Annotated Bibliography
Cowspiracy. Directed by Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn, Netflix, 2014. The documentary, Cowspiracy, questions why the majority of foremost environmental organizations are disregarding a prime cause of environmental harm. In an hour and 31 minutes, co-producers Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn assert that society’s institutional and individual attention to certain environmental issues will not make a difference unless people also come face to face with the truth of animal agriculture. Animal agriculture’s environmental effects are so convincing that visible progress elsewhere cannot oppose its catastrophic and developing influence.
Wolfson, Marisa Miller. “An Inconvenient Food: The Connection between Meat and Global
…show more content…
Methane is 23 times stronger than CO2 in its warming effects and nitrous oxide is 296 times. Animal agriculture plays the leading role in methane emissions, according to the United Nations report. It is responsible for 35-40% of all methane generated by human activity. Animal agriculture manufactures more than 100,000,000 tons of methane a year, and the figure is rising. As global demand for meat increases, so does the supply.
Young, Barbara. “Global Warming: An Issue Facing the Industry.” National Provisioner, vol. 222, no. 10, 2008, pp. 8. MasterFILE Premier, http://ez2.maricopa.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=34706229&site=ehost-live. Accessed 24 September 2016. The author, Barbara Young in “Global Warming: An Issue Facing the Industry” reflects on the impact of the meat industry on the worsening of global warming. She notes the 2006 United Nation Food and Agriculture Organization's report which concluded that worldwide livestock farming contributes 18 percent of the planet's greenhouse gas emission due to deforestation and the nitrous oxide from animal manure. She likewise relates the CLEARPulse survey conducted by Clear Seas Research in 2008 which signifies that meat industry can ignore environmental
Millions of animals are consumed everyday; humans are creating a mass animal holocaust, but is this animal holocaust changing the climate? In the essay “ The Carnivores Dilemma,” written by Nicolette Hahn Niman, a lawyer and livestock rancher, asserts that food production, most importantly beef production, is a global contributor to climate change. Nicolette Niman has reports by United Nations and the University of Chicago and the reports “condemn meat-eating,” and the reports also say that beef production is closely related to global warming. Niman highlights, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxides are the leading greenhouses gases involved in increasing global warming. A vast majority of people across the world consumes meat and very little people are vegetarian, or the people that don’t eat meat, but are there connections between people and meat production industry when it comes to eating food and the effect it has on the climate? The greenhouse gases, methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxides are not only to blame, but we should be looking at people and industrialized farming for the leading cause of greenhouse gases in agriculture and the arm-twisting dilemma we have been lured into, which is meat production itself.
Humans are damaging the planet to live comfortably, we must change the way food is distributed worldwide, support local farmers and switch to a healthier diet in order to stop global warming. The current global has been getting better for us humans over the years, from eating bread and eggs 3 times a day in the XV century, now we can eat better than the kings of those times, however the much of the food in not healthy and the global food system still fails in getting food to every individual in the planet and in addition it contributes to the destruction of our world. Ms. Anna Lappe explains how the food system contributes to around 1/3 of the global warming issue in her essay “The Climate Crisis at the End of Our Fork”, while a group of Plos one explains the issues about the export and import of food growth over the last 50 years in the
On the topic of environmental impacts due to “industrial farming”, Bill McKibben and Blake Hurst share completely different perspectives. McKibben believes that industrial farming has simply left an unexcusable bad impact on the environment, saying that it is unethical and that the meat we eat is potentially killing our environment and us as well. McKibben states that “we should simply stop eating factory-farmed meat, and the effects on climate change would be one of the many benefits.” (page 201). McKibben addresses that the techno fixes brought in industrial farming are simply not enough to help our environment.
One of the biggest problems facing the world today is global warming. The main reason behind it is the production of carbon dioxide from our cars, factories, power plants and other greenhouse gases, which is having a heating effect on the atmosphere, and this affects our ocean weather and agriculture, thereby dangerous to human life. “In Climate Crisis at the End of Our Fork “Anna Lappe gives her views on how global warming can lead to many problems, what are its probable causes and potential solutions to it. Whereas in “Research and Development on Climate Change and Greenhouse Gases in Support of Climate Smart Livestock Production and a Vibrant Industry” Scholtz discusses the impact of global warming and continued, uncontrolled release of greenhouse gases on the livestock industry and consequently food security as well as
In his 2009 article “The Omnivore’s Delusion”, Blake Hurst takes a stand against the numerous non-farmers who are attempting, and in some cases succeeding, to degrade and ‘clean’ the farming industry. Hurst’s main points of contention are the lack of true knowledge these intellectuals have on the inner workings of today’s farms and their insistent belief that the farmers themselves “…are too stupid to farm sustainably, too cruel to treat their animals well, and too careless to worry about their communities, their health, and their families” (24).
Every year, humans kill over 56 billion farm animals, with 3,000 animals dying every second in the slaughterhouse around the world. In the United States, there are about 12.7 million people being diagnosed with cancer; eating red meats might be linked. Not only is the growth of the meat industry hurting the health of Americans, but also negatively affects the climate. As a society, we should be more educated about the food we eat and how it affects our bodies.
I hear about climate change almost every day. I hear it in the classroom, on the television, and from friends. When discussing climate change it is easy to dwell on the negatives, but eventually you must move on to possible solutions. Everyone can do their part to mitigate their carbon footprint like riding their bike instead of driving their car, using a reusable water bottle rather than buying plastic water bottles, or turning the heat off in their house. One way that we can lower our carbon output that is not very well known is changing our eating habits. Red meat such as lamb and cattle are some of the biggest producers of carbon in the food industry. This is the reason that I have choose to give up red meat for the
“An introduction to climate change.” Natural Resource Defense Council. Natural Resources Defense Council 8 November 2015 n. pag. Web. 28 November 2015.
There are also environmental and economic reasons for becoming vegetarian. Some people are not aware of these reasons, but a lot of environmental destruction is linked to meat production, especially cattle farming. Huge areas of f...
More specifically it is important for us to understand the effects of cow’s belching on the environment because they are producing as much carbon dioxide as cars. At about twentysix to fifthythree gallons of methane, it has proven to be a serious problem. This excess methane acts as a sheet over our atmosphere that further warms the earth. As the world population continues to increase, so will the need for cow meat and milk. The increase in cows to meet the needs of the growing population will surely prove detrimental to the environment.
A beef cow produces about 220 kilograms of methane per year through the process of enteric fermentation. One kilogram of methane is equal to 23 kilograms of carbon dioxide. Hence, a single beef cow produces a little bit more than 5,000 carbon dioxide equivalent kilograms of methane per year. As the demand for beef increases, people need to raise more cattle and more cattle means more greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions are a large contributor to climate change.
This is a much bigger deal than people think. In fact, according to an article by Peta, How Does Eating Meat Harm the Environment, it has such an effect on the environment that the Union of Concerned Scientist list meat eaters as the second biggest environmental hazard facing the earth. The number one affect being fossil fuels produced by cars. It was also found in a report published by the Worldwatch Institute that nearly 51 percent of all greenhouse gasses are produced from animal agriculture. This is a very staggering number when a lot of research is being done to make vehicles more environmentally friendly when we could make a huge impact just by changing the way we eat. It is even more astounding that it takes the same number of fossil fuels to produce one hamburger as it takes to dive one car 20 miles (Peta How Does Eating Meat Harm the Environment). The production of this meat is also a big cost. It takes more than 80 percent of the corn we grow and more than 95 percent of oat are feed to livestock. The world’s cattle alone are feed the equal amount that would be needed to feed 8.7 billion people. That’s more than the entire world population. If we cut back on our consumption of meat we could take corn and oats that we produce and feed the world. When producing meat many of our natural resources are used. We use water, fossil fuels and top soil, and we are
A United Nations report states that land used for animal agriculture, both for grazing and production of crops fed to livestock, takes up an astounding 30% of land on Earth. ("Meat Production Wastes Natural Resources") To meet the industry’s demands, over 260 million acres of forest in the U.S. have been cleared to grow grain fed to farm animals. ("Meat Production Wastes Natural Resources") With that in mind, the meat industry also dumps disease-causing pathogens through animal waste that pollutes water and forces the need for waste lagoons to be constructed, which are susceptible to leaking and flooding. ("Facts about Pollution from Livestock Farms”) Scientists say that about 14% of the world’s greenhouse gases are released by said agriculture industries, which is a growing concern for climate change and global warming. (Silverman) The meat industry uses one-third of all the fossil fuels consumed in the United States. (Moore) There is no question that farming animals has a negative effect on the environment and steps should be taken to mitigate air and water pollution risks and future deforestation. If animal agriculture was phased out, land used for animal grazing could be returned to forest land and some of it converted into fields for cultivating crops for humans. A global shift toward veganism, resulting in the elimination of the meat and animal agriculture industries, would protect the environment from various detrimental effects.
When these agricultural resources are given to the animals involved in meat production, these resources are lost. Besides the loss of land, the process of animal production is contributing to pollution and other greenhouse gases that are doing irreplaceable damage to the environment and contribute to untold negative health
Bibliography Fiala, Nathan. "How Meat Contributes to Global Warming." The American Scientific Magazine. Journal Article, 4 Feb. 2009.