Why reducing animal agriculture can help address climate change

The cloud with the silver lining

While the major parties are doing little or nothing to make the transition to renewables to mitigate climate change, The Greens animal welfare working group has pointed out that we can make a faster and more positive impact on climate change simply by reducing the number of farm animals. 

Not everyone wants to go vegan, but we don't have to.  We can simply try to eat less meat and dairy.  Every little effort is another step towards saving the planet and making a better, kinder world.  It's empowering to know we can make a difference globally with the personal everyday choices we make. 

Here are the facts:

• Animal agriculture (its processes & by-products)  is the number one cause of human-induced climate change.

• Climate change Professor Barry Brook (University of Adelaide) has demonstrated that animal agriculture produces 50% of Australia’s ghg emissions – more than coal.  Globally, it emits more greenhouse gases  - 51% according to the World Bank * - than all planes, trains, buses, boats & cars, which produce 13%.   Thus, if we all reduced our animal product consumption by 1/4, we would be saving enough emissions to run the world's transport. 

• It seems ridiculous that chooks are being fed human amounts of food to make them grow faster.

• It takes 6kg of food fed to animals to produce 1kg of meat, 1000 l of water to make 1 I of milk, 2,500 to 5,000 gallons of water to make 1 lb beef.

• Animal agriculture uses 1/3 of the world’s water and 1/3 of the world’s cereal.

• While 1 billion people are malnourished, that cereal could feed 3 bill people.  We produce enough food to feed all the world’s people 1 ½ times over.

• One acre of rainforest is cleared every second for grazing. There’s  simply not enough land for the seventy billion farm animals so we have to resort to factory farming, which is inhumane & polluting.  

• Our fellow creatures deserve better than being crammed in crates and sheds all their unnaturally short lives. 

• Livestock demand will increase by 100% by 2050 & our fisheries will be exhausted by 2048.

• Animal agriculture is responsible for 65% of human-related nitrous oxide emissions.    Nitrous oxide has 296 times more global warming potential than carbon dioxide.

Methane (1/2 of livestock emissions) is 25 times more toxic than CO2.

BUT - here's the good news:

Methane only lasts 12 years in the atmosphere, whereas CO2 lasts 100 years.

This means that if we reduce farm animal numbers, we would have a more significant and rapid impact on climate change than by only focusing on CO2 reduction through a transition to renewable energy sources.  

What can you do?

Dr Michael Mosley's investigations have led him to conclude that our meat industry could be sustainable if everyone on the planet only ate 100 grams per day.

When you do eat meat or fish, you can choose from the rich variety of local products which have higher environmental, animal welfare and worker conditions standards. 

We can patronise businesses and farmers who are moving away from animal agriculture to grow food that is good for us and for the planet.  Even the fast food chains are now catering to the growing demand for healthy salads.

We can eat and encourage businesses to make the transition to producing analogs, such as almond milk and soy protein, which would be a safer business bet as agriculture is vulnerable to the extreme weather events caused by climate change.  

If we wish to try veganism, we can still get our protein without ingesting all the antibiotics, growth hormones, etc, that are given to farmed animals.  More and more studies are proving it to be the healthiest diet.  For example, Seventh Day Adventist communities in the US eat lots of nuts, seeds and legumes and enjoy wonderful health with minimal instances of obesity, heart attack, stroke and cancer.

Spread the word. 

* The UN commissioned an earlier study which came up with a lower figure but it didn't take into account the true number of livestock  or   any environmental effects.

Article by Mary Forbes, Nambucca Macleay Greens

 

A short animation from Animals Australia:

http://www.animalsaustralia.org/features/lets-talk-about-climate-change.php

The short version of "Cowspiracy":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSjE8xw_-Dg&t=23s