Meat-eating Warrants Same Scrutiny as Driving and Flying
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 08.29.08
According the the WorldWatch Institute (and an old post of our own) livestock contribute 18% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, even higher than the GHG emissions from transportation. As part of this figure they produce 37% of methane, which has more than 20 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. And if that weren’t enough to be concerned about, their manure emits nitrous oxide, 65% of world totals. WorldWatch also point out that in the United States, 70% of all anti-microbial drugs are now given to livestock.
Yet for all the welcoming news regarding decreased SUV sales, increased bicycle purchases and servicing, increased green home building, and so on, meat production, is on WorldWatch’s figures not declining. And in fact they see signs it is on the rise, with poultry, pig and beef production increasing between 2% and 4%. They dig out figures which indicate that globally about 56 billion animals are raised and slaughtered for food each year, the bulk of whom are ‘produced’ in factory farms.
Lancet says Eat Less Meat
WorldWatch’s statistically rich report by Brian Halweil concludes by quoting that much esteemed medical journal, The Lancet. It recommends that the industrial world chomp on 10% less meat to limit greenhouse gas emissions, whilst enhancing human health, going on to say, "For the world's higher-income populations, greenhouse-gas emissions from meat-eating warrant the same scrutiny as do those from driving and flying."
And this scrutiny maybe indeed be happening. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Mark Tracy, owner of the organic vegan cafe The Forest, in Brisbane, Queenland, had noticed a change in attitudes among his customer base. He said that most still became vegetarians because of animal cruelty, but "the cost to the environment is now a close second".
In their Greenhome project, the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) suggest that removing just one 150-gram serve of beef a week would culminate in a saving of 10,000 litres of water and 300 kilograms of greenhouse gases. (That’s 5oz, 2,642 gallons and 660 lb for our non-metric brethren.) Possibly those figures are so high because Aussies chow down on an average 110kg (243 lbs) of meat yearly.
All of which is certainly (what’s that old cliche?) food for thought.
::WorldWatch Institute and ::Sydney Morning Herald
More TreeHugger on Meat and Climate Change
• Study Finds Meat and Dairy Create More Emissions Than Miles
• What's Our Beef With Climate Change?
• How to Green Your Meals
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Not to mention the amount of corn that is fed to cows to get them fatter earlier. Corn is not a natural diet for cows and it makes them sick, hence the antibiotics.
I don't know the exact figures but I've heard it takes an average of 15 lbs of corn and 30 lbs of grain to produce one lb of hamburger. The same 45 lbs of food that the cow is eating, would of course feed a lot of people.
Thank you so much for this post. We've known for years that going vegetarian is the greenest thing you can do. It's not hard and it does more good than riding your bike to work or any other reduce-GHG's steps you take. Bravo!!
There is nothing new in this article but it always surprises me how people who are so into a clean environment can conveniently overlook their own meat laden diet.
What about those of us that eat wild game, like antelope, venison, and pheasant? How does that impact the environment?
I certainly agree that animals are more carbon-intensive, but there are some countervailing facts that we should be aware of.
-Animals are less labor-intensive. One cowboy can handle 100 head no problem, same with a shepherd and sheep. A field of plantings requires long-term attention by a lot of people or machines.
-Animals are moveable, to new supplies of food and water. If you lose your local water supplies for plants, the crop is lost.
-Animals are durable. Their value isnt wiped out by bad weather or drought, like crops can be.
Of course, animals as a source of milk and eggs and manure and wool are far more efficient than killing and eating them, but we have to remember that animals have a place. I agree it's totally inefficient to eat them, and to feed them with crops that could be used to feed people, but let's not assume a pure vegetarian world would be a totally better place.
I'll trust mother nature's wise design and keep on eating meat. If she didn't want us eating meat, well she wouldn't have designed us to do so and then selected for females who sexually selected for men who were the best hunters. :)
While it certainly does not help the environment to eat meat, 1 thing these articles about the GHG emissions related to meat always fail to mention is that in contrast to the carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuel, methane and nitrous oxide are short term greenhouse gases.
According to wikipedia:
Methane has an atmospheric lifetime of 12
Nitrous oxide has an atmospheric lifetime of 120 years
Therefore it is only valid to look at the increase compared to 12 years ago for methane and 120 years for nitrous oxide when you point out how bad the greenhouse gasses are.
Carbon dioxide has an atmospheric lifetime of tens of thousands of years so while it would be fairly easy to deal with the other gases in the short term, carbon dioxide is a problem that will remain on us for a long time.
The world would be a greener place without the eating of meat; thanks for this article reminding us of this.
Veganism solve all major problems in the world. Vegetarianism solve none of the environmental problems, it only help to improve human health because you stop eating meat (but most vegetarians eat fish instead, and sea fruits, and even white meat, so there's no good points to vegetarianism). Let me explain : even if all humanity became vegetarians, what would we do with all the chickens, sheep, cows, after they gave milk, wool, eggs etc during all their life, we unleash them all in nature ? No, we would have to kill them all. In a way, vegetarianism is worse than eating meat, because the animals would be burnt instead of becoming meat. Veganism is the only solution.
As a vegetarian, I of course wholeheartedly agree with this article. However, I feel very disappointed in the soy industry as well. Monstrous companies with few ethics, like Monsanto, have control of most of the worlds soy crops-- they make farming an industry that uses soy that is genetically modified to resist pest control products like RoundUp and small farmers are reliant upon Monsanto for seeds every season- they cannot harvest their own seeds and re-seed them. It's a huge problem. Huge enough that I am trying to eliminate more of the soy in my diet now too.
The soy industry deserves a criticle article too!