Did you know that our food choices play a major role in climate change?
While a wholly plant-based diet is optimal for combatting climate change, research shows that even small changes to our diets can make big differences.
Now, even the most avid meat eaters are being presented with plant-based (vegan) alternatives that mimic the taste and texture of animal flesh, without the associated massive loss of life and wilderness.
Why Do People Decide Not to Eat Meat?
While many people have opted to go vegan out of their love for animals, or for the health benefits that come from a plant-based diet, the impact of the switch from the perspective of climate change is enormous. And best of all, the power to make that change is entirely in your hands (or belly)...
We are all animals of this planet. We are all creatures. And nonhuman animals experience pain sensations just like we do. They too are strong, intelligent, industrious, mobile, and evolutional. They too are capable of growth and adaptation. Like us, firsthand foremost, they are earthlings. And like us, they are surviving. Like us they also seek their own comfort rather than discomfort. And like us they express degrees of emotion. In short like us, they are alive.
—JOAQUIN PHOENIX
How Animal Agriculture Contributes to the Climate Crisis
Feeding massive amounts of grain and water to farmed animals and then killing them and processing, transporting, and storing their flesh is extremely energy-intensive. And forests—which absorb greenhouse gases—are cut down in order to supply pastureland and grow crops for farmed animals. Finally, the animals themselves and all the manure that they produce release even more greenhouse gases into our atmosphere.
Greenhouse-Gas Emissions
Carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide are all powerful greenhouse gases, and together, they cause the vast majority of climate change.
Carbon Dioxide
Burning fossil fuels (such as oil and gasoline) releases carbon dioxide. Since it takes, on average, about 11 times as much fossil fuel to produce a calorie of animal protein as it does to produce a calorie of grain protein, considerably more carbon dioxide is released. Researchers acknowledge that “it is more ‘climate efficient’ to produce protein from vegetable sources than from animal sources.”
Chatham House, an international affairs think tank, has called for a carbon tax on meat to help combat the climate crisis. Of course, eating vegan foods rather than animal-based ones is the best way to reduce your carbon footprint. A University of Chicago study even showed that you can reduce your carbon footprint more effectively by going vegan than by switching from a conventional car to a hybrid.
Methane
The billions of animals who are crammed onto U.S. factory farms each year produce enormous amounts of methane. Ruminants—such as cows, sheep, and goats—produce the gas while they digest their food, and it’s also emitted from the acres of cesspools filled with the feces that pigs, cows, and other animals on these farms excrete. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has shown that animal agriculture is globally the single largest source of methane emissions and that, pound for pound, methane is more than 25 times as effective as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in our atmosphere.
According to Vasile Stanescu, a scholar at Mercer University, animals raised by “organic” methods emit even more methane than animals on factory farms do. He believes that so-called “free-range” or “pasture-raised” animals are “significantly worse” in terms of greenhouse-gas emissions.
Nitrous Oxide
Nitrous oxide is about 300 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. According to the U.N., the meat, egg, and dairy industries account for an astonishing 65 percent of worldwide nitrous-oxide emissions. (Use the N-Calculator to calculate your nitrogen footprint and to see how you can lower your nitrogen usage.)
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