- Back in 2006
the United Nations stated,
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.
The findings of this report suggests that it should be
a major policy focus when dealing with problems
of land degradation, climate change and air pollution,
water shortage and water pollution,
and the loss of biodiversity.
And then four years later they warned that a global shift
towards a vegan diet is vital to save the world from hunger,
fuel poverty and the worst impacts of climate change.
So why exactly is animal farming bad for the environment?
Globally, 26% of all the world's ice-free land surface
is given to grazing animals.
And in total animal agriculture use is 83%
of all agricultural land
yet it provides less than 20% of the calories consumed
and less than 40% of the protein that is consumed.
In the UK, it is estimated that 85% of the land that is used
for agriculture is just for animals
which is almost 50% of the entire land mass of the UK.
And in the US, 41% of the entire land mass
is for animal farming compared to 4%
which is used to grow plants directly for humans,
with half of all agricultural land
in the US being used specifically for beef production
even though it only makes up 3% of dietary calories.
Animal farming is the leading cause
of rainforest deforestation,
the single largest driver of habitat loss in general
in agriculture which also includes
the farming of fish is listed
as being a frat to 24,000 of the 28,000 species
that are currently frightened with extinction.
And when it comes to the Brazilian Amazon specifically,
cattle ranching is reportedly responsible
for 80% of rainforest loss.
We have a recent investigation showing that in 2019
fires in the Amazon were three times more common
in areas where there is cattle ranching.
When it comes to soy, about 75% of all the soy
that is produced is used for animal feeds
with only 6% of whole soybeans that are produced
being used to produce plant-based products like tofu,
soy milk, and other plant-based alternatives.
When it comes to emissions,
a University of Oxford report stated that,
even if fossil fuel emissions were eliminated immediately,
the emissions produced by the agriculture sector alone
would make it impossible to limit warming
to 1.5 degrees Celsius and would even make it difficult
to not hit two degrees.
This means that changes to our food system are essential
if we want to avoid making the coral reefs disappear,
creating more extreme heat waves, water scarcities,
droughts and food shortages
for hundreds of millions more people
forcing them to be climate refugees.
And it's essential if we want to avoid the demise
of the world's biodiversity,
increasing rates of dead zones and species extinction
and the rising of sea levels
causing the flooding of major cities
such as Mumbai, Shanghai, Miami, and New York,
with there even being the potential for islands
in the south Pacific Ocean to disappear completely.
Animal agriculture is responsible for producing
between 14.5% and 18% of total greenhouse gas emissions
which makes it responsible for more emissions
than the combined exhausts of all transport globally.
The fishing method of bottom trolling alone
is responsible for producing the same amount of emissions
as the entire aviation industry.
Switching to a plant-based diet
could reduce agricultural emissions by as much as 73%
in high-income nations.
And a study that analyzed 313
different potential food systems,
discovered that the highest greenhouse gas emissions
were found in the food systems
that included a high meet demand
especially focused on ruminant, meat and milk
whilst the lowest emissions came from the vegan diets.
But what about local animal products?
Are they not more sustainable
than buying plant foods from abroad?
Well, not according to the science.
In fact, when it comes to beef only Note 0.5%
of the emissions come from the transportation
and for lamb it's only 2% meaning that the issue
of animal farming is the farming itself.
Even with plant foods like avocados,
only 8% of the total footprint
comes from the traveling itself.
In fact, for most food products,
the transportation accounts for less than 10%
with the higher transportation percentage
simply being a reflection of the fact that
the food naturally produces lower amounts
of greenhouse gases.
Furthermore, a report comparing greenhouse gas emissions
from the average diet across countries in the EU
revealed that transportation was only responsible
for 6% of the total emissions related to diets.
And when the results were broken down by food items,
animal products were shown to be responsible for 83%
of emissions in the average EU diet,
compared to only 17% coming from plant-based foods.
In the US, the climate impacts of food choice were analyzed.
And the food transport was shown to only account for 5%
of emissions in the average US household.
This equals around Note 0.4 tons of CO2 equivalent.
However, the study showed that substituting calories
from red meat and dairy to plant-based alternatives
for just one day a week would save Note 0.46 tons
of CO2 equivalent.
This means that eating plant-based over red meat and dairy
just one day a week, would achieve the same result
as having a diet with zero food miles.
The only way that buying local animal products
could be more sustainable
is if the farming of different foods
was environmentally the same to begin with,
and the only difference was the miles
the two foods had to travel.
This is obviously not the case.
But isn't regenerative beef good for the environment
because grazing cattle
can absorb carbon back into the soils?
Well, not according to the Metro analyses
that have been conducted on the matter that state that,
although certain grazing management
can put carbon into the soil,
at best this would only amount to 20 to 60% of the emissions
that the animals produce in the first place.
And besides, after a few decades
the soil reaches soil carbon equilibrium
which means the soil cannot sequester any more carbon
at which point none of the emissions
from the animals would be offset.
So farmers would either have to start grazing on more land
increasing the land used for animal farming
or stop the farming.
Meaning that grazing animals
is not an effective short-term or long-term strategy
for dealing with the problem, either.
In the words of one of the lead researchers,
"Grazing livestock and net contributors
to the climate problem as are all livestock.
Rising animal production and consumption,
whatever the farming system and animal type,
is causing damaging greenhouse gas release
and contributing to changes in land use.
Even the lowest impact to beef is responsible
for six times more greenhouse gases
and a staggering 36 times more land
than plant proteins, such as peas.
Plus, there are more beneficial things
we can do with the land.
For example, research into the US food system
found that reconfiguring cropland
from animal feed to entirely human edible crops
particularly ones that promote positive health outcomes,
such as fruits, vegetables and pulses
would feed an additional 350 million people
compared to what the same area of land produces
in the current US food system."
To put that into perspective,
there are around 330 million people in the US,
meaning another nation the size of the US
could be fed with just the cropland
that is used to currently feed animals there.
Furthermore, in the UK
just one third of the cropland currently used
to grow animal feeds could provide 62 million adults
there five servings of fruits and vegetables a day all year
which incidentally is almost the entire UK population.
Plus, if the world shifted to a plant-based diet
we could feed every mouth on the planet
and global farmland could also be reduced by more than 75%
which when put into perspective
is the equivalent size of China, Australia the US
and the entire European Union combined,
no longer being needed for agriculture.
We could reforest and restore this land,
bringing back lost habitats
and reversing the decimation of the world's biodiversity.
It is also estimated that by returning animal farms
to natural vegetation,
we could remove the equivalent of 8.1 billion metric tons
of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.
This is about 15%
of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions.
So not only would a plant-based diet reduce
total annual emissions by around 13%,
but it would also allow us to sequester a further 15%
of total annual carbon emissions on top of that.
Switching to a plant-based diet
would also mean reducing soil acidification
and eutrophication which is the process
that creates algae blooms and dead zones by 50%.
And all of the issues related to animal farming
have come from a planet
with just under 8 billion people on it.
Within the next 30 years,
our population is expected to increase to 10 billion people.
However, global trends as they are now
are showing the animal product consumption is increasing
regardless of the growing population.
This means that by 2050, the overall demand
for animal based foods will be 70% higher
than it is currently.
And specifically ruminant meat will be 88% higher.
This means that an additional 593 million hectors
of land will be needed.
Which is the equivalent size of two Indias.
Something clearly has to change and change quickly.
How much more rainforest needs to be cut down
or set on fire?
Do major cities and entire islands
need to be submerged underwater?
How much more habitat needs to be destroyed
and how many more species need to go extinct?
How many more people need to suffer
from food and water scarcity
and how many more climate refugees does there need to be
before we realize that we need to change our food system?
And don't just take it from me, the lead author
of the largest and most comprehensive analysis
ever conducted analyzing
the impact that food and agriculture
has on the environment stated that a vegan diet
is probably the single biggest way
to reduce your impact on planet earth.
It's been 11 years since the UN told us
that we need to shift to a plant-based diet.
We don't have another decade to spare.
(ominous music)