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Global Warming And Global Warming

Decent Essays

“Animal agriculture is responsible for 14.5% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, more than the combined exhaust from all transportation” (Gerber, 2013), yet it remains an industry that lacks attention when it comes to solving the problem of GHG secretion. Animal agricultural practices contribute predominately methane, along with nitrous oxide (N2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. This impact on the make-up of the climate and how it functions will inevitably effect many livelihoods along with the survival of earth itself. Therefore, exploring how these gases are emitted, along with uncovering mechanisms to evolve the industry, lessening its emissions is essential.
A healthy balance of GHG’s is needed to stabilise the earth’s climate and regulate temperature. Due to human actions, there is becoming a dangerous amount of these gasses within the atmosphere. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change state, “GHG’s from human activities are the most significant driver of observed climate change since the mid-20th century”. These gasses can be categorised using a system called ‘global warming potential’(GWP), which essentially classifies GHG’s by how much heat they trap in the atmosphere over a certain period. One of the most harmful is methane (Drew, 2009). Methane inhabits the atmosphere for 12.4 years and has a GWP of 28-36 over 100 years (United States Environmental Protection Agency USEPA, 2017). As ruminants have complex digestive systems, to help break down

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