Meat eating and climate change

The desire of human beings to eat meat is having a devastating impact on the planet we live on. This is not only because of the destructive pattern of land use that results but also because of the behaviour of the vast numbers of animals that are reared for food.

Grassland depletion

An amazing statistic is that 26% of all the world’s farmland is used for grazing livestock and another 33% is used for growing food to be fed to livestock. Some of this land has been created by destroying ecosystems such as natural woodland, and some of it was originally grassland used by native species that are no longer welcome.

The effects of man’s hunger for meat are seen in places like Brazil, where half of the natural grassland, interspersed with wooded areas, has either been turned into land that is suitable for cattle raising (i.e. minus the woods and forests) or ploughed up for the growing of soybeans for animal feed.

Much of the heartland of the United States was once prairie grassland that extended over vast areas and supported millions of bison, which were in turn hunted in a sustainable way by Native Americans. However, farming and the raising of cattle has reduced the original prairie to less than 5% of its original extent.

Farmed and natural animals compete with each other in a number of ways, with the latter always losing out.  One particular constraint on natural species is the interruption to their migration routes caused by large-scale animal husbandry.

Livestock and climate change

Livestock, especially when raised in large numbers, have a direct impact on the process of climate change. This is especially true of cattle which, due to their digestive system, emit large of amounts of methane – mainly in the form of burps rather than from the rear end.

An average cow releases between 70 and 120 kg of methane per year. Like carbon dioxide, methane is a greenhouse gas, but it is much more harmful. Every 100 kg of methane released into the atmosphere has the equivalent effect of 2,300 kg of carbon dioxide. This is in turn the equivalent of what would be produced by burning 1000 litres of petrol. To put it another way, a cow grazing in a field for a year does as much damage to the atmosphere as a car being driven for 7,800 miles.

Given that there are 1.5 billion cows and bulls in the world that are raised for beef and dairy produce, the equivalent of two billion metric tons of carbon dioxide are contributing to global warming every year, on top of which must be added 2.8 billion metric tons that result from the clearing of natural forests and woodland to create more grazing land.

Agriculture is responsible for 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions, which is more than is produced by all modes of transport worldwide. Although other farmed animals produce carbon dioxide and methane, cattle are by far the worst culprits.

What can be done about it?

At the heart of this crisis is the growing appetite of humans for beef and dairy products. The demand for beef has grown enormously thanks to companies such as MacDonalds that have been particularly successful in marketing a product cheaply and in bulk. They have created worldwide demand and persuaded many millions of people to change their eating habits to include much more meat in their diet.

The net result has been disastrous both for the environment and for human health, with many more cases of cancer and heart disease resulting from the consumption of excess animal protein.

Government action is therefore needed to rein in the beef industry (by making their products more expensive and cutting all subsidies) and encourage farmers to switch from raising cattle to growing plant-based food for direct human consumption.

However, because demand drives supply, it is essential that we all reduce our demand for products that are doing Planet Earth far more harm than most people realise.

© John Welford