Environmental vegetarianism

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All types of meat but especially lamb and beef generate several times more greenhouse gas emissions in their production than plant-based foods. Greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of food product.svg
All types of meat but especially lamb and beef generate several times more greenhouse gas emissions in their production than plant-based foods.

Environmental vegetarianism is the practice of vegetarianism that is motivated by the desire to create a sustainable diet, which avoids the negative environmental impact of meat production. Livestock as a whole is estimated to be responsible for around 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions. [2] [a] As a result, significant reduction in meat consumption has been advocated by, among others, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in their 2019 special report [3] and as part of the 2017 World Scientists' Warning to Humanity . [4] [5]

Contents

Other than climate change, the livestock industry is the primary driver behind biodiversity loss and deforestation and is significantly relevant to environmental concerns such as water and land use, pollution, and unsustainability. [6] [7] [8] [9]

Environmental impact of animal products

Box plot showing average GHG emissions for different food types and ranges Clune2016 food lca.svg
Box plot showing average GHG emissions for different food types and ranges

Four-fifths of agricultural emissions arise from the livestock sector. [10]

According to the 2006 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) report Livestock's Long Shadow , animal agriculture contributes on a "massive scale" to global warming, air pollution, land degradation, energy use, deforestation, and biodiversity decline. [11] The FAO report estimates that the livestock (including poultry) sector (which provides draft animal power, leather, wool, milk, eggs, fertilizer, pharmaceuticals, etc., in addition to meat) contributes about 18 percent of global GHG emissions expressed as 100-year CO2 equivalents. [b] This estimate was based on life-cycle analysis, including feed production, land use changes, etc., and used GWP (global warming potential) of 23 for methane and 296 for nitrous oxide, to convert emissions of these gases to 100-year CO2 equivalents. The FAO report concluded that "the livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global". [11] The report found that livestock's contribution to greenhouse gas emissions was greater than that of the global transportation sector.

A 2009 study by the Worldwatch Institute argued that the FAO's report had underestimated impacts related to methane, land use and respiration, placing livestock at 51% of total global emissions. [12]

Average greenhouse gas emissions per diet

Mean greenhouse gas emissions per 2,000 kcal by diet type [13]
DietMean dietary emissions

(In kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents)

All meat-eaters
5.93
High meat-eaters ( ≥ 100 g/day)
7.19
Medium meat-eaters (50–99 g/day)
5.63
Low meat-eaters ( < 50 g/day)
4.67
Fish-eaters
3.91
Vegetarians
3.81
Vegans
2.89

Pesticide use

According to a 2022 report from World Animal Protection and the Center for Biological Diversity around 235 million pounds of pesticides are used for animal feed purposes annually in the United States alone, which threatens thousands of endangered species of plants and animals. Rather than arguing for biological agriculture, the report argues consumers should reduce their consumption of animal products and to transition towards plant-based diets in order to hinder the growth of factory farming and protect endangered species of wildlife. [14]

Land use

The amount of globally needed agricultural land would be reduced by almost half if no beef or mutton would be eaten. Land-use-of-different-diets-Poore-Nemecek.png
The amount of globally needed agricultural land would be reduced by almost half if no beef or mutton would be eaten.

A 2003 paper published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition , after calculating effects on energy, land, and water use, concluded that meat-based diets require more resources and are less sustainable than lacto-ovo vegetarian diets. [16] "The water required for a meat-eating diet is twice as much needed for a 2,000-litre-a-day vegetarian diet". [17]

Water

Animal production has a large impact on water pollution and usage. According to the Water Education Foundation, it takes 2,464 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef in California, whereas it takes only 25 gallons of water to produce one pound of wheat. [18] Raising a large amount of livestock creates a massive amount of manure and urine, which can pollute natural resources by changing the pH of water, contaminates the air, and emits a major amount of gas that directly affects global warming. As most livestock are raised in small confined spaces to cut down on cost, this increases the problem of concentrated waste. Livestock in the United States produces 2.7 trillion pounds of manure each year, which is ten times more than what is produced by the entire U.S. population. There are issues with how animal waste is disposed, as some is used as fertilizer while some farmers create manure lagoons which store millions of gallons of animal waste which is extremely unsafe and detrimental to the environment. [18]

Relation to other arguments

Massive reductions in meat consumption in industrial nations will ease the health care burden while improving public health; declining livestock herds will take pressure off rangelands and grainlands, allowing the agricultural resource base to rejuvenate. As populations grow, lowering meat consumption worldwide will allow more efficient use of declining per capita land and water resources, while at the same time making grain more affordable to the world's chronically hungry. [19]

Worldwatch Institute, an independent environmental research institute

Although motivations frequently overlap, environmental vegetarians and vegans can be contrasted with those who are primarily motivated by concerns about animal welfare (one kind of ethical vegetarianism), health, or who avoid meat to save money or out of necessity (economic vegetarianism). [20] [21] Some also believe vegetarianism will improve global food security, or curb starvation.

Health

A small list of the benefits of a vegan/vegetarian diet on ones health Veganism health.png
A small list of the benefits of a vegan/vegetarian diet on ones health

A 2018 report published in PNAS asserted that farmers in the United States could sustain more than twice as many people than they do currently if they abandoned rearing farm animals for human consumption and instead focused on growing plants. [22]

For developed countries, a CAST report estimates an average of 2.6 pounds of grain feed per pound of beef carcass meat produced. For developing countries, the estimate is 0.3 pounds per pound. (Some very dissimilar figures are sometimes seen; the CAST report discusses common sources of error and discrepancies among such figures.) [23] In 2007, US per capita beef consumption was 62.2 pounds per year, and US per capita meat (red meat plus fish plus poultry) consumption totaled 200.7 pounds (boneless trimmed weight basis). [24]

Support

People in developed countries consume a substantially larger proportion of meat than those in developing countries. Sources of dietary energy-consumtion (%25) 2001-2003 (FAO).svg
People in developed countries consume a substantially larger proportion of meat than those in developing countries.

Globalization and modernization has resulted in Western consumer cultures spreading to countries like China and India, including meat-intensive diets which are supplanting traditional plant-based diets. Around 166 to more than 200 billion land and aquatic animals are consumed by a global population of over 7 billion annually, which philosopher and animal rights activist Steven Best argues is "completely unsustainable". [26] [27] A 2018 study published in Science states that meat consumption is set to increase by some 76% by 2050 as the result of human population growth and rising affluence, which will increase greenhouse gas emissions and further reduce biodiversity. [28] [29]

A 2018 report in Nature found that a significant reduction in meat consumption is necessary to mitigate climate change, especially as the population rises to a projected 10 billion in the coming decades. [30] According to a 2019 report in The Lancet , global meat consumption needs to be reduced by 50 percent to mitigate for climate change. [31]

In November 2017, 15,364 world scientists signed a Warning to Humanity calling for, among other things, drastically diminishing our per capita consumption of meat. [32]

In November 2019, a warning on the "climate emergency" from over 11,000 scientists from over 100 countries said that "eating mostly plant-based foods while reducing the global consumption of animal products, especially ruminant livestock, can improve human health and significantly lower GHG emissions (including methane in the “Short-lived pollutants” step)." The warning also says it this will "free up croplands for growing much-needed human plant food instead of livestock feed, while releasing some grazing land to support natural climate solutions." [33] [34]

A 2020 study by researchers from the University of Michigan and Tulane University, which was commissioned by the Center for Biological Diversity, asserts that if the U.S. cut its meat consumption by half, it could result in diet-related GHG emissions being reduced by 35%, a decline of 1.6 billion tons. [35]

A 2019 correction to a major 2018 study in Science of food's impact on the environment found that, after the negative emissions of land use change were accounted for, eliminating animal products from the food system would reduce total global greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors by 28%. [7] [36]

A 2018 study found that global adoption of plant-based diets would reduce agricultural land use by 76% (3.1 billion hectares, an area the size of Africa) and cut total global greenhouse gas emissions by 28%. Half of this emissions reduction came from avoided emissions from animal production including methane and nitrous oxide, and half from trees re-growing on abandoned farmlands that remove carbon dioxide from the air. [37] [38] The authors conclude that avoiding meat and dairy is the "single biggest way" to reduce one's impact on Earth. [39]

The 2019 IPBES Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services found that industrial agriculture and overfishing are the primary drivers of the extinction crisis, with the meat and dairy industries having a substantial impact. [40] [41] On 8 August 2019, the IPCC released a summary of the 2019 special report which asserted that a shift towards plant-based diets would help to mitigate and adapt to climate change. [42]

A 2022 study found that for high-income nations alone 100 billion tons of carbon dioxide could be removed from the air by the end of the century through a shift to plant-based diets and re-wilding of farmlands. The researchers coined the term double climate dividend to describe the effect that re-wilding after a diet shift can have. [43] [44] But they note: "We don't have to be purist about this, even just cutting animal intake would be helpful. If half of the public in richer regions cut half the animal products in their diets, you're still talking about a massive opportunity in environmental outcomes and public health". [45]

A 2023 study published in Nature Food found that a vegan diet vastly decreases the impact on the environment from food production, such as reducing emissions, water pollution and land use by 75%, reducing the destruction of wildlife by 66% and the usage of water by 54%. [46]

Criticism

In 2015, researches from Carnegie Mellon University claimed that environmental vegetarianism appears more harmful than helpful to our environment. Environmental vegetarianism actually takes more environmental costs, environmentally and financially, which backfires. Paul Fischbeck, Michelle Tom, and Chris Hendrickson, researchers in civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, investigated the impact of America's obesity crisis on the environment by analyzing the food supply chain's resource usage. The study offers a nuanced exploration into the environmental impact of dietary choices, specifically contrasting the perceived benefits of vegetarian and USDA-recommended "healthier" diets against their ecological footprints. The research underscores that while reducing overall calorie intake can decrease the environmental burden by around 9%, opting for diets heavy in fruits, vegetables, dairy, and seafood significantly increases resource demands—leading to a 38% rise in energy consumption, a 10% increase in water use, and a 6% uptick in greenhouse gas emissions. [47]

In 2019, Loma Linda University School of Public Health published a research article which outlined that while, generally, vegetarian diet is more environmentally sustainable than omnivorous diet, its environmental benefits heavily depend on the specific foods included in the diet. [48] This way, if beef is replaced by a larger quantity of dairy, the environmental benefit of such a switch may be close to zero. [49] Similarly, if the vegetarian diet includes out-of-season fruits or vegetables cultivated in high-energy-consumption greenhouses, the GHG emissions offset could ultimately be reversed. [50]

Evidence suggests that intensive livestock farming is a poor solution to world hunger, given its impact on personal health and the environment, but intensive industrialised farming of soya, maize and grains comes at a significant carbon cost, too – as does flying in the ingredients to keep berries and nut butters on acai bowls or avocado on toast. [51]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ This is in line with the FAO's earlier estimate of 18%, published in Livestock's Long Shadow in 2006. They caution that "the two figures cannot be accurately compared, as reference periods and sources differ."
  2. ↑ This is in line with the FAO's more recent figure of 14.5 percent. They caution that "the two figures cannot be accurately compared, as reference periods and sources differ." [2]

References

  1. ↑ Stephen Clune; Enda Crossin; Karli Verghese (1 January 2017). "Systematic review of greenhouse gas emissions for different fresh food categories" (PDF). Journal of Cleaner Production. 140 (2): 766–783. Bibcode:2017JCPro.140..766C. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.04.082.
  2. 1 2 "Key facts and findings". Food and Agriculture Organization. Archived from the original on 4 June 2021. Retrieved 29 April 2019.
  3. ↑ Schiermeier, Quirin (8 August 2019). "Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet". Nature . Retrieved 10 August 2019.
  4. ↑ "Climate change food calculator: What's your diet's carbon footprint?". 13 December 2018. Retrieved 30 April 2019.
  5. ↑ Ripple WJ, Wolf C, Newsome TM, Galetti M, Alamgir M, Crist E, Mahmoud MI, Laurance WF (13 November 2017). "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice". BioScience . 67 (12): 1026–1028. doi: 10.1093/biosci/bix125 . hdl: 11336/71342 .
  6. ↑ Carrington, Damian (3 February 2021). "Plant-based diets crucial to saving global wildlife, says report". The Guardian . Retrieved 18 November 2021.
  7. 1 2 Nemecek, T.; Poore, J. (2018). "Reducing food's environmental impacts through producers and consumers". Science. 360 (6392): 987–992. Bibcode:2018Sci...360..987P. doi: 10.1126/science.aaq0216 . ISSN   0036-8075. PMID   29853680.
  8. ↑ Bittman, Mark (27 January 2008). "Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 November 2017– via www.nytimes.com.
  9. ↑ Carrington, Damian (10 October 2018). "Huge reduction in meat-eating 'essential' to avoid climate breakdown". The Guardian . Retrieved 30 April 2019.
  10. ↑ Friel, Sharon (2009). "Public health benefits of strategies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions: food and agriculture". The Lancet. 374 (9706): 2016–2025. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61753-0. PMID   19942280. S2CID   6318195.
  11. 1 2 Steinfeld, Henning; Gerber, Pierre; Wassenaar, Tom; Castel, Vincent; Rosales, Mauricio; de Haan, Cees (2006), Livestock's Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options (PDF), Rome: FAO
  12. ↑ "Study claims meat creates half of all greenhouse gases". Independent.co.uk . 1 November 2009.
  13. ↑ Scarborough, Peter; Appleby, Paul N.; Mizdrak, Anja; Briggs, Adam D. M.; Travis, Ruth C.; Bradbury, Kathryn E.; Key, Timothy J. (2014). "Dietary greenhouse gas emissions of meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians and vegans in the UK". Climatic Change. 125 (2): 179–192. Bibcode:2014ClCh..125..179S. doi:10.1007/s10584-014-1169-1. ISSN   0165-0009. PMC   4372775 . PMID   25834298.
  14. ↑ Boyle, Louise (22 February 2022). "US meat industry using 235m pounds of pesticides a year, threatening thousands of at-risk species, study finds". The Independent . Retrieved 28 February 2022.
  15. ↑ Carrington, Damian (31 May 2018). "Avoiding meat and dairy is 'single biggest way' to reduce your impact on Earth". The Guardian . Retrieved 21 December 2021.
  16. ↑ Pimentel, David; Pimentel, Marcia (1 September 2003). "Sustainability of meat-based and plant-based diets and the environment". The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 78 (3): 660S –663S. doi: 10.1093/ajcn/78.3.660s . PMID   12936963.
  17. ↑ "Solution for the world's water woes: Rising populations and growing demand is making the world a thirsty planet; the solution lies in people reducing the size of their "water footprints" - Water Education Foundation". www.watereducation.org. Retrieved 3 April 2017.
  18. 1 2 admin (4 April 2007). "The Environmental Impact of a Meat-Based Diet". Vegetarian Times. Retrieved 3 April 2017.
  19. ↑ United States Leads World Meat Stampede | Worldwatch Institute Archived May 17, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  20. ↑ Nuwer, Rachel. "What would happen if the world suddenly went vegetarian?". www.bbc.com. BBC . Retrieved 30 April 2019.
  21. ↑ Katherine Manning. "Eat Better and Improve Your Health For Less Money". Archived from the original on 14 November 2012. Retrieved 10 February 2013.
  22. ↑ Kaplan, Karen (26 March 2018). "By going vegan, America could feed an additional 390 million people, study suggests". Los Angeles Times . Archived from the original on 30 March 2018. Retrieved 29 March 2018. If U.S. farmers took all the land currently devoted to raising cattle, pigs and chickens and used it to grow plants instead, they could sustain more than twice as many people as they do now, according to a report published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
  23. ↑ Bradford, E. et al. 1999. Animal Agriculture and Global Food Supply. Council on Agricultural Science and Technology. 92 pp.
  24. ↑ USDA. 2010. Agricultural Statistics 2010, Table 13-7
  25. ↑ "FAOSTAT" (PDF). faostat.fao.org.
  26. ↑ Best, Steven (2014). "Rethinking Revolution: Veganism, Animal Liberation, Ecology, and the Left". The Politics of Total Liberation: Revolution for the 21st Century. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 97. doi:10.1057/9781137440723_4. ISBN   978-1137471116.
  27. ↑ Benatar, David (2015). "The Misanthropic Argument for Anti-natalism". In S. Hannan; S. Brennan; R. Vernon (eds.). Permissible Progeny?: The Morality of Procreation and Parenting. Oxford University Press. p. 44. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199378111.003.0002. ISBN   978-0199378128.
  28. ↑ Devlin, Hannah (19 July 2018). "Rising global meat consumption 'will devastate environment'". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 September 2019.
  29. ↑ Godfray, H. Charles J.; Aveyard, Paul; et al. (2018). "Meat consumption, health, and the environment". Science. 361 (6399). Bibcode:2018Sci...361M5324G. doi: 10.1126/science.aam5324 . PMID   30026199. S2CID   49895246.
  30. ↑ Achenbach, Joel (10 October 2018). "Earth's population is skyrocketing. How do you feed 10 billion people sustainably?". The Washington Post . Retrieved 16 October 2018.
  31. ↑ Gibbens, Sarah (16 January 2019). "Eating meat has 'dire' consequences for the planet, says report". National Geographic . Archived from the original on 17 January 2019. Retrieved 21 January 2019.
  32. ↑ Ripple WJ, Wolf C, Newsome TM, Galetti M, Alamgir M, Crist E, Mahmoud MI, Laurance WF (13 November 2017). "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice". BioScience . 67 (12): 1026–1028. doi: 10.1093/biosci/bix125 . hdl: 11336/71342 .
  33. ↑ Ripple, William J.; Wolf, Christopher; Newsome, Thomas M; Barnard, Phoebe; Moomaw, William R (5 November 2019). "World Scientists' Warning of a Climate Emergency". BioScience . doi:10.1093/biosci/biz088. hdl: 1808/30278 . Retrieved 8 November 2019.
  34. ↑ Carrington, Damian (5 November 2019). "Climate crisis: 11,000 scientists warn of 'untold suffering'". The Guardian . Retrieved 8 November 2019.
  35. ↑ Germanos, Andrea (30 April 2020). "Slashing US Meat Consumption by Half Could Cut Diet-Related Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 35%: Study". Common Dreams . Retrieved 8 May 2020.
  36. ↑ Poore, J.; Nemecek, T. (22 February 2019). "Erratum for the Research Article "Reducing food's environmental impacts through producers and consumers" by J. Poore and T. Nemecek". Science. 363 (6429). doi: 10.1126/science.aaw9908 . PMID   30792276.
  37. ↑ Poore, J.; Nemecek, T. (1 June 2018). "Reducing food's environmental impacts through producers and consumers". Science. 360 (6392): 987–992. Bibcode:2018Sci...360..987P. doi: 10.1126/science.aaq0216 . PMID   29853680.
  38. ↑ Carrington, Damian (31 May 2018). "Avoiding meat and dairy is 'single biggest way' to reduce your impact on Earth". The Guardian . Retrieved 12 March 2019. A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use. It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car
  39. ↑ "Indian Vegan Society". Indian Vegan Society. 27 November 2014. Retrieved 22 August 2021. A vegan always tries to avoid any cruelty and undue exploitation of all animals including humans and protect the environment.
  40. ↑ McGrath, Matt (6 May 2019). "Humans 'threaten 1m species with extinction'". BBC . Retrieved 3 July 2019. Pushing all this forward, though, are increased demands for food from a growing global population and specifically our growing appetite for meat and fish.
  41. ↑ Watts, Jonathan (6 May 2019). "Human society under urgent threat from loss of Earth's natural life". The Guardian . Retrieved 3 July 2019. Agriculture and fishing are the primary causes of the deterioration. Food production has increased dramatically since the 1970s, which has helped feed a growing global population and generated jobs and economic growth. But this has come at a high cost. The meat industry has a particularly heavy impact. Grazing areas for cattle account for about 25% of the world's ice-free land and more than 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
  42. ↑ Schiermeier, Quirin (8 August 2019). "Eat less meat: UN climate-change report calls for change to human diet". Nature. 572 (7769): 291–292. Bibcode:2019Natur.572..291S. doi:10.1038/d41586-019-02409-7. PMID   31409926. S2CID   199543066.
  43. ↑ "Veg diet plus re-wilding gives 'double climate dividend'". BBC News. 10 January 2022. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
  44. ↑ Sun, Zhongxiao; Scherer, Laura; Tukker, Arnold; Spawn-Lee, Seth A.; Bruckner, Martin; Gibbs, Holly K.; Behrens, Paul (January 2022). "Dietary change in high-income nations alone can lead to substantial double climate dividend". Nature Food. 3 (1): 29–37. doi:10.1038/s43016-021-00431-5. ISSN   2662-1355. PMID   37118487. S2CID   245867412.
  45. ↑ "How plant-based diets not only reduce our carbon footprint, but also increase carbon capture". Leiden University. 10 January 2022. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
  46. ↑ Carrington, Damian (20 July 2023). "Vegan diet massively cuts environmental damage, study shows". The Guardian . Retrieved 20 July 2023.
  47. ↑ University, Carnegie Mellon (14 December 2015). "Vegetarian and "Healthy" Diets Could Be More Harmful to the Environment - News - Carnegie Mellon University". www.cmu.edu. Retrieved 1 April 2024.
  48. ↑ Fresán, Ujué; Sabaté, Joan (November 2019). "Vegetarian Diets: Planetary Health and Its Alignment with Human Health". Advances in Nutrition. 10 (Suppl 4): S380 –S388. doi:10.1093/advances/nmz019. ISSN   2161-8313. PMC   6855976 . PMID   31728487.
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