The Effects Of Animal Agriculture On The Environment

Cowspiracy Supporting Details: (use complete sentences): 1. Raising livestock produces 18% of greenhouse gasses, which is more than the emission of transportation, including all cars, buses, trains, and planes. 2. Animals produce nitrous oxide which is 296 times more likely to cause global warming then many other issues that are highlighted by society. 3. Many people are aware of the issues caused by livestock, however, they

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

Introduction (Attention Step): What do you think is the greatest cause of emission pollution? What do you believe is harming our planet? Well if you guessed that fossil fuel emissions are the biggest emission polluters, then you are completely wrong (attention getter). Animal Agriculture is actually the number one Greenhouse Gas emitter in the planet. Yes, cow farts are destroying the environment. It sounds crazy, but ever since the mid 60’s, agriculture associations have been spreading across the Americas and dominated the industry. The most destructive of all Ag corps are Livestock Corporation. These associations include IBP, Conagra, Perdue, Farmland National Beef, Cargill, etc … Animal Agriculture is effecting every single person in this room because we all breathe in the same air, drink the same water, and eat the same (credibility). The buildup of Animal Agriculture is a great destruction to our planet and our species because it is creating

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

It won’t come as a surprise to anyone that Americans like their meat. In fact, America produced 93 billion pounds of meat and poultry in 2012, which included some 32 million cattle. As many of us already know, agriculture has a significant impact on our environment in a variety of ways. In order to successfully rear livestock, slaughterhouses require large quantities of water, and emit plenty of greenhouse gases – methane and CO2 specially – during production.

The excess of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere have led to a dramatic rise in the climate and the hottest recorded years the Earth has seen. To be specific, “the 25 warmest years on record have come since 1980 [and] the 10 warmest since global recordkeeping began in 1880 have come since 1996, (p 56)” which is nothing to boast about, seeing as this is also the largest population and most technology the Earth has ever seen. Moreover, in lecture, we went over the amount of greenhouse gases created solely by livestock and how being a society dependent of livestock for food is very negative. Livestock emit about 68% of all agriculturally produced methane(lecture) and methane counts for approximately 18% of greenhouse gases (p 57). That is not to say that livestock do not create a large amount; in fact, human-caused methane emissions are almost solely from agriculture. To combat this, Dr. Wailes proposed that instead of basing our diet on water-heavy crops and methane-emitting animals, we switch to much more sustainable foods. One example of this would be to eat bugs. Bugs contain much more protein by the pound and do not eat alfalfa, which is what causes cows and other livestock to emit greenhouse gases into our atmosphere. Dr. Wailes also displayed a chart with three different “meals” which

Relevance: We all share the same planet, therefore, I believe it is vital to know the ways animal agriculture shapes our environment.

The profound effects of the livestock sector are amongst the top contributors to serious environmental problems at both a local and global scale (Bourgeois, 2012).

Animal Agriculture accounts for much of the issues in our environment today. Most would not think of animal agriculture being the main reason for pollution or greenhouse gasses. The majority of people would agree that the fossil fuels that come from cars are the number one producer for greenhouse gasses. Well think again. I am going to tell you how animal agriculture has affected our atmosphere in a negative way by emitting a large amount of GHGs, and in turn effecting our climate and speeding up the global warming process. Animal agriculture refers to an industrial livestock production, the management of farm animals such as cattle, poultry, and in some cases fish, are bred, fed and cared for in a way that is advantageous to humans, also known as factory farming. Animals behavior, genetic qualities and are altered to fit the mold of a human. This process requires a lot of energy, land and water.

According to the film, "Animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the combined exhaust from all transportation."  This means planes, trains, cars, and boats collectively still account for less pollution than animal agriculture. Surprisingly transportation exhaust only accounts for 13 percent. So

Many negative environmental impact from unsustainable farming practices include; Land conversion and habitat loss, Wasteful water consumption, and Soil erosion and degradation (“Environmental Impacts of Farming”).There are many different types of harmful gases are released into the atmosphere. Many of these gases are potent greenhouse gases, which contribute to environmental damage and climate change (“How Factory Farming Creates Air Pollution”) Scientists are still researching, but data shows factory farms create a mass production of manure that they toss into huge lagoons which goes up into the atmosphere. Over 37 percent of methane emissions result from factory farming. Methane has a global warming potential 20 times higher than carbon dioxide. The industrialized animal facilities have caused serious respiratory and cardiac disorders (“Pollution Water, Air, Chemicals”). Most factory farming has a negative effect on our environment, and will affect many forests, animal life, and soil. Many trees are going extinct because factory farms want to expand, and cut down the trees. Trees like the Hinton’s Oak is going extinct because of farmer’s selfishness, and pollution

One of their arguments was that animal agriculture is responsible for things that impact the environment through air pollution. They mentioned that animal agriculture is responsible for more than 18 percent of greenhouse has emissions, thats more than the combines exhaust from all transportation. To also back up their argument they mentioned that livestock and their byproducts accounts for at least 32,000 millions tons of carbon dioxide per year, or 51 percent of all worldwide greenhouse gas remission. All of the carbon dioxide also adds to the air pollution. Another argument they presented was that animal agriculture takes up a lot of our water. To help their argument they states that fracking water use ranges from 70-140 billion gallons annually and animal agriculture water consumption ranges from 34-76 trillion gallons annually. A lot of this water is used to grow feed crop. Growing feed crops for livestock consumes 56 percent of water in the US. These are just some of the facts “Cowspiracy” had mentioned in their video to help us better understand why we should choose a plant-based diet instead of a animal-based

The raising of cattle, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and more are the reason for most of the destruction of the environment on the planet. Over all farm land covers about 38% of the worlds land area. So humans can continue to eat meat millions of animals and insects are losing their homes and even going extinct so more farm

“Methane has been identified as a significant contributor to global warming. It is second to carbon dioxide in contribution to global warming and is said to be 15-20% of all greenhouse gas emissions.” (Yusuf, Noor, Abba, A. Hassan, & Din., 2012, p. 1). The majority of the greenhouse gases emitted in the agricultural sector came from livestock (Yusuf et al., 2012, p. 2). Studies have shown that “cows produce more greenhouse gases than the entire

Although many people assume the main cause of greenhouse gasses is the burning of fossil fuels, the main contributor is actually methane emissions produced by livestock. Animal agriculture produces 18% of the total