Save the planet by cutting down on meat?

1458 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Environmental effects of agriculture

In his article, Johnson (2008) satirically expresses opposition to the former UN climate chief suggestion that the whole of human race should shun meat and consider converting vegetarianism, so as to, save earth from climate change. In response to this, Johnson argues that, he is simply not converting to vegetarianism just because the former UN climate chief had asked the whole of the human race to avoid meat. UN-FAO figures propose that, meat production puts more Green House Gases (GHG’s herein after) than the general global transport network. As reported by BBC (2008) meat production cycle accounts for 18% of the GHG emissions. In contrast, transport makes up just 13% of the world’s greenhouse gas footprint. Moreover, cows turn out methane gas which is 23 times as damaging as CO2. Furthermore, livestock rearing utilizes 30% of the earth’s surface. In light of this, Johnson suggests that Dr.Pachauri is perhaps correct to be anxious about emissions of methane gas from livestock. Boris affirms that: although Dr.Pachauri’s scrutiny was accurate; his proposition to cut down on meat was ridiculous.
Additionally, Johnson (2008) argues that while shunning cow meat consumption would to a great extent reduce the general methane output; Dr.Pachauri’s recommendation is misguided as it ignores the pertinent issues at the heart of every environmental problem that currently afflicts the world. Some of these issues include: deforestation, destruction of species, the 1.3 billion people whose livelihoods are reliant on agriculture as well as the persistent human population boom. Currently, the world’s population is up to 6.72 billion and is projected to rise to 9 billion by 2050. Cows are not the problem; people eating the cows are the problem. ...

... middle of paper ...

...rtino, Z. Cai, D. Gwary, H. Janzen, P. Kumar, B. McCarl, S. Ogle, F. O’Mara, C. Rice, B. Scholes, O. Sirotenko (2007): Agriculture. In Climate Change 2007: Mitigation. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [B. Metz, O.R. Davidson, P.R. Bosch, R. Dave, L.A. Meyer (eds)]. IPCC. [Online] p.499-532. Available from: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg3/ar4-wg3-chapter8.pdf. [Accessed: 13th March 2014]
Tilman, D., Fargione, J., Wolff, B., D’Antonio, C., Dobson, A., Howarth, R., Schindler, D., Schlesinger, H. W., Simberloff, D., & Swackhamer, D.(2001) Forecasting agriculturally driven global environmental change. Science. Vol. 292 no.5515, pp281-284. Available from: http://eprints.icrisat.ac.in/39/1/Science292_281-284_2001.pdf?origin=publication_detail. [Accessesed: 13th March 2014].

Show More
Related

  • Eating Green Margaret Lundberg Summary

    1226 Words  | 3 Pages

    People can be classified into two categories, meat eaters and non meat eaters. Meat eaters or carnivores are common in society so there has to be a tremendous amount of meat production to meet these needs. But has anyone ever thought about the amount of fuel and energy it takes to make it and how it would ultimately destroy the Earth? Many have and it revealed to them that the cost of being a vegan or vegetarian is far less than continuing their carnivorous ways. Two authors have their opinions to offer, even if they are on the same side of the argument and want to convert people to being a vegan. In “Eating Green” Margaret Lundberg states why becoming a vegan is healthy, not only for the person, but also the environment. John Vidal’s “10 Ways Vegetarianism Can Help Save the Planet”

    Read More

  • The Effects Of Industrial Farming By Bill Mckibben And Blake Hurst

    887 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Benefits Of Meatless Mondays

    1104 Words  | 3 Pages

    This statement is a myth and can be backed up by Meat Mythcrushers. According to the video, Myth: Going Meatless One Day a Week Can Have a Significant Environmental Impact, “reducing meat consumption one day per week as recommended by the Meatless Monday campaign has a negligible impact on greenhouse gas emissions.” This means that of the 3.4 percent of the gas emissions that are from animal agriculture, beef only contribute 1.4 percent. Even if the whole world were to reduce their beef consumption for one week, their carbon footprint would be just a meager .2 percent (2013). This misconception comes from people believing that livestock production is causing large emissions of greenhouse gas emissions when it is more so the transportation and energy production causing the problem. Meat is both economically and nutritionally efficient. Today, livestock farms require less land, water and energy than was required in the past

    Read More

  • Rethinking The Meat-Guzzler Analysis

    652 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the article,Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler, Mark Bittman discusses the devastating effects the meat diet has on the planet. As the population continues to increase, the consumption of meat also increases. According to the article, it states that “Americans are downing close to 200 pounds of meat, poultry and fish per capita per

    Read More

  • Methane Emissions: Livestock Versus Natural Gas

    790 Words  | 2 Pages

    Take a moment and think about what you had for dinner last night; likely you consumed some type of meat - which when that animal was alive was probably a methane producer. CH4, or methane gas is the second most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Methane comes from sources such as livestock, landfills, producing and transporting natural gas, and mining coal. Livestock only produces a fraction of the amount of methane produced every year. Drilling and the transportation of natural gas and use of natural gas and petroleum systems produce far more methane than livestock do. Livestock’s emissions of methane is not where change needs to occur; transportation and natural gas practices are what need

    Read More

  • To what extent is Meat Consumption responsible for Global Warming?

    705 Words  | 2 Pages

    There is much to be said about how exactly meat is being produced. In the present day, there are hardly any farms out there that still practice the traditional and environmental - friendly way. Animal agriculture is widely used all over the world and greatly contributes to climate change. Meat production leads to global warming because of the combination of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. The process of raising animal is the major source to these harmful gases. It is vital to save the world from the worst impacts of climate change by reducing meat consumption. However stopping this meat eating system is extremely difficult, given that we had been consuming meat ever since our ancestors domesticated animals for that purpose. Over the decade Animal agriculture has been getting worse and worse. In 1973 when the Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz announced ‘’ what we want out of agriculture is plenty of food’’, overproduction was encouraged and lowering the price of meat was carried out; this originally started when there was a massive increase in corn (Wolfson). In order to keep up this mass production of meat, multiple pounds of grains are fed to livestock. Livestock industries depended on corn and soy based food and used over half of the artificial fertilizer used in the United States (McWilliams).

    Read More

  • What 's The Difference Between A Dog And A Pig?

    1914 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...press released that “processed meat was classified as carcinogenic to humans, based on sufficient evidence in humans that the consumption of processed meat causes colorectal cancer.” This was no surprise to the vegan community but a shocker to the rest of the world. Making national news, this might just be the beginning of people beginning to start questioning their food choices. Farm animals are beginning to be compared to our pets on terms on intelligence, compassion, and sociability. The health benefits and harmful effects of eating meat are being discovered, as well as the huge negative impact of animal agriculture on global warming. Each day, a person who eats a vegan diet saves 1,100 gallons of water, 45 pounds of grain, 30 square feet of forested land, 20 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent, and one animal’s life while doing no harm to their body (Cowspiracy).

    Read More

  • Beef Vs Environment

    449 Words  | 1 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Environmental Effects Of Eating Meat

    1335 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Saving the Environment with Veganism

    908 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Effects of Climate Change: Agriculture and Livestock

    1063 Words  | 3 Pages

    Climate change is one of the major issues surfacing earth over the past century. The earth’s temperature has increased over the years leading to detrimental effects on the economic and life sources of people, especially that of agricultural production and livestock. The Merriam-Webster online dictionary (2014), defined climate change as a change in global climate patterns apparent from the mid late 20th century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, (2007) predicts that by 2100 the increase in global average surface temperature may be between 1.8° C and 4.0° C. With increases of 1.5° C to 2.5° C, approximately 20 to 30 percent of plant and animal species are expected to be at risk of extinction. Moreover, the IPCC (2007) purported that climate change has severe consequences for food security in developing countries. There are numerous factors that are solely responsible for this change which are both natural and man-made. Climate change has led to a decrease in quality and quantity of plant produce and livestock because of heat stress, drought and an increase in plant and animal diseases.

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On Eating Meat

    1598 Words  | 4 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Agriculture And Climate Change Essay

    1420 Words  | 3 Pages

    Climate change is currently affecting agriculture because it is causing prolonged droughts, violent flooding, sea level to rise, and also health related issues. Droughts and flooding utterly affect agriculture because it damages cultivation since the amount of water applied to crops and farming is fundamental to the...

    Read More

  • Should we all become vegetarians?

    796 Words  | 2 Pages

    As we can now observe, vegetarianism has become something fashionable, and the number of people who reject eating meat is constantly increasing. In Britain, for instance, over 5 million people have done it so far. It is obviously connected with the recent animal diseases, but this tendency is likely to spread on the other regions of the world. However, it is not only a fashion or fear of illnesses. I myself became a vegetarian about 2 years ago, and I can see a number of reasons why people should stop eating meat. They are mainly of ethic, economic and health type. Those who think in an ecological way should also be aware of how this meat consumption ruins our environment. I don’t have an intention to force anybody to become a vegetarian, but I hope that my argumentation would be strong enough to make some people think about it, at least. In this essay I will try to present this point of view, expressing my personal feelings and showing scientific facts about the problem.

    Read More

  • Negative Impacts of the Fast Food Industry

    893 Words  | 2 Pages

    Bibliography Fiala, Nathan. "How Meat Contributes to Global Warming." The American Scientific Magazine. Journal Article, 4 Feb. 2009.

    Read More

More about Save the planet by cutting down on meat?

Open Document