10: Air Pollution
Air Pollution
Most of our exposure to toxins comes from the air.26 We may drink
up to two quarts of water per day, but we breathe 15,000 to 20,000 quarts of
air. Motor vehicles are the world’s biggest source of air pollution.
A study by the World Health Organization and the United Nations
Environment Program shows that two thirds of the world’s urban population live
with polluted air.27 Breathing the air for a day in Mumbai, India, pollutes
your lungs as much as smoking ten cigarettes.28
In Athens, studies have shown that the death rate is six times
higher on days of heavy air pollution than on clear days. Air pollution and
acid rain are also corroding famous monuments in this historic city. The
Acropolis has suffered more damage in the past 25 years than in the previous
2,500.29
In all parts of Germany, at least one of the three most common
pollutants (sulfur dioxide, nitric oxide, and ozone) exceeds the critical
limit. In metropolitan areas of Germany, the air contains about 1,000 different
pollutants and their derivatives.30
DN 1.11: Acid Rain
Acid Rain
Sulfur dioxide, from factories that burn coal and oil, and nitrogen
oxides, from motor vehicles, are the main causes of acid rain. Some acid rain
results naturally from chemicals entering the air from volcanoes and forest
fires, but our industrial civilization makes it much worse. In many places the
rain is as acid as lemon juice, and in some places like battery acid.31 Acid
rain kills crops and trees, kills fish and other kinds of aquatic life in
lakes, and corrodes buildings and statues. In Germany, two-thirds of all trees
have minor or major damage from acid rain.32
DN 1.12: Global Warming
Global Warming
Carbon dioxide makes up only .03 percent of the atmosphere, but it
is extremely important. Scientists say it traps heat that otherwise would
escape into space. This greenhouse effect keeps the earth’s climate from
becoming uncomfortably cold.
Carbon dioxide is a natural product of organic decay and animal
respiration. But industry has poured additional carbon dioxide into the air,
causing potentially dangerous increases in the earth’s temperature.
In 1990 a total of 22 billion tons of carbon dioxide entered the
atmosphere from energy-emission sources. Germany alone was responsible for 1
billion tons, whereas over 100 developing countries were together responsible
for about 7 billion tons.33
About 75 percent of the carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere
each year comes from the burning of fossil fuels in factories and motor
vehicles.34 Another 20 percent comes from the deliberate burning of forests to
clear land.35
United Nations studies show that a warming climate could raise sea
levels, which are already rising, by 1.5 to 6.5 feet over the next century. If
sea levels rise 1 meter, this could submerge 5 million square kilometers of
lowlands. These lowlands are now inhabited by 1 billion people and include one
third of the world’s cropland.36
Not everyone agrees with such doomsday scenarios. But among
scientists who have thrashed out the pros and cons of the issue for years, the
consensus is that global warming is a fact and that rising sea levels remain a
threat.
DN 1.13: CFCs and the Ozone Layer
CFCs and the Ozone Layer
In 1974, F. Sherwood Rowland, a chemist at the University of
California at Irvine, and Mario J. Molina, a graduate student, published a
study in Nature showing that CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons, used in aerosols,
solvents, and refrigeration) destroy ozone.
Ozone in the upper atmosphere shields life on earth from the
harmful effects of ultraviolet rays. Exposure to more intense ultraviolet
radiation shortens the time for burning and blistering of human skin, increases
the incidence of skin cancer, and causes cataracts. Excess ultraviolet
radiation can also harm plant and animal life, including marine plankton, which
plays an important role in the marine food cycle.
The world’s nations are taking steps to control the manufacture of
CFCs. In the spring of 1994, Germany ceased producing them.37
DN 1.14: Environmental Warfare
Environmental Warfare
The Gulf War of 1991 added a new dimension to the world’s
environmental problems. Iraq, it appears, resorted to environmental warfare,
deliberately releasing millions of gallons of oil from Kuwaiti fields into the
Persian Gulf, perhaps as a defense against amphibious assault, or perhaps as a
means of crippling Saudi Arabia’s water desalinization plants. Also, Iraq
apparently set hundreds of oil wells ablaze, releasing clouds of black smoke
that turned day into night over much of Kuwait. The effects of the smoke were
felt over much of the Middle East and southern Asia.
DN 1.15: Looking Ahead
Looking Ahead
Finding themselves in a world beset with the above-mentioned
environmental problems, the members of the International Society for Krishna
Consciousness are exploring and adopting ways to remedy them. Recognizing that
environmental crisis stems from a crisis in consciousness, we are advocating a
spiritual vision of the universe as the key to bringing our planet to a more
healthy condition.
Positive change also involves voluntary simplicity. The ultimate
result could be a less industrialized society, wherein all human beings can
live more naturally and peacefully. To people blinded by shortsighted greed,
such societal transformation may appear extreme. But those who can appreciate
the spiritual wisdom that guided past civilizations will find it desirable.
We may not be able to accomplish major social change within our
own lifetimes, but we can take steps in the right direction and inspire future
generations to complete the task.
DN 1: People Working for Change
People Working for Change
Jayaprabhupäda Däsa
Jayaprabhupäda Däsa was born in Cali, Colombia, in 1953. Before he
turned thirty he had earned two masters degrees in rural development
disciplines and gained job experience with government agencies like the
Institute for Natural Resources in Colombia. He says, “I was frustrated. I
worked for corporate and government teams that went to the little farmers and
promised to help develop their regions and improve agricultural conditions. But
we seldom helped anybody.”
His frustration led to a partnership with his wife, Çäntendriyä
Däsé, a Brazilian painter and intellectual who had lived in Rio. She had gone
to Belim in the Amazon region to find a more satisfying environment in which to
paint and to study political science. Here they met, married, and decided to
travel in South America, find a suitable plot, and live on the land. She
painted portraits while he sold handicrafts to save up for their Shangri-La.
When they met Hare Kåñëa devotees in Ecuador in 1983, things
changed. They began to practice yoga every morning on a beach near Guayaquil.
They also began constantly reading the philosophical books of Kåñëa
consciousness. Inspired by the prospect of a more spiritually centered life,
they began to think about living in a spiritual community, hoping to realize
their dream of attaining self-sufficiency and fulfilling their spiritual quest.
Almost every morning, Kåñëa devotees from their nearby Guayaquil center came to
visit them at the beach. The couple got all their meals from the movement’s
Guayaquil snack bar.
Shortly thereafter they decided to accept an invitation to live at
Nova Gokula. This Hare Kåñëa rural community in the Atlantic Forest region of
eastern Brazil covers 321 lush acres of hilly tropical terrain. The section
Jayaprabhupäda and Çäntendriyä chose to develop was the “Vedic Village,” a
100-acre spread set apart from the main community for complete
self-sufficiency. Jayaprabhupäda, his wife, and their three children live in a
house they personally built from bricks they made from mud. Three other
families live in similar structures and share a commitment to life without
electricity and petroleum. Jayaprabhupäda grows the only food they eat by
cultivating a plot of land with two large white bullocks and a traditional
wooden plow.
“I think what we’re doing is becoming a practical option for many
people, and not just within Hare Kåñëa communities. I really want us to be a
model of sustainability for farmers, at least throughout the nearby region.”
With organic agriculture, Jayaprabhupäda expects to gradually revive the area’s
soil, which commercial farmers severely degraded by decades of growing coffee
and cattle fodder. “People have to understand that smaller economic units work
when we learn to adopt higher thinking and simple living. Small is beautiful.
This is a practical application of God consciousness.”
Jayaprabhupäda is part of a community think tank. Both Nova Gokula
and its Vedic Village are governed by a charter and by-laws that Jayaprabhupäda
helped fashion. The charter calls for villagers to produce their own cloth,
shoes, paper, fuel, and castor oil for lamps. Jayaprabhupäda has already begun
training ISKCON devotees in the use of ox power and other features of
self-sufficiency and sustainable agriculture.
Local and government assistance in the form of loans and grants
has bolstered Jayaprabhupäda’s commitment to a difficult and sometimes daunting
task. An event that helped shape Jayaprabhupäda’s commitment to the project
took place in 1985, when Nova Gokula hosted the ninth annual Alternative
Communities National Encounter. More than 3,000 visitors from 42 organizations
took part. A main topic of the week-long convention was the community itself.
DN 2: Meat and the Environment
2
Meat and the Environment
“By eliminating beef from the human diet, our species takes a
significant step toward a new species consciousness, reaching out in a spirit
of shared partnership with the bovine, and, by extension, other sentient
creatures with whom we share the earth.”1
Jeremy Rifkin
Beyond Beef
Killing animals for food, fur, leather, and cosmetics is one of
the most environmentally destructive practices taking place on the earth today.
The Kåñëa consciousness movement’s policies of protecting animals, especially
cows, and broadly promoting a spiritual vegetarian diet could—if widely
adopted—relieve many environmental problems.
These policies are rooted in the following philosophical and
functional principles:
1. Humans should not slaughter animals for food. They should be as
compassionate to cows and other farm animals as they are to their pet dogs and
cats. Nonviolence extended beyond human society is known as ahiàsä, an ancient
Vedic principle still practiced in some parts of the world.
2. Cows are the most valuable animals to human society. They give
us fuel, fertilizer, power (for tilling, transport, grinding, and irrigating),
milk and milk products, and leather (after natural death).
3. The killing of animals violates karmic laws, creating
collective and individual reactions in human society.
4. Well-documented medical studies show that flesh-eating is
harmful to health.
5. Mass animal-killing for food and fashion erodes mercy, reducing
respect for all kinds of life, including human life.
6. Meat diets are more expensive than nonmeat diets.
7. If the world switched to a nonmeat diet, it could radically
increase its food output and save millions of people from hunger, starvation,
and death.
8. Massive animal slaughter is destroying the environment. We
shall now document this destruction, keeping in mind that it amounts to
violence against the earth. It also has karmic consequences.
The meat industry is linked to deforestation, desertification,
water pollution, water shortages, air pollution, and soil erosion. Neal D.
Barnard, president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (USA),
therefore says, “If you’re a meat eater, you are contributing to the
destruction of the environment, whether you know it or not. Clearly the best
thing you can do for the Earth is to not support animal agriculture.”2
And Jeremy Rifkin warns in his widely read book Beyond Beef:
“Today, millions of Americans, Europeans, and Japanese are consuming countless
hamburgers, steaks, and roasts, oblivious to the impact their dietary habits
are having on the biosphere and the very survivability of life on earth. Every
pound of grain-fed flesh is secured at the expense of a burned forest, an
eroded rangeland, a barren field, a dried-up river or stream, and the release
of millions of tons of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane into the
skies.”3
DN 2.1: Forest Destruction
Forest Destruction
According to Vegetarian Times, half of the annual destruction of
tropical rain forests is caused by clearing land for beef cattle ranches.4 Each
pound of hamburger made from Central American or South American beef costs
about 55 square feet of rain forest vegetation.5
In the United States, about 260 million acres of forest have been
cleared for a meat-centered diet. Each person who becomes a vegetarian saves
one acre of trees per year.6
About 40% of the land in the western United States is used for
grazing beef cattle. This has had a detrimental effect on wildlife. Fencing has
forced deer and antelope out of their natural habitats.7
DN 2.2: Agricultural Inefficiency
Agricultural Inefficiency
About half the world’s grain is consumed by animals that are later
slaughtered for meat.8 This is a very inefficient process. It takes 16 pounds
of grain and soybeans to produce 1 pound of feedlot beef.9 If people were to
subsist on grains and other vegetarian foods alone, this would put far less
strain on the earth’s agricultural lands. About 20 vegetarians can be fed from
the land it takes to feed 1 meat eater.
Eighty per cent of the corn raised in the United States is fed to
livestock, as well as 95% of the oats. Altogether, 56% of all agricultural land
in the United States is used for beef production.10 If all the soybeans and
grain fed yearly to US livestock were set aside for human consumption, it would
feed 1.3 billion people.
DN 2.3: Soil Erosion and Desertification
Soil Erosion and Desertification
Overgrazing and the intensive production of feed grain for cattle
and other meat animals results in high levels of soil erosion. According to
AlanÿB. Durning of the Worldwatch Institute (1986), one pound of beef from
cattle raised on feedlots represents the loss of 35 pounds of topsoil.11 Over
the past few centuries, the United States has lost about two-thirds of its
topsoil.
In other countries, such as Australia and the nations of Africa on
the southern edge of the Sahara, cattle grazing and feed-crop production on
marginal lands contribute substantially to desertification.
DN 2.4: Air Pollution
Air Pollution
Burning of oil in the production of feed grain results in air
pollution, including carbon dioxide, the main cause of global warming. Another
major source of air pollution is the burning of tropical forests to clear land
for cattle grazing.
The meat industry burns up a lot of fossil fuel, pouring
pollutants into the air. Calorie for calorie, it takes 39 times more energy to
produce beef than soybeans.12 The petroleum used in the United States would
decrease by 60% if people adopted a vegetarian diet.13
And in their book For the Common Good, World Bank economist Herman
E. Daly and philosopher JohnÿB. Cobb, Jr., say, “If a simple and healthful
change in eating habits along with localization of most food production and a
major shift toward organic farming were to take place over the next generation,
food production and distribution could be weaned from their current heavy
dependence on fossil fuels. In the process, the enormous suffering now
inflicted on livestock would be greatly reduced.”14
The meat industry, in addition to producing carbon dioxide, is
also responsible for other greenhouse gases, such as methane. Methane is
produced directly by the digestive process of cows. This greenhouse gas is
considered very dangerous because each molecule of methane traps 20 times more
heat than a molecule of carbon dioxide.
How big a threat to the planet is the methane emitted by cows?
Overall, the effect is not significant, certainly not enough to justify fears
of cows destroying the planet by global warming. Each year about 500 million
tons of methane enter the atmosphere,15contributing about 18% of the total
greenhouse gases. Cows account for 60 million tons of the methane, about 12%.16
Therefore, methane emitted by cows amounts to only 2% of the total greenhouse
gas emissions. It should also be kept in mind that feedlot cows, because they
eat more, produce more methane than range-fed cows. In India, there are about
270 million cows, but 99.9% of them are range fed.17 Therefore they produce
less methane than an equivalent number of feedlot cows.
DN 2.5: Water Pollution
Water Pollution
About 50% of the water pollution in the United States is linked to
livestock.18 Pesticides and fertilizers used in helping grow feed grains run
off into lakes and rivers. They also pollute ground water. In the feedlots and
stockyard holding pens, there is also a tremendous amount of pesticide runoff.
Organic contaminants from huge concentrations of animal excrement and urine at
feedlots and stockyards also pollute water. This waste is anywhere from ten to
hundreds of times more concentrated than raw domestic sewage. According to a
German documentary film (Fleisch Frisst Menschen [Flesh Devours Man] by
Wolfgang Kharuna), nitrates evaporating from open tanks of concentrated
livestock waste in the Netherlands have resulted in extremely high levels of forest-killing
acid rain.
DN 2.6: Water Depletion
Water Depletion
All around the world, the beef industry is wasting the diminishing
supplies of fresh water. For example, the livestock industry in the United
States takes about 50% of the water consumed each year.19
Feeding the average meat-eater requires about 4,200 gallons of
water per day, versus 1,200 gallons per day for a person following a
lacto-vegetarian diet.20 While it takes only 25 gallons of water to produce a
pound of wheat, it takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat.21
DN 2.7: The Bottom Line
The Bottom Line
Reducing or eliminating meat consumption would have substantial
positive effects on the environment. Fewer trees would be cut, less soil would
be eroded, and desertification would be substantially slowed. A major source of
air and water pollution would be removed, and scarce fresh water would be
conserved. “To go beyond beef is to transform our very thinking about
appropriate behavior toward nature,” says Jeremy Rifkin. “We come to appreciate
the source of our sustenance, the divinely inspired creation that deserves
nurture and requires stewardship. Nature is no longer viewed as an enemy to be
subdued and tamed.”22
DN 2.8: Other Reasons Not to Kill Cows
Other Reasons Not to Kill Cows
Of course, saving the environment is not the only reason it’s good
to avoid eating meat, particularly beef. Further reasons, some of which we
mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, are discussed at length in other
books published by the Kåñëa consciousness movement (see the resource section
at the end of this book).
During the process of converting grain to meat, 90% of the
protein, 99% of the carbohydrates, and 100% of the dietary fiber are lost.
It is well documented that vegetarians are less likely to contract
certain kinds of heart disease and cancer. So better health is one of the
benefits of the flesh-free, karma-free diet practiced by the Kåñëa
consciousness movement. This diet is not only healthier but also more
satisfying to the mind and taste buds than meat-centered diets.
Furthermore, eliminating meat-eating would release a vast quantity
of food grain for human consumption, thus helping solve the problem of world
hunger. And on an ethical level, stopping animal-killing would help induce a
greater respect for all kinds of life, including human.
DN 2: People Working for Change
People Working for Change
Yamunä Devé
When she’s not writing recipes for the Washington Post, making
public appearances, or teaching cooking classes, Yamunä Devé is writing
vegetarian cookbooks. In 1988 the International Association of Cooking
Professionals voted her Lord Krishna’s Cuisine “The Best Cookbook of the Year,”
the only time this honor went to a book of non-Western cookery. Printed by
major publishers in several countries, the book has become a classic of its
genre. It evolved from Yamunä’s more than twenty-five years as a
lacto-vegetarian and practitioner of Kåñëa consciousness. Her second book,
Yamuna’s Table, has become a steady seller, and a third, The Vegetarian Table:
India, hit the market in 1997. Her latest project is a spiritual cooking school
called Yamuna’s Table, located in Sedro-Woolley, Washington, USA.
“I have learned that what I call spiritual vegetarianism can be
one of the most positive approaches to avoid ecological disaster,” says Yamunä.
“People don’t realize that not only the animals but the trees, the land, the
water, and the air are all part of a very delicately balanced biosphere. All
these elements are indispensable, integral parts of a living whole we call the
earth. In previous times, God-centeredness was a fact of society; our move away
from that centering has made us extremely callous to life in general. I’m sure
that the radical increase in murders is intimately related—karmically, that
is—to the massive, unprecedented levels of animal slaughter that occur on this
planet today. Through spiritual pursuits, I have learned to revere all life.
“When I met Çréla Prabhupäda in 1966, it never crossed my mind
that I would be writing books and newspaper columns, doing media campaigns and
running a cooking school,” says Yamunä. “In fact my only interest at the time
was to clean up my act and become a devotee of Lord Kåñëa. I saw the world
around me going nowhere, really.
“That year I cooked for my devotee sister’s wedding and,
amazingly, Çréla Prabhupäda not only officiated over the entire ceremony but
cooked alongside me. While he was in the kitchen with me, he made me wash my
hands every time I unthinkingly touched my mouth. I must have gone to the
washroom at least twenty times that afternoon.”
Due to these and many other instructions soon to follow, Yamunä
became increasingly philosophical. “Although my soul inhabited my physical
body, it felt abnormal to be in a body. I realized that the physical body is an
unclean, temporary habitat for the soul. To be clean was to be next to God, and
that’s all I wanted—to be next to God.”
She began to travel her chosen path. It was a way of doing
everything for God, or Kåñëa. She explains, “To me, it meant many things:
reading books like the Bhagavad-gétä, worshiping the Deity of Kåñëa, serving my
guru’s rapidly expanding mission, and singing mantras in public.” In 1968 she
became a missionary in London and recorded a rock version of the Hare Kåñëa
mantra with former Beatle George Harrison.
Ultimately, cooking for Kåñëa became Yamunä’s greatest love in
life. Her cooking school in Washington has turned out to be her central focus.
“I think I can best answer my calling by teaching people the Kåñëa conscious
way of food preparation. After all, Prabhupäda did say that you could go back
to Godhead simply by eating.”
DN 3: TOWARD A SPIRITUAL SOLUTION
3
TOWARD A SPIRITUAL SOLUTION
“One of the greatest challenges to contemporary religions is how
to respond to the ecological crisis perpetuated by the enormous inroads of
materialism and secularization in contemporary societies, especially those
societies arising in or influenced by the modern West.”1
Dr. Mary Evelyn Tucker
Professor of Religion, Bucknell University, USA
How do people try to deal with the environmental crisis? Few are
confronting the problem from the standpoint of spiritual consciousness.
DN 3.1: Material Solutions (Individual)
Material Solutions (Individual)
Some are trying, however, to make changes in their daily
activities, and this is necessary, especially in the industrial nations. The
USA, Europe, and Japan bear the most responsibility for the earth’s
environmental crisis. “The richest billion people in the world have created a
form of civilization so acquisitive and profligate that the planet is in
danger,” says Alan Durning of the Worldwatch Institute. “The life-style of this
top echelon—the car drivers, beef eaters, soda drinkers, and throwaway
consumers—constitutes an ecological threat unmatched in severity.”2
Concerned individuals show their personal commitment to a better
environment by recycling paper and glass, by not purchasing products they
consider harmful to the environment, and by giving money to support environmental
action and awareness groups. They try to consume less energy and use less
water.
And in the Hare Kåñëa movement, we also try to do some of those
same things—not just because it’s good for the environment, but because it’s
good for our own spiritual development.
Our founding spiritual master, Çréla A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
Prabhupäda, was not only a great scholar of India’s vast Vedic literature. He
was also a reservoir of practical ecological wisdom, all based on the ancient
spiritual culture of India. Right from his first years in the United States, in
the 1960s, Çréla Prabhupäda would do things that today would at once be
recognized as environmentally sound. Yet Çréla Prabhupäda’s attitudes and
behavior initially astonished his disciples, who had been born into a
consume-and-throw-away culture.
On a morning in May 1976, Çréla Prabhupäda was walking with some
disciples on a beach in Honolulu, Hawaii. One of his disciples said,
“Especially in the last two hundred years, people have exploited the atmosphere
and the earth so badly that, practically speaking, man is on the verge of
self-destruction.” The disciple added that people were trying to solve the
problem by, among other things, recycling.
But for Çréla Prabhupäda, recycling was not something new. He
explained how in India people take their broken metal utensils to merchants,
who give them half the original price. Typically, even the bowls and plates
Indian families use for dining are of metal, which can eventually be recycled.
On another occasion, in Rome in May 1974, Çréla Prabhupäda told
his disciples how to save trees: “Paper you can make from grass, from cotton,
from so many other fibers. You don’t require wood.… From rejected paper, you
can get another paper also. But they throw it away in your country. Collect
this rejected paper and again put it into paper.” This conversation took place
years before recycling of paper became popular.
One might suspect that Çréla Prabhupäda’s thriftiness was only a
habit from his life in India, a poor country in many respects. But there was
more to it than that. Çréla Prabhupäda saw the world and its resources as God’s
energy, and these were not to be misused and wasted, especially by people
cultivating spiritual values.
Ultimately, only the widespread cultivation of genuine spiritual
vision and values can cause enough people to act in a way that will end the
environmental crisis. Separating glass bottles and aluminum cans might give a
transitory feeling of ethical commitment. But such efforts fall far short of
what is really needed. In fact, they may even hinder real progress by giving
people a false sense that they have done enough.
DN 3.2: Material Solutions (Collective)
Material Solutions (Collective)
Of course, individual action is only part of the picture. People
acting together, in groups large and small, are also grappling with the world’s
environmental problems.
For example, a group of parents, concerned about the health of
their children, will hold a demonstration to remove a toxic-waste dump in the
neighborhood. Some say this local, grass-roots approach is the most effective
kind of environmental action. In 1991, Hare Krishna members in Poland led a
successful grass-roots movement to halt the opening of an environmentally
harmful dolomite quarry (see “People Working for Change,”). But for every
grass-roots group that succeeds, dozens fail to overcome the forces arrayed
against them. And even if there’s success in some particular effort, it has
little impact overall. If protesters stop a toxic-waste dump from being set up
in one place, it will be set up in another. And the factories that produce the
toxic waste will be kept in business by the protesters themselves, who buy what
the factories turn out. Furthermore, intense commitment to limited goals and
political attempts to achieve them may blind us to the need for the overall
spiritual transformation of society.
The bigger environmental action organizations, seeking more
influence, stage national and even global events, such as Earth Day. They also
lobby local, state, and national governments to adopt policies and regulations
meant to help solve environmental problems. Many people question the ultimate
usefulness of this approach, which has been called “reform environmentalism.”
It may do some limited good in controlling and reducing pollution, but it
leaves intact the whole polluting apparatus of the worldwide industrial
society. Also, gains achieved through lobbying and political action can be
reversed by the lobbying and political action of others, especially action
appealing to economic self-interest. A better approach is to strive for the
overall spiritualization of society. With a deep, spiritual change of heart, a
permanent change of goals and values, environmental reform would take place as
a by-product, almost automatically.
The International Society for Krishna Consciousness has potential
as a peaceful extra-governmental force for this kind of change, nationally and
internationally. In 1966, Çréla Prabhupäda included in ISKCON’s articles of
incorporation a far-reaching statement of the movement’s purposes. Among them:
“To bring the members closer together for the purpose of teaching a simpler,
more natural way of life.”
Çréla Prabhupäda did not, however, recommend high-pressure
lobbying. Instead, he emphasized the establishment of self-sufficient agrarian
communities. “If these farm projects are successful,” he wrote to a disciple in
1975, “then all this industry will be closed. We do not have to make
propaganda, but automatically people will not want [it].” Çréla Prabhupäda also
envisioned gardenlike towns that would be more habitable than today’s cities
and suburbs.
People want a secure and satisfying way of life. If they can be
shown attractive alternatives to life in industrial society, they will make the
right choices. In the long run, this is more effective than organizing
campaigns to curb toxic emissions from factories.
Most environmental problems, such as global warming, are so
expansive that even national governments are unable to confront them alone.
Coordinated efforts by many nations—indeed, all nations—seem to be required.
The United Nations, therefore, is becoming more active in
environmental issues and related causes, such as sustainable economic growth.
Some propose giving the Security Council a mandate to deal with environmental
problems. Others have suggested creating a separate UN Ecological Council, with
powers like those of the Security Council.3
With help from the UN, many assume, the magnitude of the world’s environmental
crisis will compel nations to cooperate. But environmental issues may simply
become another source of dispute and conflict. We already see this happening.
Developing countries often resist calls from developed ones to slow industrial
growth for the sake of the environment. A country may even resort to
environmental warfare, as Iraq did by burning hundreds of oil wells during the
Gulf War of 1991.
So, desp