Apocalypse Cow

Reducing meat consumption could help avert a global disaster, according to Jewish vegetarian activist Richard Schwartz

By GAVRIEL FISKE
Barbecue (photo credit: ILLUSTRATIVE: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Barbecue
(photo credit: ILLUSTRATIVE: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Octogenarian vegetarianism activist Richard Schwartz, an Orthodox Jew from Staten Island, New York, has for decades explored the connection between Judaism and vegetarian/ vegan diets. He used his position as president of the Jewish Vegetarian Society of North America to promote the idea that, contrary to what one might experience at the table of a typical Jewish household on Shabbat or holidays, Jewish values and religious law can actually condone a meat-free diet.
Now 81 and retired from his day job as a mathematics professor at the College of Staten Island and running the day-today operations of the Jewish Vegetarian Society, Schwartz, on a recent visit to Israel, told In Jerusalem that his focus has now turned to educating on how vegetarianism can help avert what he warned could be an impending environmental catastrophe caused by human-driven climate change.
“Climate experts are predicting that everything has become hotter and drier,” Schwartz pointed out, and said that record heat waves and droughts, along with crazy weather all over the world, have become a new kind of normal.
These weather changes are caused by accumulated greenhouse gases in the atmosphere; but what most people don’t realize, Schwartz said, is that “animal-based agriculture creates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and airplanes combined.”
“Greenhouse gases” is a catchall term for any gas that contributes to the greenhouse effect. According to reports cited by Schwartz, who recited from memory a dizzying number of studies and statistics to make his case, the gas produced by animal production – methane – stays in the atmosphere for only about 20 years.
This means that if meat consumption could be reduced, the main greenhouse gas affecting global warming could also be reduced relatively quickly. Raising animals for food is also inefficient, he stressed, noting that “at a time when water is a precious commodity, it takes 14 times as much water to raise an animal than to raise [the equivalent amount of] plant food.”
Judaism, he maintained, has very strong teachings in regard to showing compassion for and proper treatment of animals, which he has cited and documented extensively during his career. Although it is “utopian” to think that every Jewish person will become a vegetarian, if people could cut back on eating meat for a few days every week, it could have a great effect.
“I am basically arguing that Jews have a choice, and that choice should be made in light of Jewish values towards animal compassion,” he said.
Although his focus is on Jews and vegetarianism, Schwartz has also been involved in interfaith efforts to highlight the religious roots of vegetarianism.
Schwartz, an ardent Zionist, stressed that if one feels that climate change is an issue, one has to do something about it.
“I just feel that there is an existential threat to Israel and to the whole world that is being overlooked, and diet changes can make a big difference,” he said.
He also noted that “military experts think this could be a catalyst for violence, terror… a multiplier effect with refugees fleeing from climate change.”
Of course, not everyone agrees with such dire predictions, and the debate on climate change, especially in the United States, is a fraught, politicized issue.
However, Schwartz dismisses outright those who doubt the potential for environmental disaster, and notes that “97 percent of climate scientists and 99.9% of peer-reviewed papers on issue in respected scientific journals argue that climate change is real, is largely caused by human activities and poses great threats to humanity.”
During his visit in Israel, Schwartz gave several lectures, and he filmed and uploaded to YouTube interviews with a number of experts, academics, politicians, activists and rabbis, including the director of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies.
“Pretty much everyone agrees that climate change is an existential threat,” Schwartz said.
Israel, although it has a very high per-capita meat consumption, is also “a leader in terms of veganism and laws about animal compassion,” he noted, and called the country the “greatest place for activism.” Schwartz also praised the recent changes in the Knesset building, which have made it one of the “greenest” parliament buildings in the world. He also noted that Israel has banned the production and import of foie gras, a delicacy of engorged goose liver produced by force feeding the geese.
In fact, Schwartz, who has two daughters and their families living in Israel, is now, along with his wife, “very seriously considering making aliya” and relocating to the Holy Land.
“I am hoping to stay active, and there is no better place than in Israel and Jerusalem,” he said.
But it might not be so easy. Besides the challenge of moving “after 55 years on Staten Island,” when he recently visited a senior citizens’ center in Israel to see if it would be suitable, the “incredulous workers” showed him a lunch menu that offered only chicken or hamburgers, which he described as madness and sheer insanity. •