One of the easiest (easier said than done for some) means to bring down one’s carbon footprint is to cut down on one’s meat consumption. Meat production is one of the most profligate, land- and energy-intensive processes. It wreaks havoc on forests, pollutes oceans, rivers, seas and air, depends on oil and coal, and is significantly responsible for climate change. Humanity consumes around 230 metric tonnes of meat annually. Rearing all that meat requires huge amounts of food and water. Moreover, livestock emits methane and other greenhouse gases and create vast volumes of physical waste. To put things into perspective, consider this statistic: the climate change emissions of animals raised for consumption at, 18% of the global total, was higher than the share of all modes of transport put together.
Livestock or feed for the livestock occupy close to 30% of the available surface area on the planet not covered by ice. Livestock consumes the majority of the world's crops in spite of widespread malnourishment in many parts of the world. In the US for instance, around 13m hectares are used to grow vegetables, rice, fruit, etc. but 302m were used for rearing livestock or feed. To make it worse, farm animals are not efficient converters of food from flesh. Broiler chickens for example, need around 3.4kg of food to produce 1kg of flesh while but pigs need 8.4kg. Some researchers propose that the grain fed to livestock in the western nations could feed at least twice as many people as currently done. Overstocking of livestock and overgrazing of fragile lands is causing massive soil erosion and desertification.
When you eat meat, you are effectively consuming the water that the animal consume din its lifetime. It takes 27 and 103 litres of water to produce one pound of potatoes and rice respectively. A pound of beef, on the other hand, needs around 9,000 litres while a broiler chicken produces a pound of meat with 1,500 litres. Industrial farms of livestock and poultry generate as much waste as a city. For every kilogram of edible beef a cow produces, it produces around 40kg of manure. Manure and liquid waste is funnelled into massive cesspools that pollute underground water supplies and rivers with nitrogen, phosphorus and nitrates. The meat economy is based on oil. The processes that brings meat to your table requires electricity, from the production of the fertiliser for animal feed to pumping the water animals need need, to the fuel needed to move meat to supermarket shelves. By to some studies, around 33 percent of all fuel goes towards animal farming in the US.
We have more than enough reason to change our food habits. Of course, old habits die hard but maybe we can start small and build up from there. After all, sustainability begins from the small things.