The meat industry and its front groups like the Center for Consumer Freedom are perpetuating the myth that Americans should not be worried about the meat & global warming connection. This is the argument:
The US has a more efficient livestock production system. According to the 2006 US EPA report, US agriculture causes less than 6% of US greenhouse gases, while livestock causes only 2.58% of US GHG. The UN says 18% of *global* GHG is due to livestock. We should resume consumption patterns and keep the industry competitive; otherwise we’d be importing more meat from less GHG efficient livestock production systems, and cause MORE global warming.
The argument exploits very misleading and incomplete statistics and rests on some flawed assumptions. In the final analysis, what matters is the total VOLUME of American consumption & GHG production, and factoring in livestock’s land and land-use.
Below are some facts which point to how the US livestock industry is definitely a major contributor to global warming.
1. The US consumes FAR more meat / animal products than most of the world.
So much for American efficiency. The world’s leading consumers of meat and animal products share the biggest responsibility for continuing to make the global livestock industry grow! As long as the meat industry continues to be supported by a growing culture of high volume meat eaters, the industry will be able to expand its reach globally.
Dr. Barry Popkin, author of “The World is Fat”, agrees
What’s more, the developing world seems to be falling in step, Popkin says. In India, meat and dairy intake more than doubled between 2000 and 2005. In 2006, the average diet of 67% of the Chinese population comprised at least 10% meat and dairy products, up from about 39% of the population in 1989. “We truly did this to the globe — changed the way the world eats,” says Popkin.
2. The US produces FAR more GHG than most of the world.
The U.S., with a population of about 300 million (5% of the world), produces about 18% (2009 US EPA) of GLOBAL greenhouse gases.
Consider the image below which portrays the CO2 responsibility PER CAPITA by country between 1950-2000.
Not surprisingly, most of the US and “Western countries” are the highest emitters. See more “List of countries by greenhouse gases in 2000″
Even though China as a whole produces more CO2 as a country (since recently), their per capita emissions figures are STILL 1/3 – 1/4 of the US population (China recently officially surpassed the US in producing GHG, but China has 4 times the population (China has 1.3 billion people, US has 300 million people)).
It’s a huge difference. So what does this tell us about the EPA’s estimates on livestocks GHG impact?
We can predict that X% of US GHG per capita is far greater than X% of China’s GHG per capita.
Basically 2.58% of US GHG is much more than 2.58% of China GHG (or most other countries).
We know this because on average, one American is emitting as much GHG as four Chinese. In addition, one American consumes as much meat as 2-3 Chinese citizens (again, the average meat consumption per Chinese is 52 kg, compared to Americans at 125 kg – 2005 FAO)
3. The US EPA report does not include land-use (deforestation, desertification) and other criteria used in the UN FAO report.
As I explain in a previous post, the EPA report excludes the whole GLOBAL livestock commodity chain including fuel combustion, agricultural CO2 fluxes and land-use changes (such as deforestation), while the UN report includes these factors (as its a global organization, and land-use is probably difficult to quanity on a country level).
According to the UN’s Livestock’s Long Shadow report, land-use is the primary reason why livestock’s share of global GHG is so high:
“(livestock) accounts for nine percent of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, most of it due to expansion of pastures and arable land for feed crops.
The livestock sector is by far the single largest anthropogenic user of land. Grazing occupies 26 percent of the Earth’s terrestrial surface, while feed crop production requires about a third of all arable land. Expansion of grazing land for livestock is a key factor in deforestation, especially in Latin America: some 70 percent of previously forested land in the Amazon is used as pasture, and feed crops cover a large part of the reminder.
Consider the GHG volume of land use compared to livestock’s other GHG sources:
Land use and land use change: 2.5 Giga tonnes CO2 (#1) equivalent; including forest and other natural vegetation replaced by pasture and feed crop in the Neotropics (CO2) and carbon release from soils such as pasture and arable land dedicated to feed production (CO2)
– Feed Production (except carbon released from soil): 0.4 Giga tonnes CO2 equivalent, including fossil fuel used in manufacturing chemical fertilizer for feed crops (CO2) and chemical fertilizer application on feedcrops and leguminous feed crop (N2O, NH3)
– Animal production: 1.9 Giga tonnes CO2 equivalent, including enteric fermentation from ruminants (CH4) and on-farm fossil fuel use (CO2)
– Manure Management: 2.2 Giga tonnes CO2 equivalent, mainly through manure storage, application and deposition (CH4, N2O, NH3)
– Processing and international transport: 0.03 Giga tonnes CO2 equivalent
From these figures we know that the U.S EPA omitted a huge cause of GHG from the livestock industry.
In conclusion
We know that…
1. US meat consumption per capita is higher than most of the world’s.
2. The US produces way too much GHG per capita (5% of world population produces about 18% of GHG)
3. The US EPA report does not factor in the #1 cause of CO2 emissions from livestock: land and land-use (2.5 Giga tonnes).
The US livestock industry’s share of the GLOBAL livestock industry’s greenhouse gases is much higher than the industry (whose prime consumers are Westerners) is willing to admit. It’s hard to calculate an exact figure, but we know the leading consumers and producers of meat also support the growth of a global livestock industry, which contributes most of its GHG through land and land-use.
Production of domestic livestock on the public land in the U. S. (Forest Service and BLM) is reducing and killing water flows in the arid West, promoting desertification that contributes to global warming, and destroys habitat for species like the sage grouse and pygmy rabbit. See http://www.westernwatersheds.org .
Obama made a disastrous choice picking Colorado rancher Ken Salazar to head BLM the Department of Interior. To change the ecological disaster of public lands grazing, Salazar needs to be removed, and a competent person without bias towards the meat industry put in place.
Consider documenting your sources of information. The reader cannot and should not believe your graphic without being able to evaluate where it came from and what it really is showing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions_per_capita
Cumulative per capita responsibility for anthropogenic CO2
Data from the World Resources Institute’s CAIT 4.0 database (registration required). Includes CO2 emitted up to the year 2000 only (not CH4, N20, PFCs, HFCs or SF6). Estimates of the effects of land-use change are included; bunker-fuel emissions are not. The scale is a 0-100 decay-weighted index.
You are simply perpetuating FAO data which has been twisted and spun for the purposes of ‘shock and awe’ type media presentation to further the goals of the FAO.
Livestock contribute 11.5% of all GHG, per the FAO’s own data, and everyone should take the time to actually read their reports, especially ‘Livestock’s Long Shadow.’ Included in that 11.5% is carbon dioxide emissions from the cropping of animal feed crops, which will increase if the FAO succeeds in intensifying the production of livestock.
Also included in the actual 11.5% are Nitrous oxide emissions at 5.5%, and methane emissions at 5.5%, per the FAO, from the livestock sector. Most of the nitrous oxide is from manure in intensified feedlot livestock production.
The mighty FAO doesn’t ever spend much more than a paragraph in that regard — instead, they constantly tell the world that livestock grazing on grass are inefficient animals, yet their footprint is much smaller than livestock on feed in a bunk.
The FAO incorrectly, and with the intent to confuse and defraud their international audience, includes their estimations of CO2 emissions from deforestation and land use changes. They readily admit it is a ball park estimate and that it is not clear whether a lot of that is actually for human food cropping. For certain, it was necessary for the FAO to include the CO2 from deforestation in order to get their ‘shock and awe’ figure of 18% and thus claim livestock contribute more than transport to climate change.
More importantly, your FAO does not bother to reduce this CO2 emission footprint from deforestation, by anything other than a token amount, for the comparable carbon sequestration of this planet’s grasslands that are the result of that deforestation.
As for the epidemic of obesity — it is a ludicrous notion that obesity is due to animal fat and protein, just plain nonsense. Obesity is directly due to excessive carbohydrate intake, processed carbs, not processed meat, and that’s processed carbs and grains with a much bigger C02 footprint than the meat from an animal will ever have.
And as for the USA being the biggest culprit in GHG emissions from livestock, it just is not the case, per the FAO’s own data. The biggest contribution made by US livestock production is via nitrous oxide in feedlots, and even considering that, our contribution is immaterial compared to developing countries.
Further, the nitrous oxide from untreated human waste in countries such as India with HUGE populations, far and away exceeds the emissions of livestock in this country combined with several others, of that I have no doubt.
Human waste containment and use as a fertilizer would solve most of the global problems of food production and global warming. Apparently, it is a distasteful topic for the highbrow UN climate scientists.