Turtle Island (2)

In Gary Snyder's poem "Facts" many ugly truths are revealed about how the United States uses the natural resources of our planet much more than anyone else in the world.  According to Snyder, the US only holds 6% of the world's population, but consumes 1/3 of the world's energy and 1/3 of the world's meat. Turtle Island was written in 1969, so these numbers aren't quite exact - but they haven't budged too much since.  In Jules Pretty's Can Ecological Agriculture Feed Nine Billion People? similar issues are discussed.  Pretty makes a very eye opening point, "there is enough staple food produced worldwide to feed everyone adequately, but much is fed to animals and much is wasted in the upper levels of the social pyramid by the rich."  So if we ate less meat, then there wouldn't be such a need for livestock and more food would be able to go around to those who are malnourished.  We also can't waste food as much as we do; the Earth just can't handle the strain we are putting on it for much longer.