Environmental Implications Of Animal Agriculture

One of the biggest controversies with livestock production is that the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that get released into the atmosphere. Its assumed that cars produce most if not all the greenhouse gas emissions however livestock has a big say in air pollution. According to Cassandra Brooks, writer for the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, 18 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions are due to livestock production. This is nearly 20% and can be greatly reduced if people reduced their demand for meat. The Environmental Working Group used a tangible variable for Americans stating “if everyone in the U.S. ate no meat or cheese just one day a week, it would be like not driving 91 billion miles – or taking 7.6 million

Every year, an average American will consume approximately one hundred-twenty six pounds of meat. This meat can be traced back to factory farms where the animals are kept to be tortured to turn into a product for the appetite of humans. The terrible treatment these animals are forced to endure is the outcome of the greed and want for a faster production of their product. The industry of factory farming works to maximize the output of the meat while maintaining low costs,but will sadly always comes at the animals’ expense.

Everybody loves meat. From steak to pork chops, it’s all good, just not good for you. In the past few decades, as our population has increased exponentially, so has our demand for food. Because of this, we have changed in the way we get our food. The way that the food is produced has changed and because of this the health risks increased and the environment is also affected. People need to know that there are consequences.

Attention getter: According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United States, animal agriculture is a leading source of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane emissions, the top three greenhouse gasses (FAO, 2006).

The quantity of meat Americans consume and the way the animals are farmed in the U.S. has changed over the last half century resulting in major impacts on the environment. These effects are largely a result of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations which are also known as “CAFOs” or “factory farms” in abbreviated terms (McCorkell 2009). Animal agriculture is responsible for much of the damage to land, biodiversity, consumption of drinkable water, and contributions to global warming in the United States. For years, its impacts have only become more extreme. Over the years, a few options for solutions have been brought to light involving efforts of reducing the demand for animal products, grass-feeding livestock, and passing stricter

Although many researchers believe that our planet’s environment and ecosystems are facing many challenges due to livestock production, proponents of livestock production believe that the reason why the our environmental condition has worsened is not that we eat more meat — but because we eat less of it. Niman argues that instead of decreasing production, we should focus on producing meat that is more environmentally sound. She also argues that “Feed production—with all its attendant problems of fossil fuel consumption, soil erosion, greenhouse gases, and chemical pollution—can be avoided altogether” (Niman, 79). In “Defending Beef”, she explicitly criticises the FAO’s “Livestock’s Long Shadow” and questions certain statements

Last week, Shawn Archibeque spoke to the class and presented an optimistic perspective of the meat industry. I learned about the meat industry in the past, but this was the first time that I had heard someone defending the meat industry. It was very refreshing to hear about the different perspectives in the meat industry. Listening to Shawn in class and writing this paper, I realized that this is a very controversial topic and that there is no easy solution to feed everyone and limit the damages to the planet. Concentrated animal feeding operations, also known as CAFOs, a large scale & high density animal raising facility with the purpose of obtaining produce (Hribar & Schultz, 2010). Shawn, the guest speaker explained that the toxicity of everything depends on its concentration. If there was a lot of animals contained in a confined space, there would be a chance that the environment would become toxic.

Global warming is not seen as big problem in our culture today. In fact, around 1.6 billion people still don’t think climate change or global warming is even a thing. Animal agriculture has correlation with the highest sea level rise ever recorded in history along with, warming oceans, spiking global temperatures, declining arctic sea ice, shrinking ice sheets, ocean acidification and decreased snow cover every year. It only continues to get worse. The problem with this is that worldwide, 61% of the greenhouse gases produced on earth is from animal agriculture. The next closest being 18% due to fossil fuels (Climate Change Indicators in the United States). The answer is plain and simple, there needs to be regulations put on all meats to limit the amount produced year. Scientists believe that if people produced just enough or even a little more than we need for a meat diet, instead of producing 10 billion, producing 7.5 billion, the greenhouse gas from animal agriculture would be 26% less than it is currently. There needs to be a change in the way life is right now, because if the numbers keep increases the way they are, the earth will be like one big Chernobyl, poisoned by pure Co2. However, humanity has always found a way to survive, and this task ahead will prove to

Environmentalist view animal agriculture as a major threat to the Earth and the population that fills it. Animal agriculture has caused mass extinction of species, the melting of Arctic sea, and the collapse of the world fisheries. According to many environmentalist, the earth is currently facing the greatest mass extinction of all in history roughly a thousand times greater than ever before. For example, the Earth has lost more plant and animal species in today's time compared to the period of the dinosaur extinction. Due to the constant increase of animal agriculture causing desertification and deforestation is leading to the increase of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere and predominantly the unnatural change in the climate. In the

The cattle industry produces vast amounts of strain in the environment. It is energy inefficient, pollutes water, occupies many acres of land, and deteriorates the health of the people who abuse its consumption. The government subsidizes this industry. Therefore, the price paid for meat doesn’t reflect the environmental hazards involved in the process. In order to protect our health and the health of the environment we should pay close attention to our food choices and make sure we don’t support industries that degrade it.

Livestock and their byproducts account for at least 32,000 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year, or 51% of all worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. As human population grows, so does food consumption and the problem is obvious. How do we feed the world without destroying it? There are many solutions such as; drip irrigation, precision agriculture, greywater recycling, and so much more. The problem is that for these to make any sort of impact on our current situation we would need an immediate change and complete participation. By getting rid of animal agriculture we would see improvements in water conservation, world hunger, and climate change. Animal agriculture is the leading cause of species extinction, water pollution, and habitat destruction and that is why smarter diets would be not only be the best solution for our problem, but also the most effective

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

Every five years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture updates the American government’s dietary guidelines. These guidelines advise Americans about what is healthy for humans to eat, but in 2015, for the first time, these guidelines named “The Sustainable Power Plate” also reflect what is healthy for the global environment as well by suggesting eating meat in moderation, if at all. The evidence of rapid climate change: rising and warming oceans, global temperature rise, shrinking ice sheets and glacial retreat suggest that the current warming trend is evolving at an unheard of rate, faster than it’s been in about 1300 years.[8] Human activity is likely responsible for the Earth’s change, and within that, livestock production. The livestock industry is a major contributor to the degradation of the environment, as well as being an industry that demands many natural resources, forcing humans to compete with farm animals for food.

Consumption of meat by humans creates several problems. First and foremost, raising animals for food compromises the environment. For example, it takes a large amount of natural resources to sustain the meat industry. The use of water, land, and food to raise animals for human consumption is not an efficient use of our limited resources. In contrast, it is more efficient to feed humans directly than to use land, food, and water to feed animals to be used as food. There are shortages of fertile land, clean water, and food in several third world countries. Many of these countries’ resources are allocated to produce feed for animals in developed countries around the world. As a result, the citizens of these countries are stricken with water and food shortages, while their crops are feeding cattle from across the globe. However, this problem can be solved by adopting a vegan diet. The vegan diet will allow a more efficient use of resources that in turn can be used to feed starving men, women, and children throughout the world. Consequently, more people in the world could be fed if the land used to grow feed for animals was used to grow food for humans.

One major issue caused by the animal agriculture industry is greenhouse gas emissions. According to Michael Jacobson, who is the executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, “When it comes to global warming, methane is 23 times as potent as an equal amount of carbon dioxide.” In the United States, about 19 percent of all