Humans’ beef with livestock: a warmer planet
American meat eaters are responsible for 1.5 more tons of carbon dioxide per person than vegetarians every year.
By Brad Knickerbocker | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
As Congress begins to tackle the causes and cures of global warming, the action focuses on gas-guzzling vehicles and coal-fired power plants, not on lowly bovines.
Yet livestock are a major emitter of greenhouse gases that cause climate change. And as meat becomes a growing mainstay of human diet around the world, changing what we eat may prove as hard as changing what we drive.
It’s not just the well-known and frequently joked-about flatulence and manure of grass-chewing cattle that’s the problem, according to a recent report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Land-use changes, especially deforestation to expand pastures and to create arable land for feed crops, is a big part. So is the use of energy to produce fertilizers, to run the slaughterhouses and meat-processing plants, and to pump water.
“Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems,” Henning Steinfeld, senior author of the report, said when the FAO findings were released in November.
Livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions as measured in carbon dioxide equivalent, reports the FAO. This includes 9 percent of all CO2 emissions, 37 percent of methane, and 65 percent of nitrous oxide. Altogether, that’s more than the emissions caused by transportation.
Yea, those numbers say we ought to stop feeding cows our own food. I think the recent UN report said cows are responsible for 50% of all methane emissions. Plants are just so much tastier and juicy, why do we continue choosing meat, and cow meat! I’ll keep pushing my mom into becoming a vegetarian.
I’m a bit skeptical that greenhouse gas emissions from livestock total more than the emissions caused by transportation (where did you get that figure from?), but you have a great point. The environmental footprint of meat production and consumption is considerable, and extends far beyond just it’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. From water consumption, to air and water pollution, and fossil fuel consumption and soil erosion, domestic livestock production is a tragic waste of resources. I’ve been a vegetarian for almost six years now, (about a quarter of my life) and my primary reasons for going vegetarian (and staying that way) are the wasted resources and much larger environmental footprint associated with eating meat. Humanitarian reasons help me stay committed, but my primary motivation is to reduce my environmental footprint. Next to driving less, going vegetarian, or at least cutting out as much meat from your diet as possible, is probably the biggest thing you can do to lessen your footprint on this planet.
Sorry, I should have included the link (I tried to, but I guess it didn’t work).
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0220/p03s01-ussc.html?s=hns
i did the same thing, Jesse, but only about 3 years ago. I wonder how many Americans would be willing to give up meat if the evidence were so clearly presented?
I basically agree with the above, but I wanted to qualify some of what’s been said.
I’m not a vegetarian, and probably couldn’t do very well as one. But I do shift down impact levels, eating more chicken and fish (low carbon and low general impact, unless the fish was farmed or is a species under pressure) than pork and other meat, and very little beef (highest impact, both in carbon and land-use, pesticides, etc.). I also eat quite a bit less meat than the average American, but it’s still probably about once a day.
I think it’s also important to qualify the problem with meat – it’s really a problem of concentrating the effects of industrial agriculture. Corn ag. uses tons of fuel, natural gas derived fertilized, machinery, and processing – lots of energy, which is the vast majority of the carbon emissions in meat, especially beef. I was a bit suspicious about the numbers provided as well, but I know that American agriculture is responsible for about as much global warming as American cars, and since corn is over half of that, and 60% of America’s corn is fed JUST to steers, I can rather easily believe cow farts, soil disturbance, and tropical forest degradation (lots of those hamburgers are raised in Brazil and similar places) could make up the 18% claimed. The main problem, at least in terms of carbon emissions is not meat per se, but how it’s produced.
This may sound like semantics until one realizes that grass fed beef done in a manner that maintains pasture diversity, might actually be carbon negative – that is, taking more carbon out of the atmosphere than is released. This is because appropriate, non-intensive grazing stimulates root carbon storage in the soil by grasses, adding dramatically to soil carbon at a very rapid rate. If a vegetarian is getting industrially produced food, it could actually have a higher carbon footprint. Organic food is only sometimes better, since if it has been shipped across the country or around the world, the small reduction in fossil fuel use in agriculture is offset by the transport fuel. Local food is one key to climate nuetral dining. This is a very complex picture.
I just wanted to point out that there are many ways to eat climate smart, and that we have to look at it very carefully.
I would strongly recommend Michael Pollan’s The Omnivores Dilemma. I’m reading it for a class actually, but it’s thoroughly engrossing. It talks all about food – its cultural and ecological sustainability – and how to do it right.
We can definitely all agree that food is a significant part of our environmental impact as a species. Folks are doing pretty ridiculous things with food these days, the end. An issue as close to the heart, and the stomach, as food makes a great entry into the climate debate. Why table at the student center and not in the dining halls?
GO VEG!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The meat industry is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined! The World watch Institute recently released a study indicating that the meat industry is responsible for 51% of greenhouse gases. Cut your meat consumption to save the planet. Go Veg, Be Green to save our planet.
Ways to stop global warming