GHGs: A Tale of Two Sources

Meat Society: Number 12 in a series exploring issues related to curbing demand for animal products, an important climate change solution for individuals and nations alike, especially in Western states where meat and diary consumption dwarfs other regions.

Excerpt from Meat Climate Change: The 2nd Leading Cause of Global Warming by Moses Seenarine, (2016). Xpyr Press, 348 pages ISBN: 0692641157 http://amzn.to/2yn7XrC

The food animal sector plays an often unrecognized role in planetary heating. Animal agriculture specifically drives global warming and is linked to proliferating greenhouse gasses (GHGs), the food crisis, and water emergencies. Animal agribusiness has large footprints on the air, land, water, energy, materials, health, and other areas. These GHG footprints are part of food animals' life-cycle and their byproducts' supply chains.

Ominously, livestock's footprints consist of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and other GHGs, that have a larger cumulative effect on climate warming than from each gas added up individually. And, unless food animals' GHGs are reduced along with fossil fuels, they may set in motion various environmental feedbacks that result in surpassing climate tipping points. 

According to one study, by 2050, the food animal sector may alone account for 72% of the total “safe operating space” for human-caused GHG pollution, 88% of the safe operating space for biomass use, and 300% of the safe operating space for the mobilization of nitrogen compounds in soils and elsewhere. This would lead to irreversible changes, irrespective of efforts to mitigate GHGs in other sectors.(356)

For reducing carbon-based emissions, an argument can be made that fossil fuels are not essential for human survival and that many non-carbon sources of energy already exist, and should be used instead. Oddly, this argument is often inverted when dealing with animal agribusiness GHGs. Animal-based diets are routinely viewed as non-negotiable and indispensable to human survival. And, the common perception is that other protein sources are not as good or available.

All the same, a World Bank review of the connection between consumption of animal products and health determined that in many situations, the partial displacement of carbohydrate staple source of energy with animal products may have neutral or no beneficial health effect. Another socioeconomic inquiry noted, “the use of plant source of protein and fat, such as soy products, nuts, and vegetable oils, may provide even greater health benefits and should therefore be considered simultaneously when considering investments in development.”(357)

Red meat consumption is associated with an enhanced hazard of cardiovascular disease and cancer mortality. In contrast, substitution of other healthy protein sources for red meat is associated with lower mortality.(358) Similar to pollution from fossil fuels, animal-based diets have profoundly negative effects on human health and the environment. And, in turn, animal-based diet related illnesses and animal waste pollution, generate immense quantities of CO2 in health care, habitat restoration, and so on.

Interestingly, Pope Francis's 183-page encyclical on the environment, released in June 2015, discusses the environmental crisis and the immorality of capitalism. It argues passionately for economic and cultural equality. For all that, the encyclical remains completely silent on animal agribusiness GHG pollution.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is headquartered in Rome, not far from the Vatican. The agency has acknowledged numerous times the significance of livestock's GHGs and the sector's contributions to planetary heating. Despite this, the Pope and the Church refuse to call out the exploitative and destructive practices of the animal flesh, cow's milk and chicken egg industries in their encyclical to save humanity from escalating temperatures.(359)

In October 2015, the FAO's director and the French Minister of Agriculture both called for targeted policies and investments in food security and agriculture, to be at the center of debates on climate. They warned that failure to do so would unravel recent progress made in combating world hunger.(360)

The FAO's director indicated that there was a need to reduce deforestation and overfishing, and to improve soil fertility, to achieve lower emissions. He said the FAO was ready to assist countries through agroecology, 'climate-smart' agriculture, integrated coastal management, sustainable land management, and forest landscape restoration. Curiously, the director did not call for a reduction in food animal production or suggest that stepping up animal-based consumption was unsustainable and self-destructive.

The animal carcass, chicken eggs, and cow's milk lobbies are well-organized, and many politicians minimize and ignore animal agribusiness GHGs due to conflicts of interest. Case in point, a European Parliament member belittled the problem by saying, "I don't believe that the world will come to an end because of cows burping and farting."

A senior member of the staff of the German Environment Minister confessed, "We have exempted agriculture from the climate protection strategy in order to limit the number of potential sources of conflict.” While, the chairman of the German Advisory Council on the Environment was explicit in stating, "No one dares to say that we ought to eat less meat and more plant-based protein."(361)

Carbon and food based emissions are both real and dangerous. While one is increasingly being placed under a policy microscope, the other remains completely untouchable by priests and politicians alike. Fear of a public backlash and neoliberal attack by transnational food corporations (TFCs) prevents the powerful solution of dietary change from seeing the light of day.

Chapter 11: WHAT CRISIS? page 103

Mitigating Demand for Animal Protein

(Global meat consumption 1961-2009)

Meat Society: Number 11 in a series exploring issues related to curbing demand for animal products, an important climate change solution for individuals and nations alike, especially in Western states where meat and diary consumption dwarfs other regions.

Excerpt from Meat Climate Change: The 2nd Leading Cause of Global Warming by Moses Seenarine, (2016). Xpyr Press, 348 pages ISBN: 0692641157 http://amzn.to/2yn7XrC

Eliminating subsidies for domesticates and feed crops would increase the price of livestock products and lower the intake of food animals. Placing limits on advertising and warning labels, as with tobacco products, would likewise curb demand. On average, a 10% spike in the price of cow flesh results in a 7.5% lowering of intake, and around 35% of carnists admitted that when chicken prices rise, they simply eat more vegetables.(652)

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) published a report in 2013 on reducing carbon emissions in livestock production FAO 2013 authors admit that with the burgeoning volume of domesticated food animals, complementary measures may be needed to ensure that overall greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution is curbed. Yet, oddly enough, the report provide few details on how to achieve this reduction, thereby ignoring a vast body of research that shows how mitigating demand for animal flesh could feed larger numbers of people with less GHG pollution. 

For over five decades, numerous institutes and research reports have demonstrated that cutting consumption can significantly reduce climate-altering discharges from the animal agribusiness sector. There were stacks of books published from the 1960s to the 1990s on animal-based diets and the environment. For instance, Ruth Harrison, in 1964(653); Frances Lappé, in 1971(654); Robbins, in 1987(655); Fiddes, in 1991(656); and Rifkin, in 1992.(657) These early works were influential and clearly linked carnism with environmental devastation.

Less well-known, but equally critical academic analysis was conducted by Joan Gussow and Katherine Clancy in 1986(658); Ehrlich, Ehrlich and Daily, in 1995(659); Burning and Brough in 1991(660); Joan Gussow, in 1994(661); Robert Goodland, in 1997(662); Michael Fox, in 1999(663); and Subak, in 1999.(664) These early investigations were based mainly on narrative, demographic, and ethnographic data since there was a general lack of primary research on the sector's climate-altering gases.

At the beginning of the 21st century, a flurry of scientific papers began to probe the impact of diet and livestock on ecosystems, providing the missing primary data. Namely, in 2000, research by Renault and Wallender,(665) and Dutilh and Kramer(666) were published on water productivity and energy use in the food animal sector.

In 2003, Wirsenius,(667) Leitzmann,(668) Pimentel and Pimentel,(669) and Reijnders and Soret(670) conducted primary research on metabolism, nutrition, water use, protein choices and other aspects of livestock production. In 2004, Rattan Lal measured carbon outflows on farms(671), and in 2006, Eshel and Martin calculated the climate-altering pollution from various diets.(672)

This valuable body of pertinent scientific research was widely available before FAO's 2006 and 2013 assessment of GHG emissions from animal agribusiness. Peculiarly, the popular environmental literature and volumes of primary data on demand-side analysis were both ignored by the UN authors. Moreover, since the vast majority of people on the planet already eat a climate-friendly, plant-based diet, then it makes sense for the FAO to concentrate on transforming livestock over-consumption.

By way of illustration, a team of Italian researchers noted that a plant-based diet based on organic products has the smallest environmental impact. Their findings, published online in 2006, showed that cow carcass had the greatest impact, along with cheese, fish, and cow's milk.(673) This and many other studies were ignored by the FAO. The mitigating demand approach, based on personal action, helps to solve the food crisis, and social inequalities as well. The UN food agency refuses to come to grips with the larger issue of the inefficiency of animal-based diets, and by all odds, the Earth could support larger numbers of people for a given area of land farmed if humans ate lower on the food chain.(674)

In 2007, McMichael's team investigated ways to reduce the impact of livestock production on the environment and concluded that current efficiency measures were not producing the magnitude of amendments required to sufficiently impact GHG footprints. The most equitable way was a constriction and convergence policy. The team concluded that Western countries should considerably reduce their red meat consumption, and developing countries should not surpass this lower target.(675)

Demand-moderating policies are vital because of the overall low potential for reducing agricultural GHGs by technological means. Besides, there are inherently large land requirements for ruminant flesh production. So what humans eat does matter.(676)

Based on improvements in scale, the FAO's strategies for 30% GHG reduction have increased vulnerability and negative side-effects. Even if, somehow, efficiency improves and yield gaps are closed, the projected demand for food animals will continue to drive agricultural expansion.(677) Mitigating demand is an effective way to reduce the sector's climate-altering gases, but is not entertained by the leading food authority in the slightest.

FAO 2006 projects that the global agricultural area may expand by 280m ha (1m sq mi) in 2030, from the current 5.1b ha (20m sq mi) to 5.4b ha (21m sq mi). One team used these estimates and assumed a minor transition towards vegetarian food, with a 25% diminution in animal consumption, and a somewhat lower food wastage rate. In this scenario, land use drops to 4.4 billion ha (17m sq mi), and land use in high-income regions dwindles down further by about 15%.(678)

Demand-side measures offer a greater potential of 1.5 - 15.6 Gt CO2e per year in meeting food security and GHG emission challenges, than do supply-side measures. The latter offers only 1.5 - 4.3 Gt CO2e per year at carbon prices between $20 and $100.(679) At the national level, in the UK, for instance, the average diet embodies 8.8 kg (19.4 pounds) CO2e per person every day. Eliminating food animals from the diet will lower food-related climate-altering discharges by 35%.(680)

The UN food agency encourage public subsidies for the cattle industry to increase efficiency, but to help mitigate the escalating environmental impacts of cow carcass production, the FAO should instead call on governments to should stop subsidizing cow flesh production, and cease the promotion of cattle consumption. Governments should also regulate and control the future expansion of soybeans and extensive grazing.(681)

In an evaluation of processed protein food based on soy-beans and animal protein, researchers observed a variety of environmental impacts associated with primary production and processing. Notably, the impacts for animal flesh were four to 100 times greater than that vegetable protein, while the comparison of cheese impacts ranged from 5 to 21 times greater than vegetables. And, the energy use for fish protein was up to 14 times larger than protein of vegetable origin.(682)

Mitigating demand for animal protein is an effective way to reduce GHGs, but the FAO and other UN climate reports ignore this approach. The German consumer protection organization, Foodwatch, calculated that shifting from a conventional diet based on animal flesh and cow's milk, to a conventionally-raised vegan diet would reduce GHG pollution by 87%, while shifting to an organic diet containing animal carcass and cow's milk would only reduce emissions by 8%. By contrast, a 100% organic vegan diet would reduce GHG pollution by 94%.(683)

If humans restricted their diet to primary producers – eating plants, instead of eating the herbivores, fish and other animals that eat plants - the Earth could support much larger populations of people. Plus, there would be comparatively less land degradation because fewer acres would be needed for food production. 

For demand-side animal protein measures to work, given the difficulties in implementation and lag in their effectiveness, policies and reforms should be introduced quickly. Also, mitigation programs could be integrated with other plans of actions, such as improving environmental quality and dietary health.

Chapter 17: THE POLITICS OF MEAT, pages 173 - 4.

Structural Demand for Animal Flesh

Meat Society: Number 10 in a series exploring issues related to curbing demand for animal products, an important climate change solution for individuals and nations alike, especially in Western states where meat and diary consumption dwarfs other regions.

Excerpt from Meat Climate Change: The 2nd Leading Cause of Global Warming by Moses Seenarine, (2016). Xpyr Press, 348 pages ISBN: 0692641157 http://amzn.to/2yn7XrC

The social and structural factors of animal consumption are rarely looked at. Also, due to conflicts of interests, the world's leading food authorities cannot, and do not, question any of the aspects of structural demand they promote. The production of food animals is not simply a direct response to consumer demand, since production and intake are affected by (i) government subsidies; (ii) industry groups, such as the councils and trade associations for cows, pigs, chickens, etc.; (iii) national nutritional guidelines; (iv) schools and organizations; (v) advertising and popular culture; (vi) business and private interests; (vii) communities and traditions; and so on.

Indeed, political economists have long argued that the economic elite control consumer preferences through means of social, psychological, and cultural manipulation. Particularly, consumers are manipulated through the use of advertising.(639) And, curiously, the food animal industry' promotional messages are considered by the US Supreme Court as “government speech.”

The livestock industry is capable of manipulating food preferences because it is extremely powerful and consolidated. In the US alone, the sales of animal flesh was $186 billion in 2011, more than the GDP of Hungary or Ukraine. On top of this, according to the American Meat Institute, “Meat and poultry industry impacts firms in all 509 sectors of the U.S. Economy... (and) generates $864.2 billion annually to the U.S. economy, or roughly 6 percent of the entire GDP.”(640) 

In contrast to this vast sum, all vegetables, fruits, and nuts combined sold $45 billion in 2011, almost four times less than what livestock products earned. The combined sales of beans, peas, and lentils, which are animal flesh substitutes, were 140 times less than livestock products.

In 2015 alone, the cattle carcass industry spent $39 million of the government-created, checkoff program revenues on “consumer public relations,” “nutrition-influencer relations,” and countering “misinformation from anti-beef groups.” The industry calculated that the checkoff program resulted in Americans eating 11.3% more cow carcass. As a trade magazine boasted in 2013, “The beef industry has worked hard to create the love affair that Americans have with a big, juicy ribeye.”

The pig industry’s “The Other White Meat” tagline is the fifth-most recognized advertising slogan in the history of American marketing. And, it had the blessings of the USDA. After the campaign was launched in 1987, sales of pig carcass climbed 20% for five years.(641). Not to be outdone, one of the cattle industry’s websites boasts of their advertising clout, “In the minds of the many consumers hearing that question [‘What’s for dinner?’], a dominant answer has been planted: Beef. It’s what’s for dinner. Not just planted, in fact. Watered, nourished and cared for over the past two decades.”(642)

Generic advertising campaigns by livestock producers is augmented by promotions from food animal vendors, such as restaurants. McDonald’s is the largest cow carcass buyer in the US and many other countries. This transnational food corporation (TFC) spent $1.37 billion on advertising in 2011, and sold about seventy-five burgers per second each day, worldwide. The most frequent advertising spot on children’s Saturday morning television is McDonald’s, and the second is Burger King. Not surprisingly then, after Santa Claus, Ronald McDonald is the most recognized figure for American kids.

The industry also works hard at disassociating domesticated food animals from the products produced by animal-based TFCs. For instance, food animals and the conditions under which they live are rarely represented in flesh, egg, and milk advertising. Instead, the absent referents and actual subjects are objectified and hidden through the use of language and images centered on the indulgent aspects of food animals' preparation and consumption.

In contrast, there are no checkoff program for plant-based foods, or trade associations that represent all fruit, vegetable, bean, and lentil growers. Consequently, according to the US deputy secretary of agriculture, producers of fresh fruits and vegetables “have traditionally been under-represented in farm bill policy.”(ibid) Moreover, the few promotions that do encourage eating more vegetables operate with much smaller budgets than livestock campaigns. For instance, the "5 A Day for Better Health" promotion developed by the National Cancer Institute and the Produce for Better Health Foundation in 1999, had a budget of less than $3 million.

In effect, production generates consumption because livestock producers, processors, and marketers have cultural hegemony, that is, control over the values and beliefs of a culture. From this perspective, the structural power of the animal carcass industry is a major determinant of levels of animal consumption.

Cronon’s analysis of how the US animal carcass industry grew throughout the 19th Century by transforming American agriculture demonstrate that consumer habits are greatly influenced by powerful corporate interests.(643) Indeed, few economic institutions affect human communities and natural ecosystems in the modern capitalist world to a larger extent than livestock and feed commodity markets.

Diet can be viewed within a historically formulated understanding of a given social system. It is an evolutionary product of environmental conditions and of the basic forces, especially the social institutions and social relations, that effectively determine their use.(644) Variation in what people eat reflects substantive variation in status and power. Diet fundamentally characterize societies that are internally stratified into rich and poor, sick and healthy, developed and underdeveloped, overfed and undernourished.

Social structural factors form the context in which psychological factors for demand and choice operates.(645) Numerous research papers show that social psychological factors, such as values and beliefs, have a greater influence on consumer demand for various food types, than do demographic and economic factors.(646)

According to McCracken, the creation of social distinctions, such as class, race, and occupation, is supported and authenticated through material objects.(647) Therefore, variation in consumptive patterns may be expected among individuals in different social categories. Differences in food consumption patterns may distinguish one social group from another and these consumption patterns may reproduce social differentiation.(648) These are some of the structural factors driving the overconsumption class.

Biological sex has a strong influence on animal consumption, as well. Gossard and York ascertained that women consume substantially less total carcass than men, 74 grams (2.6 oz) a day less.(649) What's more, females consume less cow carcass, almost 17 grams (0.6 oz) a day less, which is considered a “powerful” and masculine food.(650) Newspaper representations of men, food and health indicate a persistent adherence to hegemonic masculinities predicated on health-defeating diets, special occasion cooking of hearty meals, and a general distancing from the feminized realm of dieting. At the same time, men are constructed as naive and vulnerable when it comes to diet and health, while women are viewed as experts.(651) 

Clearly, there are compelling structural factors operating to influence individual and group diet, and tremendous potential for mitigating demand through a transformation in values. However, there is a lack of information on policies and related social and psychological aspects for this transformation.

Chapter 17: THE POLITICS OF MEAT, pages 171-2

losing trump

for four very long years

a thick, blinding fog of hate 

blanketed the landscape

from ocean to ocean

no one could escape

raging dark clouds above

suffocating liberal life below

returning us to an unequal past

ending decades of progress

with freedom to openly detest

minorities and immigrants

classism, sexism and racism 

masking as right-wing populism

november 3rd arrived

resistance was on the line

to stop the right-wing tea party

la raza showed up in arizona

brothas and sistas turned out

in michigan, georgia & pennsylvania

the orange menace lost

biden and harris won

what a mega relief

this clown's election defeat

progressives can take a breath

after four hair-raising years

suffering from maga grief

a con's tsunami of lies

from morning to eve

a 24-hour media spectacle 

celebration of mediocrity

feelings and certitude of ignorance

racist signaling day and night

to the low-melanin, christian base 

from obama's birthergate

and 'grab 'em by the pussy'

to chants of 'lock her up'

and 'build that wall'

from a muslim travel ban

'people from shithole countries'

and mass roundups by ICE

to family separation at the border

putting children in cages

revoking protected status

for immigrants facing persecution

stopping asylum-seekers

and ending DACA

from 'good people on both sides'

leaving the paris accord

and environmental rollbacks

to ignoring the 'chinese plague'

and 'stop the steal'

the buffoon dance is over

after taking a deep breath

the left must begin to agitate

organize like never before

because the populist tea party is ongoing

70 million raging maga dancers 

await another bigoted pied piper 

who can play them the same tune

Factory Farming is Not a Climate Solution

Meat Society: Number 9 in a series exploring issues related to curbing demand for animal products, an important climate change solution for individuals and nations alike, especially in Western states where meat and diary consumption dwarfs other regions.

Excerpt from Meat Climate Change: The 2nd Leading Cause of Global Warming by Moses Seenarine, (2016). Xpyr Press, 348 pages ISBN: 0692641157 http://amzn.to/2yn7XrC

There are vast numbers of problems with animal-based agribusiness. When added up, the negative consequences of industrialized livestock production far outweigh any positives. Yet, the international food authority, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) customary approach is to pursue well-tried, industrialized systems that, they argue, are essential to ‘‘maximize efficiency.’’

Avoidance of future environmental destruction the FAO's industry-friendly 'solutions' will create is seen as merely a matter of (i) improved surveillance, (ii) tighter regulations, (iii) further rigorous safety inspections, and (iv) a generally inflated bureaucracy. The fundamental, unchallenged, principle is that the desire to maximize financial profit is the driver of the whole food chain. This does not translate to broad-based recommendations that are 'climate-friendly' or environmentally 'sustainable'.(636)

The UN organization's efficiency strategies are primarily market-based and tied to multinational banks and trading companies that control the funding of high protein feed, livestock production supply chains, and distribution networks owned by transnational food corporations (TFCs). Moreover, the FAO bureaucracy completely ignores growing consumer awareness and concern that factory farming treats animals like production machines, rather than individual sentient beings with welfare needs.

In contrast, pet animals are considered as full subjects with names and personalities, worthy of affection and protection by several UN agencies. Factory farming involves intensive techniques on mostly female animals. The food animal industry is characterized by the use of cages, overcrowded sheds, and barren outdoor feedlots. Each creature is a mere production unit in intensive factories, where feeding is practiced on a massive scale.

Industrial animal agriculture involves the use of fast-growing or high-yield livestock breeds where the animals are subjected to painful production practices and prone to production-related diseases. Factory farming is energy-intensive, using concentrated feed and high mechanization. Similar to industrial feed production, factory farms have low labor requirements. The FAO 2013's recommendation for 30 percent mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, are not as effective as curtailing demand. 

One review of global, regional and national levels of food's GHG outflows show that, in addition to technological mitigation, it will be necessary to shift consumption patterns, in particular away from diets rich in GHG-intensive animal-based and cow's milk products. This shift will be necessary not just in the developed North, but likewise, in the long term, in the developing world.(637)

Even if GHG discharges from food production were halved by 2050, and if 70 percent to 80 percent of the current forest carbon was preserved, global GHG pollution from other sectors still needed to peak before 2015. On top of that, total anthropogenic climate-altering gases will have to decrease 6.5 percent a year to limit planetary heating to 2˚C (3.6°F).(638)

The FAO 2013 report acknowledges that livestock's environmental problems "reflect weaknesses in institutions and policies." Yet, the international food agency remains completely silent on corporate governance and accountability. The UN authority only makes a token statement that safeguards should be in place to avoid the potential negative side-effect of efficiency gains.

Be that as it may, these 'safeguards' have done little in the past to prevent animal diseases, soil and water pollution, displacement, and so on. Repeatedly, safeguard language and criteria are used to justify expansion while they have little impact on deforestation, displacement, pollution, or the effects of large-scale expansion.

Given the difficulty of applying regulatory systems in the past, the likelihood of FAO's call for 'safeguards' being successfully enforced in the future is slim. The TFCs responsible for many of the existing problems have done little to deal with these problems.

Plus, the GHGs that will be generated in strengthening regulatory institutions and enforcing stricter policies are not part of FAO's calculations. Nor are the emissions released by cleanup efforts of the negative side-effects of efficiency taken into account. These outflows can dwarf all efficiency gains from this sector's emissions.

from Chapter 17: THE POLITICS OF MEAT, page 170

Animal Agribusiness Disorder

Meat Society: Number 8 in a series exploring issues related to curbing demand for animal products, an important climate change solution for individuals and nations alike, especially in Western states where meat and diary consumption dwarfs other regions.

Excerpt from Meat Climate Change: The 2nd Leading Cause of Global Warming by Moses Seenarine, (2016). Xpyr Press, 348 pages ISBN: 0692641157 http://amzn.to/2yn7XrC

In addition to greenhouse gases (GHGs), there are dozens of grave concerns regarding livestock production. These concerns, listed below, are consequential and must be addressed. On top of that, they potently relate to climate warming since they often generate GHG pollution. For instance, rural displacement may stimulate increase of carbon footprints through migration to urban areas and adoption of animal-based diets.

Food animal production negatively impacts the following 19 areas: (1) the loss of forest and earth's sequestration capacity. This acerbates (2) resource scarcity, and (3) soil loss which is critical to food security. (4) The animal industry's water-use threatens food supply, security and human welfare. Factory farms are the number one consumer of water in drought-stricken California, for example.

(5) There is the moral issue of wasting calories. With a billion and upwards malnourished people, the production of animal protein is far less efficient than producing equivalent amounts of plant protein. (6) Particularly troubling is the trend toward greater intensification and industrial production methods without regard to animal welfare. Animal factory farming is a new phenomenon that has established itself as the predominant mode of food animal production.

(7) Another worry is the consolidation of ownership and the enormous power wielded by multinational trading companies over local and national governments. This unequal power impacts negatively on democracy, local control, accountability and oversight, sustainability disclosure, corporate governance, and policy changes.

(8) There are massive and widespread problems with land rights, rural unemployment, displacement, violence, inequality, poor working conditions, and other forms of exploitation related to the sector. (9) Another major concern is that vast numbers of livestock and feed crops are often located in remote areas with severe effects on the environment, such as deforestation and land degradation, that is causing a rapid loss of biodiversity.

(10) Food animal production is often located close to cities or ports, where insufficient land is available for processing the waste. This leads to soil, air and water pollution, which cause humans and animals to become prone to ill-health and disease. (11) Factory farming is the number one user of antibiotics in the US, up to 80 percent. This is causing bacterial resistance which defeats the use of these lifesaving drugs.

(12) Another anxiety is that factory farms are inevitably breeding dangerous new strains of bacteria. Factory farming is the number one reason for the rapid spread of bird flu (H5N2) and swine flu (H1N1). (13) A further concern relates to health effects of genetically modified crops, and residues from herbicides, like glyphosate.

(14) Stagnating crop yields is an immense worry. (15) So too are the effects of climate change, such as heat stress and disease, on the production and efficiency of food animals. And, (16) livestock over-consumption, and the effects of an animal-based diet on human health, are immense causes for concern as well.

(17) Nutrient flows in the earth system are instrumental to food security and short-term GHG discharges. Some scenarios project that by 2050 global crops will expand by 82 percent, and livestock production will soar upwards 115 percent from 2000 levels. This massive addition in nutrient pollution, land and water requirements will lead to intensifying global hunger, resource conflicts, and refugee crises.

In addition, (18) there is a multiplicity of concerns regarding dependency, distribution and corruption in the food supply. And, (19) a trend towards eating processed, animal-based foods produced in a different country multiplies GHG emissions per gram, and makes monitoring countries’ individual GHG pollution far trickier. These concerns, as well as others, present troubling perplexities for creating a just and sustainable food production system.

From Chapter 11: WHAT CRISIS? page 112

Addressing Livestock GHGs

 

(IPCC: Total GHG emissions from economic sectors in 2010. AFOLU is agriculture, forestry and land use.)

Meat Society: Number 7 in a series exploring issues related to curbing demand for animal products, an important climate change solution for individuals and nations alike, especially in Western states where meat and diary consumption dwarfs other regions.

Excerpt from Meat Climate Change: The 2nd Leading Cause of Global Warming by Moses Seenarine, (2016). Xpyr Press, 348 pages ISBN: 0692641157 http://amzn.to/2yn7XrC

Decarbonizing what we eat is just as important as decarbonizing what we drive or what we use to heat our homes. But animal agriculture is one of the most protected and supported industries in the world. National governments and international organizations shore up global economies, and the major domesticate producers who supply the world, regardless of environmental impact.

Peculiarly, greenhouse gas (GHG) discharges related to livestock production are generally attributed to the place of origin rather than the place of consumption. So efforts to shift consumption in a high animal consumption country might not lead to a reduction in its own emissions profile, which gives the country little incentive to act.

Moreover, livestock production is a valued livelihood and tradition in the heritage of many cultures across the globe. Small-scale animal husbandry is very different from industrial practices, but any efforts to encourage reductions in the industry is perceived as a threat to small farming and livestock heritage.

The upshot is animal agricultural being subsidized and protected far beyond its importance for national economies. And, when dietary guidelines begin to consider what we eat, especially dairy and animal carcass, powerful industry lobbies put their machines into motion, vilifying nutrition panels, scientists, advisers, and journalists.

Discussions, negotiations, and agreements regarding climate change refer to fossil fuels almost exclusively, and there is no question that oil, natural gas, and especially coal, are major sources of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4). At the same time, the lifecycle and supply chain of domesticated animals have been vastly underestimated as a source of GHGs.

Is what we eat politically too hot to handle? Or, maybe it is simpler than this and due to a basic conflict of interests. After all, how many of the world’s leaders and climate negotiators are willing to follow a plant-based diet? The immense demand for food animals and industrialization of food animal production are deeply intertwined, and accordingly, both are perceived as normal and inevitable. 

Animal-based products are the preferred food for most of the world's populations, and efforts to control what others eat can be perceived as threatening. For many lower income countries, animal consumption is aspirational, so pushing for less animal carcass, cow's milk and chicken egg consumption, would make for a politically unpopular platform.

The point of de-legitimizing livestock over-consumption is not to divide the “good” people from the “bad people.” Rather, it is to recognize that what the majority once took as normal, or even “net beneficial,” has turned out to be “net detrimental” and needs to be re-conceived.

Most actions for mitigating climate chaos and slowing temperatures have relied on decreasing CO2 pollution over the long-term. A short-term solution to cut back short-lived GHGs by reducing animal consumption will permit appreciably greater time to implement long-term solutions of lowering CO2. This could cool the planet faster and cheaper, and help to avoid dangerous tipping points, than the current engrossment over CO2.

Replacing livestock products with better alternatives would be the best strategy for reversing alteration of the climate. This intervention would have quicker effects on GHG releases and the pace of temperature advance, than actions to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy.

Climate warming is caused not only by what humans do in terms of burning fossil fuels, but by what humans eat as well. Admittedly, GHG pollution is released as an outcome of all diets, but they are much higher with animal-based foods. Human animals need to halt and reverse the destructive footprint of animal-based agriculture. And, humans need to farm the land much better. Agricultural improvement endeavors should give attention to places with a "yield gap," so larger magnitudes of food can be grown on the same quantity of land.

There are umpteen intergovernmental agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), social and environmental organizations working on reducing GHGs from the fossil fuel industry. Hopefully, this will lead to major reductions in CO2 and CH4 discharges from oil, coal and gas production much earlier than 2100. The 2014 UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Synthesis report warned that we must reduce fossil-base emissions to zero by 2100, or gamble with severe consequences.

Up to now, though, there are few international agencies or organizations working on reducing CO2, CH4, nitrous oxide (N2O), and other GHGs released from animal agriculture. Instead, livestock production is being actively promoted, and agricultural CO2 releases are set to double in 50 years.(71) Given opposite trajectories of fossil fuel and livestock industries, animal agriculture may well end up being much higher than 30 percent of GHG by 2050, and the leading contributor of GHGs by 2100.

Western countries consume the most animals, and their dietary preference for animal products is unsustainable. The consumption of animal flesh is steadily rising in countries such as China and India that once followed sustainable, vegetable-based diets to a large extent.(72) Only a few countries in the developed North are taking token steps at mitigation. To wit, UK dairy farmers have committed to making a 20 to 30 percent reduction of CO2, CH4, and N2O by 2020, based on 1990 levels.(73)

Even so, the US and other governments' policies are driving demand by encouraging the globalization of Western diets and consumption patterns through trade agreements, and by facilitating animal products at artificially low prices, via subsidies on livestock feed. The US alone spends $38 billion each year to subsidize cows raised for carcass and milk.

If humans bring down GHG pollution from livestock to a great extent, planetary heating could be curbed fairly quickly. By making the food system more efficient and by eating healthier food, humans can trim back GHG outflows from agriculture by up to 90 percent by 2030. That is the equivalent of removing all the cars in the world.(74)

Substantial global diminution in meat intake by 2050 could cut back agriculture related GHG discharges 50 percent (75), and as much as 80 percent, since producing 20 servings of vegetables causes less GHGs than one serving of cow carcass.(76) Lower demand for livestock products, combined with mitigation options in the agricultural sector, will lead to global agricultural non-CO2 releases of 2,519 CO2-e in 2055, which is an approximate halving of 1995 levels.(77)

Substituting food animal carcass with soy protein could bring down total human biomass appropriation in 2050 by 94 percent below 2000 levels, and greatly diminish other environmental impacts related to use of water, fertilizer, fossil fuel, and biocides. And curtailing animal products to 10 percent of the global human diet would enable future global populations to be fed on just the current area of agricultural lands.(78)

Personal action is consequential and everyday choices can lead to enormous improvement. The personal is political, and if individuals act with social responsibility in the present, the future can be a much brighter place for humans and nonhumans alike.

from Chapter 2: MEAT THE FUTURE, pages 19-20