Climate Change and Animal Product Consumption
An Environmental Article from All-Creatures.org

From

51 percent
March 2010

We are gambling with our lives and with those of our future generations to come. It’s madness to know we are fully aware of the possible consequences but yet are failing to act.

In an authoritative report published by the World Watch institute in 2009, authors Goodland and Anhang concluded that over 51% of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions come from Livestock.

A widely cited 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Livestock’s Long Shadow, estimated that about 18 percent of annual worldwide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are attributable to livestock….however this more recent analysis by Goodland and Anhang co-authors of “Livestock and Climate Change” in the December 2009 issue of World Watch magazine found that livestock and their byproducts actually account for at least 32.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalents per year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide GHG emissions!

The main sources of GHGs from animal agriculture are:

1.Deforestation to grow feed for livestock.
2.Methane from farm animal metabolism and manure waste. – Methane is 72 times more potent as a global warming gas than CO2
3.Refrigeration and transport of meat around the world.

Based on their research, Goodland and Anhang conclude that replacing livestock products with soy-based and other alternatives would be the best strategy for reversing climate change. They say “This approach would have far more rapid effects on GHG emissions and their atmospheric concentrations-and thus on the rate the climate is warming-than actions to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy.”

We have thus now been informed of the dangerous path we are on by depending greatly on animal flesh and other animal products for human consumption. We still have the opportunity to make the most effective steps in saving ourselves and this planet. By simply choosing a plant based diet we can reduce our climate change foot print by a huge amount.

We are gambling with our lives and with those of our future generations to come. It’s madness to know we are fully aware of the possible consequences but yet are failing to act.

Please make a truly environmental, healthy and compassionate choice, choose to drastically reduce your meat and other animal product intake or simply go vegan. This is the single most powerful action for preventing climate change as it is the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

Meat and dairy production also uses a massive amount feed crops and of water which would be better used to feed the world’s hungry and provide water to those in need.

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