WHY GO MEATLESS?
With the world population exponentially increasing and the emergence of a middle class population in most countries, meat consumption and demand is higher than ever. Furthermore, living in an era where overconsumption is a widely spread trend encourages the development of massive production. However, meat overconsumption has extremely harmful impacts on the environment. This raises a question: what is the true cost of eating meat?
MEAT INDUSTRY: A FOREST KILLER
Meat production is one of the main reasons for massive deforestation of tropical rainforests. According to studies, 80% of the deforestation in Southern American countries is due to meat production. As the meat demand is increasing, so is the number of animals raised and fed in farms. To raise and feed cattle, huge parts of land are needed for pastures, but also to grow plants to feed the animals. According to the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, the land reserved for soya production in Brazil accounts for 24 to 25 million hectares. 80% of this production goes directly into the agriculture sector to feed the animals. Also, more than 95% of the entire oats production is used to feed livestock.
The easiest and cheapest way to find this space is to burn forests, causing the non-reversible degradation of soils, killing wildlife, and increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
CLIMATE CHANGE
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, livestock are responsible for 14.5% of greenhouse gases. Agriculture takes up an important part in producing carbon dioxyde (5%), methane (44%) and nitrous oxyde or laughing gas (53%), which is 300 times more harmful for the ozone than carbon dioxyde. Each year, cattle farming produces 7 billion tons of CO2.
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But where do these gases come from? According to the FAO:
41% is due to the production and processing of livestock feed
44% is due to ruminant animals (enteric fermentation)
10% is due to storage and treatment of manure
And the remaining is mainly due to transportation of produced meat
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But what is the link between greenhouse gases and climate change? The greenhouse effect allows the Earth to stay warm. The atmosphere plays a huge role in that process. During the day, the sun heats the Earth’s surface and at night, when the Earth’s surface cools down, heat is released back into the air. However the greenhouse gases present in the atmosphere capture the heat to keep Earth warm.
Human activity is releasing huge amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The increasing quantity of gases causes the atmosphere to keep more and more heat, causing global warming. The issue is that our environment is extremely sensitive to these changes. The climate becomes unstable, causing more storms, wildfires, etc. It also causes glaciers to melt and sea levels to rise. By disturbing the delicate equilibrium of Earth, climate change threatens our biodiversity.
Also, deforestation (especially in Amazonia) plays an important role in global warming. Indeed, through photosynthesis, plants have the ability to transform carbon dioxyde in oxygen, which allows to reduce the amount of carbon dioxyde in the atmosphere. Furthermore, plants store carbon to grow, so when cutting down trees, the carbon stored is released into the air as carbon dioxyde. Deforestation prevents rainforests from reducing the amount of carbon dioxyde in the atmosphere and releases even more of it. According to the joint study of Winrock International and Woods Hole Research Center, deforestation caused about 10% of all global warming emissions.
WATER WASTE ANDÂ POLLUTION
Breeding for meat’s consumption requires enormous quantities of water which is a scarce vital resource. Indeed, when eating meat on a regular basis, you consume around 15 000 litres of water per day. Producing one steak requires 50 bathtubs of water, which is 5 times more than for growing wheat. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition has also published that a vegetarian diet uses 14 times less water than a meat-eater’s diet. So overall, cereals and vegetables require less water, meanwhile they can feed us as well as animals can.
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The water used for feeding the slaughter animals also prevents a part of the population from having access to drinking water as it is not an unlimited resource. Indeed, breeding requires cows to drink 8 1/2 times more than the amount humans drink per day. Hence, our water footprint is reduced by 60% when we stop consuming meat.
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Another issue raised by breeding is that these animals produce massive quantities of waste, at least 10 times more than humans. A small quantity of this waste, the livestock manure, is beneficial for the soil as it improves its holding capacity and fertility. However, when too much manure is being produced, a part of it will be mismanaged and will end up in waterways, which leads to surface and groundwater pollution. Indeed, a high quantity of organic material promotes weed growth on surface water and overabundant algae. These plants need dissolved oxygen to survive, therefore reducing the quantity available for the survival of fish living inside the water. Furthermore, mammals and fowls can be contaminated by fecal coliform which is an intestinal bacteria. When the manure of these infected animals goes into the water, it can also contaminate the water itself and the living beings inside of it.
RISK OF FUTURE PANDEMICS
To produce meat, important quantities of pharmaceutical products are used. Two reasons justify the use of antibiotics during meat production:
The first one is to allow animals to survive the conditions of factory farms until being slaughtered. Indeed, a significant part of the meat we consume is produced in factory farms where living conditions for animals are despicable. This environment is ideal for the spread of diseases amongst animals.
The second reason is that antibiotics allow animals to grow faster with less food.
The issue is that this bacteria can develop resistance to antibiotics, and some of it, also known as superbugs, is transmissible to humans through different ways. Because of the massive use of antibiotics, the bacteria becomes extremely difficult to treat and can lead to pandemics.
Sources
http://www.fao.org/home/en/
https://www.peta.org.uk/blog/10-shocking-stats-about-water-and-meat-eating/
http://lshs.tamu.edu/docs/lshs/end-notes/surface%20water%20pollution%20from%20livestock%20production-2500205058/surface%20water%20pollution%20from%20livestock%20production.pdf
https://www.boell.de/sites/default/files/meat_atlas2014_kommentierbar.pdf
https://www.greenpeace.org.uk