- If we want to save the planet,
we need to change what we put
on the table and how we produce food.
- Some good news, possibly.
If we get rid of red meats in our diet,
if we moved towards vegan lifestyles,
if we changed how we're using the land.
We might be able to reverse that damage.
But the clock is ticking.
- Either the world ends or we all become vegan.
- Hey everybody, this is Klaus from Plant Based News.
Animal agriculture is now responsible for 87%
of greenhouse gas emissions according to a new study
by Stanford educated, Systems Engineer Dr. Sailesh Rao.
- The paper looks at the impact of animal agriculture
and shows that it is responsible for 87%
of greenhouse gas emissions on an annual basis.
In the past, we've had, you know, different estimates,
one from the UNFAO at 18%,
and then a Goodland and Anhang had 51%.
And then UNFAO, then, then reinterpreted their work
and made it 14 and a half percent.
- But why is the UNs 2006, 18% figure
and the World Watch Institutes 2009, 51% figure
so wildly different?
Apparently for two reasons.
- They had to use the breeding contribution
of animals, animal respiration.
And they'd also used a 20 year timeframe
for calculating methane emissions.
So, and both those were kind of controversial
in some circles, you know.
Especially in the animal industry circles.
- Despite the scientific controversy
or the inclusion of respiration.
He noticed that one key factor
was missed out of all the reports.
- So what we did in this paper, I said, okay
let's ignore respiration, but let's just look
at the opportunity cost of the land use.
Basically, we looked at bringing back forests, bringing
back the original forest that used to be there on that land.
The overall impact of cutting down all these trees
and not letting them come back is on the order
overall 30 gigatonnes of CO2.
So it was about five tons per person.
So we took existing grasslands, grazing lands
and we replaced it with the original forests wherever
they were forests in 1800.
Because we have data from 1800.
So in the model, we just replaced this each grid
with a forest grid and just added up the numbers.
It's not that complicated, right?
And that itself was enough to reverse climate change.
- The opportunity cost of loss forests
in determining accurate greenhouse gas emissions turned
out to be such a huge factor.
But it became apparent that
there are even greater forces at play.
- The way science works is that scientists ask questions
and they answer them.
And you get funded for asking questions.
So those who fund science can determine what
questions get asked,
and what questions that never get asked.
And so there is a fundamental bias in science
about not asking questions that would rock the boat.
The intergovernmental panel on climate change
is supposed to be the organization
that's putting together the science from different fields
and then recommendations,
and coming up with recommendations to governments.
But the intergovernmental panel on climate change
was it relying on the UNFAO for all of its agriculture data?
And the UNFAO has a public partnership
with the International Meat Secretariat,
the International Dairy Federation,
the International Poultry Council,
International Egg Commissioner.
I mean, they're all there in that partnership.
Which is right there on the website.
They even show you these said all the partners.
And it's called the Livestock Environmental Assessment
and Performance Partnership, LEAP partnership.
The job of the partnership is to figure out
how to calculate the impact of livestock appropriately.
So that the livestock industry flourishes.
You know it's like the tobacco institute, you know.
And asking them is, is cigarette smoking harmful?
And they'll say, of course not.
They even have papers telling you
that smoking Marlboro Lights will heal lung cancer.
- It's interesting, isn't it?
'Cause when people think of climate change
the first thing that springs to mind
isn't animal agriculture.
Even though the facts are so clear 'cause of documentaries
like Cowspiracy, and studies are like
the one we talked about.
But the interesting thing is that even if the Paris Climate
Agreements targets were met, this would do nothing to
actually reverse global warming.
It would just slow the progression.
- Mainstream media focuses on climate change.
Why? Because they're telling a story of fossil fuels.
They're telling a story of clean energy.
So, that requires the economy to grow.
That requires capitalism to still flourish, right?
So it's about making money, doing, doing electric cars
or solar panels and wind energy.
As opposed to changing our entire lifestyle,
changing our relationship with nature,
changing our relationship with the earth.
Which is what will happen when you discover
that animal agriculture is actually
the leading cause of climate change also.
Because animal agriculture is a leading cause
of species extinction, of ocean dead zones,
of every other environmental we know.
But they were framing that it's not
the leading cause of climate change.
- Anyway, the 87% paper that's been peer reviewed
and published recently really does hammer home the point
about the deleterious effects of animal agriculture
on our climate.
And this seems to be a wake-up call to all of us.
So please share this video if you can.
And I'll see you very soon for some more
Plant Based News.