A better world is possible - Global Commons Institute

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Copyright Bruce Nixon 2010. All rights reserved. This electronic copy is provided free for personal, non-commercial use only. www.brucenixon.com Using animals to produce food is extremely uneconomical since food animals require large amounts of plant foods to live and grow. It is a poor investment one - we get back as little as 5% of what we put in. In environmental terms, this is an enormous waste of resources - fossil fuels, fertilizers, cleared land, all with their own greenhouse impact - are required for grazing or feed-crops. Instead, growing plant foods for direct human consumption - although this has its own environmental impact - would require much less of everything to feed the same human population. Excess meat consumption is a major source of Western ill health such as heart disease – and, because it takes precedence over local food production, Third World poverty and hunger. T he impact of livestock on global warming, whether from their digestion, manure, respiration, or crops required for their feed, lies in the sheer number of them. As 6.7bn billion human beings, and rising, increasingly demand animal products, the global livestock population soars. In 2004, the global livestock population numbered over 22bn - more than 3 ½ times the human population of the planet - of which the overwhelming majority were animals bred primarily for food. The number grows each year by an average of around 3% - or 550m animals. A diet rich in meat is unsustainable. Farmed animals produce 18 % of world greenhouse gases, including 37% of world methane. Meat and dairy products make up a third of humanity’s intake of protein. Only 5- 25% of the nutrients going into producing meat are converted into edible meat making it the most inefficient way of providing protein. Of all meats, beef is the least sustainable. Red meat production emits 2.5 times as much CO2 as chicken. The methane and the nitrous oxide released from manure are worse still – see the chart below. The amount of CO2 involved depends on how the animals are reared. Cattle feed is far more polluting than natural pasture. Plans for giant cattle farms appear not to take all this into account. Livestock contribute more to global warming than transport, according to the UN Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) “Livestock’s long shadow: Environmental issues and options”. Its impact includes emissions directly from animals, as well indirect. Global warming is caused by three main "greenhouse" gases - carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, each with different greenhouse potency. By international convention, the impact of all gases in measured in "CO2 equivalent" to allow the overall impact on the environment to be compared. Livestock’s contribution to global warming Carbon dioxide: Animal farming indirectly contributes carbon dioxide through deforestation for pasture and feed-crop land, and burning of fossil fuels for feed production, farm and slaughterhouse operations, manure management, cold transportation and refrigeration. Livestock also directly produce carbon dioxide by respiration. Methane: Methane (a greenhouse gas 23 times more effective at warming the globe than CO2) is produced by farm animal manure. It is also produced by the enteric fermentation (belching and flatulence) of cattle, sheep and other ruminants. Nitrous oxide: Livestock activities contribute nitrous oxide (a greenhouse gas 296 times more potent than CO2) mainly through manure, nitrogen fertilizer production and nitrogen fertilizer application. Large scale livestock production also contributes to the destruction of biodiversity, loss of species, fish stocks and forests, land degradation, erosion, river pollution, water shortages and to poverty, by taking land from 42
Copyright Bruce Nixon 2010. All rights reserved. This electronic copy is provided free for personal, non-commercial use only. www.brucenixon.com poor people. Methane emissions, mainly coming from cattle and refuse dumps, are rising. On a positive note, these can be exploited for producing heat and power and growing tender vegetables as is being done beside a sugar factory in Norfolk. Eating less meat and consuming less milk and dairy products, or going further and changing to a vegetarian diet, is probably one of the most effective things anyone can do to halt climate change. Calculating how much CO2 is involved in different purchase options is complex. That is true for choosing what fish to buy. Fish farms can be particularly destructive. Shrimp farms have destroyed 30% of the world’s mangrove swamps many of which are vital to prevent flooding of low lying areas. We simply have to do our best to keep well informed about these issues and make informed choices. New Scientist, Dinner’s dirty secret, 10 September 2008, provides an excellent source for this complex subject. It says the only sure option is to become vegetarian! Organically grown crops have a much smaller carbon footprint. So, as a general rule, going vegetarian or organic will help most. Growing your own and buying local, fresh produce and eating in season will help further and be healthier. Another option is to shift from red meat and eat occasional chicken, eggs and fish, preferably organic. As to whether a vegetarian diet provides enough nutrients, Christopher Weber at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania says plant-based diets are probably nutritionally superior to diets deriving a much of their calories from animals. It is a crazy world where organic food costs more yet does less harm. A sensible policy would be to tax nonorganic and subsidise organic to reduce its price. My view is that we must considerably reduce our consumption of animals and fish, perhaps making them an occasional or weekly treat. This is more achievable, balanced, makes for better heath and is better for diversity, eco-agriculture and organic farming methods. Think what would otherwise happen to our large areas of our countryside if we did not have animals grazing there. What would we do without all the materials and products made from animals such as their wool, by-products like leather, which is so much healthier for our feet than oil derived plastic. Homes Our houses now consume about 27 % of UK electricity, a lot of which is needlessly wasted. It is now easy to build “zero-carbon” homes, such as the German Passivhaus or even better ones produced in Denmark, for little more than the cost of a standard house. By 2016, all new UK homes will be required to have nil net carbon emissions (‘Level 6’). George Monbiot reckons it would take 1,700 years to replace our housing stock at the current rate of building, even if that were desirable! The big issue is the existing stock of what he calls our “leaky homes”. Like other European governments, ours needs to play a major role providing research subsidies, financial support, incentives, infrastructure and properly enforced standards and regulations. Prices will then come down as demand increases and jobs will then be created. But, our government is not doing enough. Individuals Individuals are directly responsible, through their consumption, for 44 per cent of CO2 emissions – indirectly far more. Rainforests 43
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