The purpose of this essay is to show that livestock agriculture and meat production are major contributors to global warming by emitting green-house gases. Global warming and climate change are one of the most controversial topics in the world today. Global warming is an increase in atmospheric temperatures all over the world. Global warming also causes climate change, which is when the normal climate drastically becomes different. Both climate change and global warming are caused from too much carbon dioxide (CO2) in our atmosphere, other air pollutants and green-house gases like carbon dioxide (CO2). “Meanwhile, with our massive burning of fossil fuels, we are overloading the atmosphere with carbon dioxide (CO2), pushing the earth’s temperature ever higher. This in turn generates more frequent and more extreme climatic events, including crop-withering heat waves, more intense droughts, more severe floods, and more destructive storms” (Brown 2011). Brown (2011) explains that there are many catastrophic events that global warming brings. The polar ice caps are melting rapidly because of the rise in temperature in the poles. This not only is rising the sea levels, but it is also causing the animals in those cold places to die. There are many factors that cause global warming, but what most people don’t realize is that the food we are eating is a main factor as well. Meat production and livestock agriculture takes a big amount of energy to make. Burning these fossil fuels to make the meat emits the most CO2 and other greenhouses gases into the atmosphere (Rosenthal; Wolfson 2010). Two of the most powerful green-house gas emissions, carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrous oxide (N2O), can be traced back to livestock agriculture. All though different types of meat are factors of global warming, the most dangerous one is beef. Producing a pound of beef produces 11 times more green-house emissions than chicken and 100 times more than carrots. Andersen (2014) explains in his documentary that livestock agriculture produces more green-house emissions than all of the transportation sector combined.
Additionally, meat production uses massive amounts of water just to produce edible meat for us. Hydraulic fracturing for natural gas uses about 100 billion gallons of water every year, however animal agriculture uses 34 trillion gallons of water each year (Andersen 2014). This is just one part of why meat production is so bad for the environment. On a regular basis, one Californian uses about 1,500 gallons of water per day and about half of that can be traced back to meat and dairy consumption. Eating one hamburger uses 660 gallons of water to make. Not only does meat production use large amounts of water, cows themselves produce methane and nitrous oxide (two very harmful green-house gases) than cars, planes, trains, and buses combined (Andersen 2014; Rosenthal 2010). Feeding massive amounts of grain and water to farmed animals and then killing them, processing, transporting, and storing their flesh is extremely energy-intensive. To grow all that animal feed, the industry is constantly converting more native lands to agricultural operations, burning and clear-cutting the Amazon and other forests to make way for feed fields.
Cows raised for their meat are responsible for 35-40% of all methane generated by humans. Animal agriculture produces more than 100,000,000 tons of methane a year, and that number is continuing to grow. The global demand for meat is increasing, so is the supply. In 52 years, world meat production went from 44,000,000 to 242,000,000 tons a year. A higher population of people demanding meat is not the only reason why meat demand is rising, people are consuming more meat individually. Just alone in the past 50 years, consumption of meat has increased from 17 to 39 kilograms per person. Countries such as China and India are adopting a more Western diet, which is causing the demand for meat to rise even more rapidly.
There are many people who do not know the connection between global warming and meat production. Not only does meat production use large amounts of water and emit many green-house gases, they also use big amounts of energy to produce. We cannot say that meat production is the only cause for global warming, but we can say it plays a huge role in climate change and global warming. Even though CO2 is the most green-house gas in the atmosphere, methane and nitrous oxide are in fact more potent so when cows release it (even if the amount is small compared to the amount of CO2 in the air) it does more damage to the environment. To compare which animal foods are the worst offenders, it is estimated that 56% of all non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions come from beef, 29% from dairy, and 15% from pork. Most of the methane that is produced in animal agriculture comes from the digestive process of livestock, and most of that does not originate from the rear end of the animal, but from the front end during the act of exhalation. Suzuki (2018), Prescott (2017) and Harvey (2016) argue that global warming is already having significant and costly effects. Climate change has been called humankind’s gravest environmental threat due to the fact that it is having an impact on every continent, affecting agriculture, human health, ecosystems, water supplies, and even people’s way of living. The waste from livestock is another factor on why animal agriculture is one of the main causes to global warming. To get an idea of exactly how much waste comes from the animals, consider that farm animals produce 500,000,000 tons of manure annually. That is three times more raw waste than is made by people living in the U.S. Disposing of this waste becomes problematic when the manure gets into ground and surface water or goes directly into bodies of water. As a matter of fact, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) estimates that chicken, hog, and cattle waste has polluted 35,000 miles of rivers in 22 states and contaminated groundwater in 17 states (Wolfson 2010).
Although, many people believe getting rid of meat from their diet will not only help their body and the earth, there are still some people who say that meat production has no contribution to global warming. Harper (2010) and Smith (2014) state that decreasing meat and dairy production will only bring more hunger into poor countries. Some developing countries don’t have the same efficient ways of producing meat as more developed countries, so they produce more green-house emissions. Meat is an important part of human’s diets and without it people will be receiving less nutrients and proteins, vegetarianism is better than meat diets in terms of emissions but without meat people would starve. Some people say that if meat does get removed from everybody’s diet our only other option would be for everyone to convert to vegetarianism/ veganism. Even though, meat production would be gone, growing crops does produce greenhouse gases but not as much as livestock. Wahlquist (2013) suggests that meat substitutes tend to be “highly processed and use energy-intensive production methods”. Examples of meat substitutes are fish, eggs, vegetables, beans and peas. Meat substitutes are claimed to be environmentally friendly, but yet still produce some greenhouse gases. In the article “Would Eating Less Meat Save The Planet?” by Asa Wahlquist (2013) it explains that a change to a vegetable diet may increase the cropping land and irrigation water needed to grow crops for this particular diet. This is still hurting our environment because it wastes more water. Everybody assumes that because veganism and vegetarianism do not involve livestock agriculture, it does not give any factors to global warming and the release of greenhouse emissions, but those people are wrong. Even veganism and vegetarianism require a lot of energy to produce. Looking and comparing it to the meat industry the different procedures and parts that make up the meat industry also require the usage of energy which meant carbon dioxide emissions. People do not understand that even changing to an all plant died will cause some global warming. People wanting to eliminate meat from their diet, do not understand that even going to an all plant diet will cause some global warming.
In addition, there are new ways and technologies that actually make meat production and livestock agriculture not so harmful to the environment. Niman (2010) states, “It all depends on how and where the animals are raised, and how the meat is used.” According to her statement, it is said that if we convert how we do agriculture and our farming back to the old ways, meat production will do much less harm to the earth when it comes to global warming and climate change. Grass- Fed farming is when the cattle being raised for meat consumption only eats grass without any steroids, pesticides, and/or GMO free. Switching to grass-fed techniques for food consumption for animals can have a dramatic reduction in green-house emissions. Manning (2009) states that there are many beneficial results to grass-feeding livestock. Converting croplands into pastures help make better meat, better soil and helps fight global warming. By making all livestock agriculture grass-fed, it would have many advantages and make a healthier ecosystem. Some of the benefits that come with grass-fed farming are reduced flooding and soil erosion, increased water recharge, more sustainable manure management, less E. Coli food poisoning, more fertile soil, more diverse and healthier ecosystems, and reduced chemical fertilizers and pesticides. “Scientists are refining methods for growing meat tissue in the lab without the costs of land, water, and feed, whose use inflicts so much environmental collateral damage. They call it in vitro meat, and even the veggie-lovers love it. Last year, the animal rights group PETA [People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals] even offered a $1 million prize to the first person to come up with a method to produce commercially viable quantities of in vitro meat at competitive prices” (Slaten 2010) this quote is stating that science and technology are growing more and more every day and soon will soon be able to produce meat without the harmful green-house gas emissions being released into our atmosphere. If scientists are able to find a way to produce meat without any harm, then our global warming issue will be significantly less, but not completely gone. Technologies are advancing much quicker than we anticipated, hopefully we will find a way to create meat with the harm coming with it in the near future.
However, there are still many benefits for adopting an all plant-based diet. Whether people admit it or not, switching to veganism or vegetarianism will help the environment more significantly than not switching and keeping meat in our diet. According to Kong (2016) and Tseng (2017), becoming a vegetarian or vegan may be better because it emits such low green-house gases compared to meat. Studies have suggested that moderate diet changes are not enough to reduce impacts from food consumption drastically (Tseng 2017). Without significant reduction of meat and dairy in our diet, global warming will only because worse and worse. The earth is already coming to the point of there not being a way to stop global warming or at least slow it down. We as humans need to start doing things to help the environment now. Researchers in Italy compared seven different diets to see which one was environmentally friendliest. They compared a conventional omnivorous diet adhering to dietary guidelines; an organic omnivorous diet; a conventional vegetarian diet; an organic vegetarian diet; a conventional vegan diet; an organic vegan diet; and a diet the average person actually eats. The one that was the most environmentally friendly was the organic vegan diet. Going vegan and vegetarian will not only help the environment, but also our bodies. Converting to veganism will help our health tremendously and also the environment.
In conclusion, there are many ways to help stop global warming and climate change. Thousands of studies are going on every day trying to find new ways to help the earth. Brown (2011) gives us specific ways and plans to help the earth from getting completely destroyed. “The Plan B”, as Brown (2011) calls it, suggests that we need to stabilize the climate, stabilize the worlds mass population, and restoring the earths natural support systems. Saving the world from global warming and climate change does not solely only rely on environmentalists, scientists, and vegans, but it also needs to include economists. By having scientists, economists, environmentalists, and politicians work together to figure out costs, taxes, and laws, it will bring the human society and the earth one giant step closer to making a change for the better.