"The planet is being devoured by humans" -- and their ruminants.

It's a fairly long essay, so strap in ... with some plant-based snacks. We can make an exception for chicken thighs, right?

The planet is being consumed by humans, by Mark Lynas (CNN)

Humanity is on a collision course with nature. Already 72% of the global ice-free land surface is dedicated to supporting our species, and between a quarter and a third of the entire 'net primary production' of the planet is consumed by humans.

Net primary production is a measure of the combined photosynthetic output of all the world's plants. Because we grab so much for ourselves, smaller and smaller amounts are left in the food chain for the rest of life on Earth.

No wonder so many other species are going extinct, displaced to the margins of existence in disappearing forests and degraded ecosystems. According to the latest International Union for Conservation Nature's (IUCN) Red List, 40% of amphibians, 25% of mammals, 14% birds and 33% of corals are threatened with extinction.

And it's only expected to get worse. Within another 30 years the global human population will exceed 9 billion people, meaning we will have to increase food production by at least another 70% in order to stave off mass famine.

This part might constitute an issue.

The problem with meat

The majority of the world's land is used not to feed humans directly but to support livestock. Over-consumption of meat is unhealthy, and also an environmental disaster: rainforests are cleared in Brazil both to provide pasture for beef cattle, but also to grow soya crops for export to markets like Europe where they are mostly used in animal feed.

Ruminants like sheep and cattle do not only degrade land directly through over-grazing and pollution from manure, they also release enormous quantities of methane, a global warming gas thirty times as powerful as carbon dioxide.

For Western consumers, giving up steak and lamb is arguably the single most important personal contribution to tackling both the climate and biodiversity crises. A largely vegetarian -- or better still, vegan -- planet would be able to dramatically reduce agriculture, sparing more land for nature.

However, the farming lobbies are powerful. In Europe, farmers are supported by subsidies, without which much livestock production would already be uneconomic. Europeans pay through taxes to support unnecessary land destruction by agriculture -- hardly a sensible policy.

His "beef with meat."

The reporter donned his "opinion" garb yesterday, and as a result, we learned that Daniel Suddeath has been free of meat since January.

SUDDEATH: My beef with meat

When my grandmother decided she felt like chicken for dinner, she didn’t swing by the neighborhood supermarket and nab a few pounds of poultry.

If it were available on-line, I'd direct you to a column written for the old Sunday magazine of the Courier-Journal by the legendary John Ed Pearce, in which the writer introduced readers to the concept of Bowser Burgoo. If anyone finds this, please let me know.

Until then, I have only one tiny beef of my own about the meat-free column. Referring to what he sees as hypocritical public attitudes toward cruelty to animals, Daniel uses a recently opened Louisville gastropub, The Blind Pig in Butchertown, as an example:

I wonder how well received the restaurant would have been if it were perhaps named The Put Down Pound Puppy?

If one feels that it's always wrong to kill an animal for human food, my point is of far lesser significance. However, I'll note that while the gastropub in question specializes in meat and riffs off of its location, it serves (to my knowledge) "locavore" meat, coming from small producers in the region more likely to treat their livestock in a fashion more in keeping with Daniel's overall theme of cruelty-free management.

Overall, The Blind Pig is a fine establishment. I believe that fast-food chains are a far better target for oppribrium in this sense.