Beef and dairy cows contribute to climate change through the agricultural production process and land-use change. The process of enteric fermentation, where cows digest grasses and plants, produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The FAO report found that current meat production levels contribute between 14 and 22% of the 36 billion tons of “CO2-equivalent” greenhouse gases the world. To keep temperature rise to 1.5°C and avoid climatological catastrophes, the world must cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in half by 2030.
In the United States, beef production is responsible for about 4 of the nation’s planet-warming pollution, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Emissions from beef production systems come primarily from enteric methane (“cow burps”), manure management, feed production (whether pasture- or crop-based), and land clearing. Meat and dairy accounts for around 14.5 of global greenhouse gas emissions, with cattle being the No. 1 agricultural source of greenhouse gases worldwide.
Beef production releases prodigious amounts of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, with 58 emissions from enteric emissions, 23 from feed production, and 7 related to manure management. In 2019, CH4 emissions due to enteric fermentation of beef cattle represented 14.9 of total GHG emissions from agriculture, whereas direct N emissions are less significant. Improving efficiency in land use can help reduce emissions from beef production and mitigate the impact of human activities on the environment.
📹 Why beef is the worst food for the climate
Avoiding high-emission foods can have a bigger climate impact than any other consumption change. Become a Video Lab …
Why is eating beef bad for the environment?
The Center for Biological Diversity is focusing on reducing meat consumption due to its significant environmental impact, including water and land use, pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. The meat industry, particularly in the United States, poses a significant threat to endangered species and habitats. By consuming less meat, individuals can contribute to a healthier future for wildlife, the planet, and people. Vegetarian diets high in soy and processed foods also have negative environmental impacts, such as deforestation, soil erosion, and pesticide runoff.
Meat production also has higher environmental costs than plant protein, and the majority of soybean crops are grown for animal feed, not direct human consumption. By reducing meat consumption, individuals can contribute to a healthier future for wildlife, the planet, and people.
Why does beef emit greenhouse gases?
Cows and other ruminant animals, such as goats and sheep, emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas, as they digest grasses and plants. This process, known as “enteric fermentation”, is the origin of cows’ burps. Methane is also emitted from manure and nitrous oxide from ruminant wastes on pastures and chemical fertilizers used on crops for cattle feed. Rising beef production requires increasing quantities of land, which is often created by cutting down trees, releasing carbon dioxide stored in forests. In 2017, the U. N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that total annual emissions from beef production were about 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2010.
Should we stop eating meat to save the planet?
The meat industry contributes significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions and environmental pollution. People who consume a lot of meat can help combat the climate crisis by reducing or quitting meat consumption. Switching to plant-based foods could reduce one-quarter of annual average greenhouse gas emissions for Europeans and North Americans. However, transport and aviation are bigger sources of greenhouse gases, with driving 10, 000 kilometers a year causing over 2 tons in CO2 equivalents. This figure doubles when traveling from Europe to Asia or South America.
How do you release gas from a cow?
In severe cases of feedlot bloat, a stomach tube can provide relief. If the tube doesn’t, a defoaming agent can break down the foam, releasing large amounts of gas. Antifoaming agents can be added through the tube or through a trocar and bloat needle. Never drench a bloated animal, as fluid can cause death or pneumonia. Antifoaming agents include emulsified oil or an approved detergent like dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate. Large bloat needles may be adequate for relieving feedlot bloat, which are 6 to 7 inches long and come with a wire stylet for unplugging.
If the needle doesn’t relieve the problem, a trocar fitted with a cannula can be used. The sharp end of the trocar pushes through the muscle and rumen wall, and gas should flow from the remaining cannula.
What is the CO2 emissions of a cow?
Many groups claim that livestock agriculture contributes to at least 16. 5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, but this ignores the uncertainty and wide range of estimates. Studies have used old GWP-100 values, which can significantly inflate estimates. The latest IPCC report proposes using lower values, resulting in estimates that livestock account for 14. 0 to 17. 3 percent of global emissions. The FAO’s most recent estimate, released in 2022, uses these lower values and concludes that livestock production generated 6.
2 billion metric tons CO2e in 2015, or 11. 1 percent of total global emissions. However, this analysis has several limitations and uncertainties, including the possibility of under- or overestimate depending on whether grassland managed for livestock production is a net source of emissions or a net sink. FAO estimates that livestock production resulted in about one-third as much deforestation and land-use change as Xu et al. had found, albeit for different time periods.
Additionally, several studies suggest that FAO and other conventional estimates of methane emissions from intensive animal operations are underestimated, matching poorly with atmospheric observations of methane. In summary, livestock production appears to contribute about 11-17 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, when using the most recent GWP-100 values, but there remains great uncertainty in the underlying data.
Do cows release methane when they burp?
Cow belching, a process involving enteric fermentation, is a significant contributor to methane emissions. This process breaks down sugars into simpler molecules for absorption into the bloodstream, producing methane as a by-product. A small percentage of methane is also produced in the cow’s large intestine and released. Additionally, significant amounts of methane are generated in settling ponds and lagoons used for cow manure processing.
How can we reduce emissions from beef production?
Mitigation opportunities are also unequally distributed across the United States. We find that the Northern Great Plains and southeastern regions of the United States are hotspots for potential emission reductions (Figs. 5 and 6 ) because of the carbon sequestration capacity of specific practices within these areas. In the southeastern United States, the addition of trees to pasturelands (that is, silvopasture) is an important opportunity for storing more carbon in grazing systems, while in the Northern Great Plains, repairing degraded wetland areas can be a critical intervention. Hotspots for mitigating emissions in feed production coincide with the primary regions where concentrate feed is sourced, namely, the central part of the United States. Increasing the adoption of cover crops and nutrient management practices that reduce fertilizer needs, as well as increasing farm energy use efficiency, especially in pumping for irrigation, can reduce both direct and indirect emissions from feed production. Reducing annual land use change for feed production, that is, the conversion of lands to cropland for the production of feed ingredients, was also highlighted through our analysis and may be particularly relevant in regions experiencing declines in crop or pasture productivity due to soil degradation. Spatial distribution of mitigation opportunities within the confinement stage is limited by the location of feedlots and exhibits less variation between regions than other stages of the beef supply chain. This pattern is driven by two primary factors: manure management systems in beef feedlots are highly similar across locations and we assume a uniform scalar for the reduction potential of feed additives on enteric fermentation (see Supplementary Information section 3. 3. 1 ).
A, 4Rs plus leguminous cover crops in corn production. b, Silvopasture on grazing lands.
The results presented here show that the potential for mitigating emissions is meaningful but varies substantially across crop production and grazing regions owing to the differences in existing production practices, climate and soil conditions. The added detail made possible by this spatially explicit LCA modelling approach shows its importance for identifying key leverage points across regions and supply chain stages. While local ecological, operation and site conditions are critical to inform what practices are most appropriate for a given context, this information provides supply chain actors a critical starting place to be able to identify where and how to deploy resources for mitigation more effectively to advance climate action and more rapidly achieve targets and commitments. Our analysis provides an upper-end estimate of reduction potential assuming broadscale adoption of mitigation practices while incorporating some key conservation-related considerations, for example, limiting silvopasture to areas with historic forests and excluding this practice in native grasslands. There are certainly limits in the feasibility of adoption owing to economic and/or socio-cultural constraints across the country 27, 28; however, showing this full potential highlights what could be possible if those constraints were reduced. Furthermore, there are potential additional benefits 29 or tradeoffs with other environmental, social and economic outcomes 13 that would be critical to consider in any given context in addition to climate change mitigation benefits. As such, decision-makers should leverage evidence- and context-based approaches to facilitate adoption 30 of opportunities across all sectors, especially as some opportunities in some sectors are likely to be more easily implemented than others 29, and may also have co-benefits for reducing emissions in other sectors (for example, reducing the emission intensity of feed concentrates fed to other livestock sectors), which remains an area for future research.
How do cows emit methane?
Livestock can contribute to climate solutions by upcycling nutrients and converting plants on marginal lands into high-quality protein. As grass and vegetation ferment in rumen, it produces methane and other greenhouse gases. Cattle, which primarily expel methane through belching, can also reduce greenhouse gas emissions by acting as upcyclers of foods we cannot consume. In California, two-thirds of agricultural land is marginal, making it difficult to grow human edible crops. However, cattle can graze and grow cattle on this land, upcycling nutrients humans cannot utilize and converting plants into high-quality protein.
How does eating meat cause greenhouse gases?
Meat production, which involves cutting down trees, releases carbon dioxide stored in forests. Cows and sheep digest grass and plants, releasing methane. Cattle waste and chemical fertilizers used for cattle feed emit nitrous oxide, another greenhouse gas. Shrimp farms occupy coastal lands formerly covered in mangrove forests, absorbing large amounts of carbon. The large carbon footprint of shrimp or prawns is mainly due to the stored carbon released into the atmosphere.
Plant-based foods, such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, peas, nuts, and lentils, use less energy, land, and water and have lower greenhouse gas intensities than animal-based foods. Emissions can be compared based on weight or nutritional units, showing how efficiently different foods supply protein or energy.
Does beef have a high carbon footprint?
Beef and lamb have significantly higher greenhouse gas emissions than chicken, pork, or plant-based alternatives. To reduce the climate impact of your diet, it is recommended to eat less meat, especially red meat and dairy. Methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas with a shorter lifetime than carbon dioxide, contribute significantly to warming. Methane emissions have driven 23 to 40 of the total global warming, making it a significant factor in the carbon footprint of red meat and dairy.
The most effective way to reduce the climate impact of your diet is to eat less meat overall, especially red meat and dairy. This data suggests that reducing meat consumption is the most effective way to reduce the climate impact of your diet.
Why is beef hard on the planet?
Beef has a significant global warming impact, with demand driving deforestation and releasing greenhouse gas emissions. Research suggests that reducing beef consumption could significantly reduce climate pollution. Research shows that substituting poultry for beef in meals can reduce a person’s daily dietary carbon footprint by about half. However, challenges to shifting diets towards less beef include misinformation about soy and protein, societal pressures, and messaging for men to eat beef.
Jan Dutkiewicz, a professor of political science at the Pratt Institute, emphasizes the importance of messaging to men about beef, as many are programmed to resist meat reduction messages. Addressing these issues requires a multifaceted approach, including addressing gender biases and promoting healthier eating habits.
📹 What is methane? And what part does livestock farming play?
Methane (CH4) accounts for about 20% of the greenhouse effect and is 34 times stronger than carbon dioxide (CO2). However …
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How many of you are familiar with these concepts? Marginal Land vs. Arable Land Many people ask why not use the land to grow food for humans?” Because you can’t. -Around 30% of land on the earth is agricultural land (useable for the purpose of making food, the rest is junk). -Take 66% of that 30% of land. That is “marginal land.” – Marginal land is not suitable for growing crops due to soil quality or not enough water etc. So what can you do with it? -You can have cows graze on the cellulose on this land (again, this land is not suitable for growing edible crops), and turn that cellulose into protein and various nutrients humans need. Ruminant Upcycling -33% of that agricultural land mentioned above can be used for crops. (Nice.) This is called “arable land.” -Though, for every 100lbs of human food produced from crops on this land, roughly 37 lbs of inedible plant byproduct is produced. -Cows can eat this inedible plant matter and turn it into protein. -Worthless cellulose + Cow = Human Food Biogenic Carbon Cycle in a nutshell: -Methane has stronger warming potential than CO2 so cow burp is bad, right? Well… -Plants capture carbon from the atmosphere via photosynthesis -Cows eat the plant, take the carbon. -Cows burp out the carbon in the form of methane (remember methane is CH4 – Carbon, 4 Hydrogens) -12 yeas later, Methane is broken down back into carbon dioxide via hydroxyl oxidation. *These carbon molecules are the same molecules that were in the plant the Cow ate. It’s a natural cycle.
You could do sequel to episode about crops that require the most water. We have many places in the world that have had or are facing zero days. In Australia, we have a ‘”water buyback” scheme for the Murray-Darling Basin (Australia’s food bowl. Which stretches from Queensland through NSW all the way to Victoria). It was meant to be a way of balancing the use of water by limiting the volume of water that farmers could extract from the river. The government ‘buys back’ water entitlements from growers, thereby reducing the amount of water taken from the river. Now you don’t need to be a farmer to own water entitlements, in fact the Chinese and the US are the biggest investors in our water entitlements. The government was caught paying $80 million of tax payers money to company that is registered to the Cayman Islands. Last year during our summer (which is very dry) water stopped flowing in the rivers causing large blue-green algae blooms which starved oxygen to all the fish. Millions of fish were killed and seen floating in the river. While there was a drought and lot of finger pointing on to blame, what we need to remember is that the basin can only support so much. Why are we growing things like cotton, chestnuts and rice? Things that require so much water. We should be growing things that suit our climate. This is why a follow up article to this one but about water usage I think is important for people to know.
You dont have to completely quit beef. If everyone reduces their intake a little, it will make a big difference. People forget that we need more people making little changes rather than fewer people switching up their whole lifestyle. If you want to help, don’t let “quitting” certain things be the reason against helping. Just reduce your intake
As a student studying Geology and Climate Science in school, it makes me really sad how much people deny global warming. It’s not hard to understand. Earth is a greenhouse naturally thanks to CO2, O2, CH4, N2O, and others. Without them Earth won’t be habitable, but add too much, you offset the climate. Everything is balanced. But humans are dramatically offsetting that balance and sending Earths into rapid warming 20x faster than the rate it took us heading into the PETM 56 million years ago. When our planet was 3° to 4° cooler 20,000 years ago, North America was covered in an ice sheet several hundred feet thick, the modern Holoence gave rise to modern humanity, 4° or 5°C hotter than today in just a century. Human civilization will struggle. And it sickens me when people say “it’s a scam a hoax” when scientists are trying to address an issue, science is important, it saves lives, being in denial, you cause problems. I really wish sometimes people in politics were actual scientists so we can fix these problems. Climate change is real and the solution is easier than the problem but either people are ignorant or just don’t care and don’t act. I’m not saying we have 12 years to live, and humanity (maybe) could adapt to it, but why risk it and make our future generations suffer? While Global Warming and Cooling events in Earths history have never completely wiped out life on Earth. They have been responsible for mass extinction events nearly every time. It’s ridiculous, science denial is dangerous.
I’m kind of in the middle on climate, I recycle a lot, think about energy use and stuff like that but I love meat too much to give it up. But this article really gives good advice on why to reduce or stop beef eating, and I will now strive to avoid beef wherever I can. It probably won’t be every time but I’ll do chicken burgers and pork in the chili and stuff like that, and of course look at good meatless dishes.
Yes. Cattle belch. But they are a part of a natural cycle whereby the net effect is neutral so long as you maintain soil health. Trees do store carbon, but so does soil. Not all land can be used for crops, nor should it be. Neither is the problematic use of chemical fertilizer inputs to massive industrial monocrop farming taken into account here. On top of that, meat from cattle actually upcycle nutrients that we as humans cannot get ourselves from grass due to the difference in our digestive system. Measuring per calorie is not as important as measuring per the composition of nutrients. We have a problem of over-eating junk, i.e. “empty calories”. Advocating for some grazing to give way for wild nature and more wild life that can be hunted seems a valid proposition. I also don’t think cutting down rain forest seems a good idea, so there are compromises that need to be taken. But humans can’t really survive on plants and fruits. We are omnivores after all.
Great presentation, but I don’t know how accurate of an indication this would be. Since it is per kg and not for example per calorie or per realistic serving. For example no one that I know off consumes an entire kilo of coffee. Also if we would compare the amount of CO2 Used per calorie it would be expected that chocolate, that is currently al the way to the right to move a lot closer to fruits. Since chocolate may contain 10x more calories per kilogram than fruit. It would also have been interested to see some processed foods.
Brazilian Beef = Bad. (Because of huge land use change and intensive farming practices) In the UK cattle are mostly farmed on marginal land which is unsuitable for crop farming. By feeding cows by grazing in pastures, with winter feed made from human crop food by-products, UK beef farming can actually capture CO2 by building soil volume. As for direct animal gas emissions, there are hundreds of millions of ruminants and other gas producing animals in the world and there have always been that many, even in prehistoric times. Buy well farmed, local beef and you also eliminate the distribution emissions! So … UK Beef = Good.
If you care about climate change, sell or park your car(s). We’ve seen in just a few short weeks of the Co-vid crisis how immediate of a reduction of greenhouse gasses/smog/pollution can be had when people drive less. I’m pretty sure that if I do that – get rid of my car, and walk, bike or take the bus/train even if I eat 1 hamburger a month the world will be better off than if I keep driving.
It’s amazing they can convince people it’s beef and cows that are the issue, not the resorts, huge malls or private jets. Not the extreme Amazon deliveries of anything that companies profit off of smh. The don’t 🤔 think of any of this when they build a new restaurant that sells beef or late supermarkets.
I’d prefer this chart’s y axis to be in terms of (emissions/weight)*(weight/serving) instead of just emissions/kg. Palm oil, chocolate, and olive oil (a pound of each will last you months if not longer) are being SUPER unfairly characterized against things like pork, milk, and, ironically, beef (a pound of each of these is like a couple meals worth at best). Kind of useless chart for people who consume things roughly in terms of servings and not just “ah, a pound of pork, AND A POUND OF PALM OIL, my favorite!”.
This is going to be very unpopular opinion but my family come from a small town in Ireland where the land cannot sow crops And the conditions of wet weather prevents any plants apart from grass growing. This means that one of the only sources of income and use for the land is cow farming. Obviously statistics in Ireland are very much different from statistics in America but I just wanted to tell people That not all cows are treated badly and many grow on land and white spaces which cannot be used for many other industries.
I hope lab grown beef becomes a thing, and that seaweed as cattle feed proves to be useful in reducing their methane output, hopefully. Also, it should be noted that methane a short half life of just seven years, but then it punches you in the gut when it breaks down when the carbon combines with atmospheric oxygen to create more CO2.
Excuse my view if it sounds selfish, but asking the large of the population to not eat a certain food is not a very effective way to cause changes quickly. Yes, veganism, conscientious eating, and the like are all significant movements that do have some effect, but you wont have changes to farming practices for years after that public change. You need forced regulated instructions to change farming practices if you want a relatively immediate solution. Hopefully whichever team is in office (US domestic) regardless of political view decides that this is something that is high on the list and easy to develop new farming regulations.
I think the graph would be more honest if it were normalized to emissions per 1000 calories or per % of daily nutrients. Farming 1kg of lettuce produces fewer emissions that 1kg of chicken, but the chicken will feed way more people. I say this as a vegetarian of 25+ years. It will definitely be a huge benefit to the world if everyone ate lower on the food chain more often, but this overstates the case a bit. We will need way more total tonnage of food to feed folks /w vegetables compared to animal protein.
Let’s not forgot about the other factors that contribute to environmental degradation, not just green house gasses. When we look at things like rainforest deforestation, biodiversity loss, ocean dead-zones, species extinction, etc., animal products contributes the most to all of these variables. Looking at just green house gas emissions is a little bit myopic if we care about our planet as a whole, as it is just one aspect of the degradation of our environment.
Where was the comparison of nutritional value of the foods? Where was the acknowledgement of mono-cropping produce killing the soil and leading to 50 harvests remaining situation? Where was the graphs showing the massive disparities in food waste, it’s even more significant contribution to GHG, and how meat is the least wasted food? Where was the explanation that methane is a small fraction of total GHG and that it lives in a cycle and effectively dies after 10 years whereas CO2 lives for hundreds? Where was the explanation of how grass fed free range ruminants are GHG sinks and revitalize once dead crop land? Where was the statistic showing that 2/3rd of the earth is unsuitable for crop production but is suitable for livestock? Where was the statistic that the entire US going vegan would have a 3% reduction in GHG produced while fossil fuels create 75% of emissions. Why was the focus on clearing forests for ruminants use not focusing on the governments of those countries allowing it? Where was the explanation that cow fertilizer is a naturally perfect product for growth of natural grassland? This article is intentionally deceptive and damning of one of the single most healthy human food sources there is, and one of the only types of animals that can reduce global warming by simply being alive and doing their thing. Anyone genuinely curious should follow Frank Mitloehner (@GHGGuru) on Twitter to begin learning about the real consequences and contributions of ruminants on our planet and species.
1. if you eat vegetables, you cannot digest fiber, which ends up with methane or CO2 later in the Waste treatment plant, but that amount of CH4/CO2 emission is already included in the beef in this figure. 2. For rice, the seed, which is what we can eat, only accounts for less than 10 % of the weight of the plant 3. For coffee, did anyone notice the unit? That is per kg product. How long does it take for you to finish 1 kg of coffee? 4. Anyway, I am not saying beef has less CO2 footprint, but this article is like primary school science: vague definition, poor argument, purely opinions without any supports
The real solution (in my opinion) to the beef problem is not to say ‘Don’t eat it’, because although some of us try to reduce our intake or even eliminate it completely, there are other people that are not willing to do it and they have their right to do it, so the wheel keeps turning in favor of big corporations. So in the end, even though it is a good action, it is not addressing the real problem. What we should do is DEMAND A CHANGE in the way beef is raised and produced, so we address the real problem. If you want some information and you care about our soils you can find interesting some of the following topics/examples: regenerative agriculture, the savory institute, Rodale institue or just permaculture. Also great examples are Joel Salatin, Joyce Farms, Charles Massy or Stoney Creek Farm. Maybe you have a farm near where you live and you can take action. Buying beef from this kind of farms is the best way to change practices and habits in this industry. Cows, bison, etc.. can actually be one of the best tools we have (along with biochar) to store carbon in our soils and reverse climate change. But I’m not saying let’s eat a cow a day so we can reduce climate change, I’m saying reduce your intake and we you actually buy beef try to buy it from regenerative farms (local being the ideal). Hope this is useful for someone. Have a great day.
Beef is both unhealthy and bad for the environment. But many of course will put their enjoyment of eating beef before their own health so it´s not surprising that pollution is even less of a motivation to cut consumption. The state is reluctant to take any measures that reduce domestic cattle industries, but they could put a high toll on imported beef products to discourage its consumption, that would at least reduce pollution from transportation and reduction of some cattle production around the world. If we all just cut our consumption of meat and in particular beef just a few kg each year it could have a huge impact. That would be something like eating ONE meal a week without meat. Or put it another way, ONE meal a week where you feed your body lots of vegetables, pulses, legumes etc. I love beef but we really shouldn´t be eating it as a regular source of protein.
I’m sorry, maybe I’m missing something that someone can help me out with: the article says that if you reduce your diet of certain foods it has the potential to reduce greenhouse emissions by, well, reducing emissions but also by reforesting lands… I get the first part, but how are lands being reforested by a passive action? Are ranchers planting trees as their ranches close?
I’m so tired of this subject. I’m so tired of all this data being public knowledge for years now and we still don’t have stricter laws in place governing the meat market. I’m so tired of people still having conversations justifying why they still eat this or that or that now they buy it from a farmer they trust etc. No, you don’t need beef. You just don’t need it. Eating a steak is not a basic human right.
I love how much attention this is getting, I guess the challenge moving forwards is, how do we produce our food if animals that can be farmed 365 days of the year is replaced with food that is more seasonal without having to rely on a large number of imports. I would love to see innovations in indoor farming but I have never seen anything more than leaves and herbs be grown at a large scale indoors.
One thing that is almost never talked about is the disparity between regional environmental impacts vs global impacts. Globally, beef can be quite impactful, but in developed countries, beef is mostly only raised on marginal land where grain and vegetables can’t grow. Beef in these areas tend to have a positive carbon benefit.
Of course the fact that the government pushes industry and permits this to happen plus the fact that factory processed meats are bad for health. Regenerative farming is the only way to go instead of growing animals in a factory. Give me a break another brain washed planet saver. Please eat pasture raised and finished nutrients dense meat!
All articles that explains about meat product is bad for the environment doesn’t compel you to be vegan or something like that… because being vegan or vegetarian is just a behaviour based on ideology. For example, people went vegan becuse they’ve seen how cruel food industries were on providing livestock to consume. All this articles are a reminder of how ignorant human beings are to their environments. So how can we fix this? By respecting every thing that you eat, don’t waste your food, do a non-meat day, do a vegan challenge, put more veggies in your diet, and ect. By this, a beef demand will decreased, so as the emissions, and many other good things might happens. Remember, the better world didn’t occur until everyone tooks part of it. But it’s always starts from you who read this.
Thanks for your informative articles. Doesn’t carbon per calorie make more sense for comparing food source carbon emissions? 1kg of tomatoes 180 calories, 1kg of bananas 890 calories, 1kg of chicken 2,390, 1 kg of beef 2,500 calories. Also, what about regenerative agriculture and the need to use animal feces in order to avoid using fertilizers to gain topsoil and sequester more carbon? What about raising animals on grasslands not suitable for agriculture? Also, animals can be fed bacteria to change there microbiome in order to severely reduce their methane production. There is no doubt that the way most animals are raised not is terrible but a regenerative agriculture model is better for the environment than a vegan model due to the increased topsoil, reduced fertilizers and increased carbon sequestering in the soil. If people are informed about better choices they will demand it and suppliers will fulfill this demand. For water-use, almonds use a lot but they can only grow in a very specific climate. In the US cattle farmers use the same region. If the cattle farmers converted to almond farming then the cattle could be raised in a region with more water and a different climate. As stated almonds and very good for carbon emissions and they can be distributed with minimal waste due to spoiling and have a long shelf life. Most farmers already use drip irrigation. If farmers in the almond regions of the US changed their water use then the almonds would not take the brunt of the water shortage issues in the only regions they can grow.
I am a researcher myself. VOX shows complete incompetence in this article. There are so many things wrong but let me give you 1 example where they completely f*cked up with even basic math: -Quoting from the same publication they used: “Today’s food supply chain creates ~13.7 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2eq), 26% of anthropogenic GHG emissions.” -Video claims changing eating habits would decrease emissions 28% = 26%- 28% = -2% (minus two). Changing what we eat results in net -2% emissions of human food consumption (!). You are basically saying by changing what we eat, we can ELIMINATE 2% of emissions instead of causing 26%. So, we basically remove CO2 by eating food. You are a joke… Stop generating a false narrative. Industrial production (24%), (Electricity 27% -most of it is industrial use) and Transportation (25% -most of it is industrial use) are the main culprits of greenhouse gas emissions. And the first things we have to do are simple: Regulate industrial greenhouse emissions, replace growth/consumption based economy, incentivize decrease in consumption (durable, long lasting products), eat and produce locally as much as possible. Choose environmental friendly transport options (rail instead of air). Urge people to stop food waste and unnecessary purchase of goods.
Historically in most countries, beef was not often consumed because cows had to be used for plowing and agriculture, alongside milk. I guess the biggest social quota of going from lower-class agrarian background to a higher-class urban background is the luxury to eat as much meat as you want since your livelihood does not depend on it, and so the lower agrarian classes begin to grow more cattle to supply this demand. If meat consumption was reduced to just a few days a week globally, imagine how much of a difference that would make. Or, artificially grown meat could become the future too.
Logging and cattle farms are the biggest reasons. If we switch to Hemp for paper, and poultry or fish for meat, that would greatly help. If we also stopped consuming more than we needed, that would help cut down of harvesting metals, and etc. plus lower transportation of unnecessary products that we don’t really need.
8 of the top 10 are animal products. If you’re not working towards being plant based, you’re not an environmentalist. Watch all the animal exploitation product loving “environmentalist” try to dodge this without taking personal responsibility. They’ll go on talking about how big business needs to change but won’t lift a finger to make meaningful change. Also, A better metric is calories instead of weight.
This is why I do not like activists making documentaries. If you’re talkin grain-fed cows yes carbon emissions to get the food to them cost more. Grass-fed doesn’t have these carbon emissions. In fact the CO2 emissions from vegetables and transportation stay in the atmosphere for thousands of years. Methane stays in the atmosphere for no more than 10 years. This is something they don’t talk about. Methane and carbon are not the same.
it is not as simple as having people just not eating beef. the consumption of beef is deeply ingrained in many cultures, and without it, many hundreds of millions if not billions of people would lose part of their culture. And according to the UN declaration of human rights “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community”, which includes eating your own food. This is what a lot of people miss out when talking about reduction in agricultural emissions. The best way to reduce emissions is to always go to the source, not the consumer. We need to find better ways to farm cattle and not just halt it entirely.
Cows & Bulls = Mature males weigh 450–1,800 kg (1,000–4,000 pounds) and females weigh 360–1,100 kg (800–2,400 pounds) The average Stegosaurus was about 30 feet long, between 9 and 13 feet tall, weighed about 5.5 tons (11,000 pounds). Methane would have also been produced by other herbivorous dinosaurs, most notably members of the Thyreophora (shield bearers), such as Stegosaurus.
Meat ain’t really the problem The problem is doing everything for the most amount of money possible We use landscape and we destroy it making it be useless even for growing food for the animals we eat We need to use it right, we need to change our way of raising animals Exp: sea weed helps a lot when it comes to cow metane, but is more expensive use it than not use it We know that the process of raising grass fed cow produce less metane than grain fed cows, and we do nothing about it cuz it costs more Is like cars, we have electric cars and bike and everything but airplanes, but we still think oil is the better choice went comes to machines what is absolutely wrong We need to do things that really matter on the long run instead of focusing on the “today”
Cows are not the only animals that eat grass you know, and if your theory on methane is correct then I’m pretty certain that all animals that eat grass and vegetation also emit methane But animals have been pooping since the beginning of existence there’s also the fact that animal populations are on the decline so I fail to see how there would be much difference in climate I also fail to see how the dairy industry would be different to the beef industry since they eat the SAME FOOD and process it the SAME WAY I would know my dad has a beef farm and my uncle has a dairy farm I honestly think that this science is junk
Does this woman know that methane breaks down into carbon molecules in 20-30 years? we already eat less meat in the US than we do in the 70s and 80s so eating the same amount of meat will not even contribute to more methane in the atmosphere as the methane from the 70s and 80s starts to break down. Methane is not a problem!
I have a hunch this isn’t solely a beef problem as much as it is a total distribution problem. We can’t be running around with our heads in the sand thinking that getting people to stop eating beef, or chocolate, or whatever is going to fix our global warming problem. Let’s say we axed the top 4 contributors on this graph, we’d just see 4 new ones spike up in their place by process following demand. Purely cause and effect. Nothing comes without cost.
There’s a problem with your cow diagram. We don’t measure methane produced by cattle eating grass in a pasture (because how would you?) Methane is measured with sensors mounted on a pole at a feedlot. Those cattle are eating the plant matter we deemed unfit for human consumption. Basically they’re our plant-based food scraps. What you did get correct is how inefficient that digestive system is because that cow is not eating what cow stomachs are designed to process (grains, silage, etc.) I wish someone could figure a way to accurately compare greenhouse emissions produced by a steer born raised and slaughtered in the pasture at a local Ranch to the greenhouse emissions produced by the steer that was used to make the discount steak at the Big chain grocery store.
What people are getting wrong, is that tackling climate change is about reducing carbon footprint, not eradicating it. Before coal was used as a fuel, humans still emitted carbon dioxide and methane, but in low levels and were part of the carbon cycle. Before, people still ate cows in large quantities and had dairy yet climate change wasn’t a thing back then. The solution to this problem is to reduce the amount of beef the average person eats rather than removing it all together. Someone switching from a heavy-beef diet to a moderate-beef diet is so much more effective than from going from vegetarian to vegan diet. We don’t need to get rid of cows, we juts need to reduce the amount of them. We don’t need to get rid of diary all together to tackle it, dairy has been part of the human diet fo so long yet climate change is only a thing now.
I love meat I used to eat meat about every day but I have cut my consumption and now only eat meat once or twice a week. Now imagine everyone would do this we would be able to start making a difference right away. Together we are strong but we must work together or we are weak. The meat industry is responsible for a large share of global greenhouse gas emissions. It contributes not only to global warming but also causes direct environmental pollution. People who eat a lot of meat can help fight the climate crisis by reducing or quitting meat consumption altogether.
Where I come from, there are thousands of acres of land that has nothing but steep hills and Rock patches. These areas are obviously used for livestock because it’s basically impossible to grow crops here. YOU CANT JUST CONVERT LAND FOR ANIMAL USE TO CROP USE! Please eat US grown beef. We don’t cut down rainforests here and we need to make a living somehow.
When you propose consumer based changes over institutional or production based, what happens is that the conversation around the workers who produce let’s say chocolate get left out completely. People can feel good about their consumer choices but the ebbs and flows of product preferences have real effects on the life’s of workers/farmers. These kinds of articles, like those pushing policy changes, should address its negative impact and propose comprehensive solutions
Mostly people who eat beef are those who cannot afford other forms of meat. Beef is relatively cheaper. Instead of blaming the middle class and poor for eating beef. Tell the upper middle class and rich people to give up luxuries which causes a lot of green house emissions. Banning cars would be a start.
This chart is shown as per 100,000 units, which is what they’re trying to demonstrate so it’s appropriate. But with the world producing ~700 million tons of rice each year (roughly 10 times the amount of beef), I feel like the actual total amount from each crop should be considered a factor here as well.