Atlantic Article - Can Meat Eaters Also Be Environmentalists?

By Nicolette Hahn Niman (livestock rancher, environmental attorney, and author of Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms)
June 2, 2010

"I recently sat center stage at the David Brower Center in Berkeley, California, arguing that being a meat eater and also a dedicated environmentalist is not a contradiction. Arguing the reverse was Howard Lyman, a former cattle-feedlot operator turned vegan, who is an entertaining speaker and the author of Mad Cowboy. I'm a vegetarian who's become a cattle rancher. As Ari Derfel, the moderator, noted: this event could only happen in Berkeley. I rarely argue about meat eating—pro or con. I prefer to encourage people who are eating meat to, as I said in my book, Righteous Porkchop, "eat less meat, eat better meat." Although I've been a vegetarian for more than 20 years, I have never accepted the view that eating meat is morally wrong. It's just never made sense to me that something humans and our ancestors have been doing for some 4 million years—something that's a major component of the natural world's system of nutrient recycling—could be immoral. And the more I've learned about ecologically sound food production, the more I've come to appreciate the important role animals play in it, both here and around the world. So when Earth Island Institute invited me to participate in this debate, I agreed...."

http://www.theatlantic.com/food/archive/10/06/can-meat-eaters-also-be-environmentalists/57532/