A Brief Note On Livestock 's Long Shadow : Environmental Issues And Options By The Livestock, Environment And Development Initiative

Climate change undoubtedly has a monumental effect on countries across the globe, It is becoming increasingly clear that it is the most important challenge facing international relations today. Agriculture and more specifically animal agriculture is one of the biggest contributors to human made climate change. This is important for international relations because animal agriculture effects trade, global food security and the global economy. With the population growing at a rapid pace the demand on animal agricuture is also rapidly increasing. This essay will discuss the consequences of the globes meat consumption and the challenge it poses to international relations. It will then go on to discuss the way the international community should address global food security while reducing the animal agriculture industries effect on the environment.

Animal agriculture is one of the largest contributors to climate change; however, this fact goes unacknowledged by most people. Livestock and their byproducts produce monstrous amounts

If that isn’t enough, the Amazon rainforest is being affected by beef production; four-fifths of the deforestation is due to cattle ranching (Scheer). This is because there needs to be room for the livestock to roam and crops to feed the animals. There isn’t enough space for humans and our livestock since reported by Suzanne Rice, writer for the Journal of Thought, “30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is... involved in livestock production” (Rice 118). 30 percent doesn’t leave us with much and it is no wonder we are deforesting these rainforests. However, although cattle seems to be the most detrimental livestock factor to the environmental problem, they are not alone.

By exploiting a president’s promise and several specific facts and comparing the emissions between car and animal cultivation, Freston raises her claim that calls for people should be worrying about their diet rather than their car. First, the author adopts an honest report from the United Nations: “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” (800). In this way, Freston makes her audiences believe that raising

This article discusses how the consumption and production of meat and dairy is one of leading causes of habitat destruction and quick action needs to be taken to preserve biodiversity. The article analyzes the meat-eating trends in tropical regions of America, Asia, and Africa. It concludes that meat production rates are rapidly increasing, underlying that a 30-50% increase in the land will be needed by 2050 if these patterns continue. Bushmeat consumption in Africa and livestock consumption in China are outlined as special concerns. The main solution proposed is reforming the livestock industry by reducing demand and waste, replacing ecologically inefficient protein sources with better alternatives such as plants or fish, and reintegrate modern livestock production

Climate change looms large over our rapidly growing and continually changing world. No longer are the adverse effects of this menacing global issue a mere ominous projections, they are starting to become a very concrete reality. Countries are today experiencing rising sea levels, which compromises coastal infrastructure, prolonged drought, squeezing food supply and agricultural productivity, as well as extreme storms. Rising temperatures have already led to vast reductions in the size of the Arctic. There is now no doubt amongst scientists that anthropogenic activity has been the primary catalyst to the

More land is being used to create farmlands instead of simply reusing older land. 26% of the land is used for livestock and 33% is used for growing the food needed for livestock ("10 Scary Facts About Meat and the Environment." Para 5). The land that is left unused is reducing at a rapid rate due to the expansion of agricultural land and with that, more of Earth’s forests are being cut down. Additionally, it takes more than nine time the fossil fuel to produce one calorie of meat than it does for one calorie of plant protein and 51% of global greenhouses gases are attributed to livestock ("10 Scary Facts About Meat and the Environment." Para 4). Even to produce meat, an immense number of crops are used. It takes almost 5 pounds of feed to produce just one pound of chicken. With the rate of depletion of land, crops, and environmental quality, there needs to be a change in the agricultural

Have you ever thought about what will happen if the beef production goes downhill and we are left with no beef to get proper protein? Many people are unaware of the occurrences happening to earth due to climate change. There are tons of issues that go unseen throughout the day on Earth that could be stopped or decreased. Some of these issues involve pollution, littering, negativity, and more. Not everyone lives in an area of the world that they can see the agricultural side every day. The people that can see the agricultural side every day, know that there are many ways that climate change can have an impact on livestock, especially cattle. There are other objects that can be impacted through climate change, cattle are just one of them. Climate

A few years ago, I read a Cornell study that changed my thoughts on what it meant to be environmentally responsible. To my dismay, I soon realized that the Cornell study was just one among many other studies which bear out the incontrovertible facts about animal agriculture and yet, even organizations like the Sierra Club seemed to tiptoe around the truth. Clearly, it is not for a lack of evidence that environmental groups fail to be forthright with the public but rather it is to protect their own bottom line and perhaps their viability that they pander to the middle and ignore the viability of the planet. Popular environmental groups expressly avoid the obvious answer to the problem of depleted resources because the solution is too unpleasant for their mainstream donors, Hence, the problem of animal agriculture simply waits on us like the sinkhole of humanity. The spokespersons for the environment attempt to be diplomatic as we circle around the drain. Nonetheless, here are a few of the facts I discovered: 1) The U.S. could feed 800 million people a year with grain that livestock eat. 2) Animal protein production requires more than eight times as much fossil-fuel energy than the production of plant protein 3) Animal agriculture is a leading consumer of water resources in the United States. 4) Livestock is directly or indirectly responsible for much of the

Various proposals exist to eliminate and/or reduce the impact animal agriculture entails on climate change. The report released by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations suggests alternatives to the various sectors to the livestock industry. They propose better efficiency so, “...a larger portion of the energy in the animals’ feed is directed toward the creation of useful products (milk, meat, draught power), so that methane emissions per unit product are reduced.” (qtd. in Shields 363). The Humane Society International also developed some solutions the overall population can contribute to reduce climate change issues in the environment. One suggestion is promoting a higher population of people with plant-based diets in order to reduce the environmental impact of greenhouse gas emissions. The Humane Society International also ties this suggestion to an overall improvement for not only animal welfare, but public heath too. (“The Impact of Animal Agriculture” n.p.).

Animal agriculture is connected to the crops through mixed farming systems. On these systems, farmers balance the number of animals with the number of nutrients the land is able to hold, from their manure (“HSI Fact Sheet: The Impact of Animal Agriculture on the Environment and Climate Change in Brazil” 2). The problem with this is that factory farms confine these animals on small land areas that are not proportional, resulting in the production of a large amount of manure that will be used on the surrounding land, causing damage to the environment.

Global meat production rose to a new peak of 308.5 million tons in 2013, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a more than fourfold increase over the last five decades. Even more startlingly, meat production has grown 25-fold since 1800 (Horrigan, Lawerence &Walker, 2002). Globally, agriculture utilizes nearly 70 per cent of the world 's available freshwater. One-third of that percentage is used to grow grains to feed to livestock (ECOS, 2014). While the global meat industry provides food and a livelihood for billions of people, it also has significant environmental and health consequences for the planet. Over half of the water used in meat production

The IPCC Status Report on Climate Change Summary for Policymakers is an assessment of the current scientific understanding of the impacts of climate

Introduction Babesia parasites are obligate intraerythrocytic protozoa capable of invading a wide range of vertebrate hosts, subsequently leading to serious economic problems for the livestock industry throughout tropical and subtropical regions of the world (Homer et al., 2000; Uilenberg, 2006). Bovine babesiosis is mainly caused by two species of bovine intraerythrocytic protozoan parasites, Babesia bovis and Babesia bigemina. Infected animals in an acute stage have symptoms of fever, anemia, hemoglobinuria, and sometimes resulting in death. In contrast, those in chronic stages may become chronic carriers without clinical signs. Human and rodent babesiosis caused by Babesia microti has emerged as a life-threatening zoonosis in the world (Kjemtrup and Conrad, 2000).

The methodology that the writer of this research project practiced is a desk-based study which requires gathering relevant data observations, as well as journal articles from specific documents and collective research findings in order to analyse the subject matter and arrive at a more thorough understanding and form a stronger conviction as to why environmental organisations, namely the UNFCCC, and more specifically the recent Paris agreement, have been constantly neglecting to shed a light on the livestock system which, apart from fossil fuel, is also a huge threat to drastic climate change; and, subsequently decipher if suggestive recommendations and reforms for policy and its implementation should be incorporated in the