Meat is methane

Livestock farming produces more greenhouse gasses than all forms of transport combined. Reduce those harmful emissions: Eat less meat!

Marco Visscher | December 2007 issue

What’s the biggest cause of climate change? Cars? Planes? Factories? No. The meat we eat. Producing chicken, lamb, pork and beef takes up one-quarter of the Earth’s surface. Nearly a third of the world’s fertile agricultural land is used to grow feed grains. And to serve the burgeoning meat industry, tropical forests—which are very useful in compensating for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions—are cut down to make room for vast grasslands.

But CO2 is not the main byproduct of livestock farming, though it is responsible for 9 percent of it. Nitrous oxide and methane respectively contribute 300 and 23 times more to the greenhouse effect than CO2—and livestock is responsible for 65 percent of nitrous oxide emissions and 37 percent of methane emissions. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) calculated these figures for a report published last year called Livestock’s Long Shadow. The FAO concluded that the livestock industry accounts for 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. That’s more than is produced by every form of transportation combined. In addition, 1,000 litres (265 gallons) of fossil fuel is needed to produce the meat consumed annually by the average family of four. When this fuel is burned, according to Jeremy Rifkin, author of Beyond Beef, more than 2.5 tons of extra CO2 enters the atmosphere—as much as the average car emits in six months.

Consumers are told to conserve by switching to energy-efficient light bulbs, to take public transportation more often, to turn off the TV when they’re not watching. Why aren’t environmental organizations telling them to eat less meat?

It’s a sensitive issue, says Liz O’Neill, head of communications at the UK’s Vegetarian Society. “Environmental organizations do not want to scare off their meat-eating members and funders. The issue of vegetarianism makes them a little nervous. But these numbers are really shocking!”

The Vegetarian Society recently launched a campaign stressing the environmental reasons for adopting a vegetarian diet. It did this once before, in the 1990s, but now the time seems ripe. “You don’t have to explain climate change or deforestation anymore,” says O’Neill. “Perhaps people disagree with the data, but it would be hard to find a living person who’s never heard of global warming.”

In the United States this year, animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) put up billboards featuring a cartoon of former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore gnawing on a chicken leg, alongside the words: “Too Chicken to Go Vegetarian? Meat is the No. 1 Cause of Global Warming.” The Humane Society of the United States has also taken up the subject in an ad showing a car key and a fork. “Which one of these contributes more to global warming?” it reads. Down the page is a hint: “It’s not the one that starts a car.”

A plant-based diet does lead to enormous energy savings. An acre of grain yields five times as much protein as an acre used for meat production. Legumes provide 10 times as much; leafy vegetables, 15.

“Vegetarianism is the quiet issue in the environmental movement,” says O’Neill. “But now that the problem of global warming is high on everybody’s agenda, more attention will get drawn to an effective way to contribute to the solution.”

Find out more: vegsoc.org/environment

Is organic meat any better?

Liz O’Neill, Vegetarian Society: “There is no easy answer, but the animal feed, the water use, the fuel needed for transport: The impact of these factors will still exist for producing organic meat. In fact, when you focus on long-term environmental impacts, particularly climate change via greenhouse gasses, organic farming can actually be more damaging due to the diets of the animals and the less intensive rearing practises. However, we also know organic meat production has significant environmental advantages over conventional livestock farming when you are considering immediate impacts such as toxic pollution.”

Find out more: soilassociation.org

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Comments (6)

I agree that we should eat less meat, but there are many reasons to not ban meat production altogether. A biologically efficient farm includes both livestock and crops. Livestock produce manure that can be used to fertilize crops. Livestock can eat crop residue and use marginal lands that cannot produce other crops. When you integrate livestock and crops you need to purchase less fertilizer and pesticides and your energy efficiency goes up. A conventional farm in Manitoba producing only annual crops produces 6.8 units of energy out for every 1 unit in. An organic farm producing only annual crops is better at 10.4 but an organic farm integrated with livestock produces 11.9 units of energy out for every 1 unit in.

posted by martensg on 12/21/2007 12:11 pm

Vast herds of bison used to roam our land and feed the Indians - they did not cause global warming, and in fact accounted for the health of our vast grasslands. Man has turned many of these grasslands into degraded land and desert by our mismanagement. No studies have been performed on methane production by animals grazing on properly managed range. In fact properly managed herds of herbivores, not only produce food for the people of the planet, but also put huge amounts of carbon back in the soil where it belongs while restoring severely degraded land, even in low rainfall areas. There are large areas of the planet that are not suitable for raising plant food crops, and people would go hungry without their animals. www.holisticmanagement.org and www.carbonfarmersofamerica.com explain how the herbivores of our planet, with proper management, can help to reduce global warming.

posted by ckrisjohnson on 12/ 7/2007 9:18 pm

Wow, this issue seems to have ignited a great deal of debate! Someone once asked me what would happen to all the animals we currently 'farm' for meat and various other animal products if they weren't used for those purposes. The answer seems to be that they would be let loose, survive as best they can whatever the consequences, and whatever happens happens. Who is placed to make any 'decisions' about this anyway? We all live as we live, with its own energy and momentum, and this will change only when the 'driving force' of it all is seen through, i.e. 'me', 'self', 'ego', whatever name it's given. Then everything is seen for what it truly is, and not through the veil of wants, desires, emotions, etc. that the 'me' generates.

As for the 'food miles' issue, it seems that there is more than enough food for everyone on the planet, and enough ability for the planet to produce it, if that food serves its purpose, i.e. good nutrition, rather than the unending fancies and apparent cravings of people in various parts of the world. No doubt occasional desires may be indulged, but ian't the first step to ensure that all are able to be healthy and have food to eat and water to drink? If this were the case, organic farming, apart from producing verifiably more nutritious food, would be more than capable of producing enough high quality food for everyone. Food as health through nutrition as a right of everyone, not as desire/indulgence or a commodity for the relatively few with money to 'afford' it. Another 'me' problem?

posted by adamgilliland on 12/ 6/2007 6:25 pm

As a Vegan, I could drive a Hummer, leave my my heat turned up, buy non-energy conserving lights and leave them on all day AND have all of my food imported and I would still leave a smaller carbon footprint on the earth than an energy conserving, Prius driving meat eater. Granted, the goal is to attempt to eat both organic and local, but giving up meat has a much greater positive impact on our environment, global waming being one of many, than all of the other energy conserving options combined. Vegetarianism may not be the only solution, but it is the one with the greatest impact.

posted by pamking83 on 12/ 4/2007 12:56 pm

I myself am not completely vegetarian, I don't make decisions based on what impact it is having on our environment. I eat organic for selfish reasons because I don't want the hormones or pesticides or the preservatives in my body. I don't eat red meat, pork and limited poultry because it's inhumane and unhealthy. I wish that I had made these decisions 20 years ago because I actually feel bad for all the pollutants I put in front of them to consume. I do believe we would be better off without eating meat all the way around. Just my thought.

posted by charlotte on 12/ 1/2007 6:52 pm

Being vegetarian is not the answer, particularly if we get out food flown to us out of season from all around the world. I doubt there are very many vegetarians (myself included) who manage to obtain the sum total of their diet from within 100 miles of where they live. My soybeans came from Iowa half a country away. My olive oil from Italy. The cucumbers are from Mexico and the grapes from Chile. Granted they were organic but they have more airplane miles than I do. The heart of the matter is sustainability not whether or not a person eats meat. The article would have been more persuasive if it stopped at the suggestion of eating less meat. World wide vegetarianism isn't the solution.

posted by surfergirl on 12/ 1/2007 3:13 pm