Meat and Climate Change

Many people don’t think about the impact their food choices have on climate change, and if they do it’s generally a moment’s reflection on the carbon footprint generated by shipping dinner to the table. Food’s journey is important, but not the whole picture when it comes to environmental impact. The process of food production can be a major carbon problem, especially for the meat industry.

We all know eating meat clogs and pollutes our bodies; unfortunately it has the same effect on the planet. Good agricultural land is a finite resource. Nutrient rich, fertile soil is vital to sustained farming and plant-based food production. The better the farming conditions, the better the yield. Today farm land is under siege not only by expanding urban development, but by meat production. An estimated 70% of agricultural land is occupied by livestock. That’s 30% of the planet’s surface.

As the meat industry grows, the need for farm land and feed lots increase. This necessitates deforestation, a climate change disaster. Trees act as air purifiers, absorbing CO2 and releasing oxygen back into the atmosphere. They are our number one natural defense against global warming. Some regions don’t take this into consideration. The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that 70% of forest cover in Latin America has been converted for grazing. Not to finger wag at Latin America, but it is a startling example of the impact the meat industry has on the natural landscape.

Deforestation isn’t the only way livestock significantly add to the world’s carbon emissions. Livestock manure, flatulence and belching produce a considerable amount of greenhouse gasses (such as methane and nitrous oxide). Methane has 23 times the warming impact of C02, while nitrous oxide has approximately 298 times the impact. Some experts estimate each cow produces between 100-200 liters of methane a day, while others suggest 500 liters is more accurate. When you consider the world has 1.5 billion grazing cows and billions of other grazing animals, it’s easy to see how quickly all that gas adds up. In fact, the FAO has found livestock farming to be a greater detriment to the environment (at 18% of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions) than transportation (cars, plains, trains, and boats coming in at a combined 13%).

In order to produce all that noxious gas, livestock need to be fed. At present, the majority of the world’s grain is used as animal feed. The raising price of grain for human consumption is due to the strain on production caused by meat industry demands. Cornell University ecologist David Pimentel suggests that the United States could feed 800 million people with the grain fed to livestock over a year. Much of, if not all of the world’s hunger issues could be solved by reallocating these grain resources to people instead of livestock.

Meat production is a highly inefficient, wasteful process. It takes approximately 5-7 kilograms of grain and 100,000 liters of water to produce 1 kilogram of beef. All that grain needs to be watered, processed and transported. It also takes a significant amount of fossil fuel to keep this system running. On average, grain production alone uses 3.3 kcal of fossil fuel for every kcal of protein energy produced. The resources put into the production of meat are far greater than the return on that investment. Not only do we end up with a food product that is nutritionally harmful (generally speaking), we also diminish our ability to produce healthier food in greater quantities.

Meat production is a losing process, but one that seems certain to continue well into the future. As developing countries grow their economies, demand for meat in these societies (once a luxury) will increase. Demand will fuel supply, and the process of supply will continue to alter the landscape, increase carbon emissions and waste valuable resources.