How does eating meat supposedly cause global warming?
According to United Nations scientists in a recent 408-page scientific analysis of raising animals in order to eat them, eating meat, dairy, and eggs is "one of the....most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems at every scale from local to global" and "should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity."
Here's why:
Land degradation: More than 90% of the Amazon rainforest cleared since 1970, or about 45,000 square miles, is now being used by the meat industry, either for grazing or to grow crops to feed farmed animals. That forest is like a giant sink which holds in the carbon dioxide. When it is cut down or burned, the carbon dioxide is released in massive amounts, thus contributing to global warming. And here in our country, 260 million acres of our forests have been cleared to grow crops to feed farmed animals as well.
Climate Change: Animal agriculture causes almost forty percent more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, and planes in the world combined. (That figure just stunned me.) The digestive processes of farmed animals (including their excrement, which is 130 times that produced by the U.S. population), combine to release staggering amounts of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. The carbon footprint of processing animal foods is far higher than that of plant foods because of the additional energy-intensive steps: processing and shipping feed crops, slaughtering animals, dismembering and processing their bodies, freezing their bodies for shipment, etc. – all of this requires an awful lot of oil and electricity. Environmental Defense explains, “If every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetables and grains, for example, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. roads.” So celebrate the good you’re doing by eating chicken-free for three entire weeks!
Air pollution: In Texas alone, feedlots produce more than 14 million pounds of particulate dust which "contains biologically active organisms such as bacteria, mold, and fungi from the feces and the feed." And a report by the California State Senate states that "studies have also shown that [animal waste] lagoons emit toxic airborne chemicals that can cause inflammatory, immune, irritation, and neurochemical problems in humans." On top of that, the EPA reports that 80% of the toxic gas ammonia in the U.S. comes from farmed animal excrement. It is said that if you walk into one of these huge factory farms, the ammonia nearly knocks you off your feet and it's nearly impossible to breathe without your lungs burning. New Yorker reporter Michael Specter visited a chicken shed in Maryland, and described the experience this way: "I was almost knocked to the ground by the overpowering smell of feces and ammonia. My eyes burned and so did my lungs, and I could neither see nor breathe….”
Water shortage and pollution: Animal agriculture is one of the main causes of water shortage in the western U.S. in that it requires between 3 and 11 times the water of an equal amount of soy. Copious amounts are needed to raise feed crops, provide animals drinking water and wash away feces and urine. And then the run-off from factory farms is laced with feces, bacteria, hormones, and antibiotics which can dangerously effect our arable soil and potable drinking water. The high levels of nitrogen from the animal feces along with the crop fertilizers (most crops are fed to farmed animals) devastates life in local waterways by promoting algae blooms, thus creating what are called "dead zones".
Loss of biodiversity: As more land is used for grazing and to grow feed crops, native birds and mammals are pushed to the brink. In addition, the oceans are being devastated by commercial fishing. A recent alarming study found that 90 percent of large fish populations have been exterminated in the past 50 years because of large scale fishing. In many areas, it's like clear cutting the ocean floor. And fish farming just exacerbates the problem, as ocean fish are caught and fed to fish in fish farms. It takes several pounds of ocean-caught fish to produce a pound of farmed fish flesh.
Here are two more articles for more information:
Vegetarian is the new Prius
Livestock and Climate Change
Isn’t eating meat an essential part of human evolution? How can you say we aren’t meant to eat meat?
Dr. T. Colin Campbell, professor emeritus at Cornell University and author of The China Study, explains that in fact, we only recently (historically speaking) began eating meat, and that the inclusion of meat in our diet came well after we became who we are today. He explains that "the birth of agriculture only started about 10,000 years ago at a time when it became considerably more convenient to herd animals. This is not nearly as long as the time [that] fashioned our basic biochemical functionality (at least tens of millions of years) and which functionality depends on the nutrient composition of plant-based foods."
That jibes with what Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President Dr. Neal Barnard says in his book, The Power of Your Plate, in which he explains that "early humans had diets very much like other great apes, which is to say a largely plant-based diet, drawing on foods we can pick with our hands. Research suggests that meat-eating probably began by scavenging--eating the leftovers that carnivores had left behind. However, our bodies have never adapted to it. To this day, meat-eaters have a higher incidence of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and other problems."
I’m ready to try to give up some meat due to what I’ve heard about factory farm abuse. Should I give up red meat first, since cows are treated the worst?
Although many people tend to stop eating red meat before they give up chicken, turkey, or fish, from a humane standpoint, this is backwards. Birds are arguably the most abused animals on the planet, and birds and fish yield less flesh than cows or pigs, so farmers and fishers kill more of them to satisfy America's meat habit. If you choose to give up meat in stages, stop eating chickens and turkeys first, then fish, and then pigs and cows. Some will suggest that cattle are the worst for the environment, but that seems like hair-splitting to me. As I discussed in my articles on the Huffington Post, the Amazon rain forest is being cut down to grow soybeans to feed chickens; it's chicken and pig farms that are poisoning the Atlantic Ocean, and vastly more energy is required if we eat the chickens who are fed grain rather than eating that grain directly.
I can relate to your comment in the "High Net Worth" segment that giving up hamburgers was much easier than giving up leather goods (and fur). There is SO much information about the diet aspect--but comparatively little about replacing leather goods with vegan alternatives. What did you decide to do with your leather goods? How have you dealt with making decisions about whether to wear silk and/or wool? Some of the vegan alternatives are quite harmful environmentally, so how did you weigh the purchase of a new pair of PVC shoes versus giving away perfectly usable leather goods?
The way I have done everything is to lean into the changes, gradually and incrementally. If upon realization that I wanted to go vegan I had to change everything, I would surely not have been able to stick to the new ways. It would have been too overwhelming. With food, I gave up eating one animal at a time. With shoes and belts, I started looking for items that were not made from leather. I made it a sport to find new discoveries, whether pvc faux leather from the African vendors on NY street corners, or fabric bags from Le Sport Sac, or little finds from Target or PayLess. Occasionally I will treat myself to Stella McCartney. There are also wonderful websites like AlternativeOutfitters or Matt n Nat which carry all kinds of shoes and accessories. I am leaning toward wearing less wool now, making sure I don't buy Australian wool (they do muelsing there). As far as how I make my decisions re what is more harmful, not buying into cruelty is at the top of my list. While pvc might not be perfect, at least an animal didn't suffer horribly to produce it.
I have heard you and others talk about “Meatless Mondays.” Why should I give up meat one day a week? How could this help in any way?
If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would save:
● 100 billion gallons of water, enough to supply all the homes in New England for almost 4 months;
● 1.5 billion pounds of crops otherwise fed to livestock, enough to feed the state of New Mexico for more than a year;
● 70 million gallons of gas--enough to fuel all the cars of Canada and Mexico combined with plenty to spare;
● 3 million acres of land, an area more than twice the size of Delaware;
● 33 tons of antibiotics.
If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would prevent:
● Greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 1.2 million tons of CO2, as much as produced by all of France;
● 3 million tons of soil erosion and $70 million in resulting economic damages;
● 4.5 million tons of animal excrement;
● Almost 7 tons of ammonia emissions, a major air pollutant.
My favorite statistic is this: According to Environmental Defense, if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. roads. See how easy it is to make an impact?