ANIMAL AGRICULTURE AND CLIMATE CHANGE
Introduction:
At this point in life, I’m confident that we all know how to prevent climate
change and that is by using reusable bags, taking short showers, being
sustainable, etc. But, there is one factor that all the big environmental
companies like WWF https://wwf.panda.org/?gclid=CjwKCAjw47eFBhA9EiwAy8kzNLcm7MVLP-RMivQF59KIPUAW9pBvSq78g6yQ-ieODBJTmHQi7XYTXBoCvyAQAvD_BwE
are hiding from us and that is ANIMAL AGRICULTURE. Breeding animals for
the production of animal products is known as animal agriculture. Raising
livestock produces more greenhouse gases than the emissions of the entire
transportation sector. This means that the meat and dairy industry produces
more greenhouse gases than the exhaust of all cars, trucks, trains, boats,
planes combined. It is predicted that by 2050 the world population will be 9
billion which means that the demand for livestock will be more and it will
lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
ANIMAL AGRICULTURE AND WATER CONSUMPTION:
From their digestive process cows produce methane. Methane gas from
livestock is 86 times more destructive than carbon dioxide from
vehicles.http://www.fao.org/3/a0701e/a0701e00.htm. Meat and animal
agriculture is indeed 10 times worse than power generation for our planet.
Hydraulic fracturing for natural gas uses 100 billion gallons of water is used
every year in the united states. However, raising livestock just in the US
consumes 34 trillion gallons of water.https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/54/10/909/230205
This much water can be used for a bulky amount of people. The reason is that
meat and dairy products are highly water-intensive because the animals are
using water-intensive grains. Did you know that one quarter-pound
hamburger requires 660 gallons of water to produce? This means that eating
one hamburger is equal to 2 months of a shower. We give more attention to
reducing our home water use yet domestic water used in the US is only 5%
and on the other hand, animal agriculture is a whopping 55% because it
takes 2500 gallons of water for one pound of beef.
ANIMAL AGRICULTURE AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE PLANET:
Animal agriculture produces 65% of the world’s nitrous oxide gas with a
global warming potential 296 times greater than CO2 per pound. Yet all we
hear about is fossil fuels.
By the year 2040 energy CO2 emissions are expected to increase 20%. Yet
emissions from agriculture are expected to increase by 80%.
This outraging figure is due to an increase in the consumption of meat and
dairy products. Animal agriculture is responsible for 51% of human causes of
climate change.
Raising animals for food is responsible for 30% of the world’s water
consumption, occupies up to 45% of the earth’s land, is responsible for 91%
of the destruction of amazon forest, is the leading cause of ocean dead zones,
habitat destruction, and species extinction.
