Meat vs Climate
Agriculture, particularly with livestock, is taking the blame for playing a significant part in driving climate change and biodiversity loss around the planet. Could our global consumption of meat be the catalyst for environmental catastrophe, even our extinction? How could this be happening and what can be done? We have a big, meaty problem. By Richard Forsyth
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alf the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture. The concept of countryside for most of us, is not rich, thick ancient forests, it’s large expanses of connected level fields. Of this farmland, when talking about the planet, 77 percent is used for livestock, yet livestock only produces 18 percent of the world’s calories and 37 percent of all our protein. In short, compared to growing crops and vegetables, it dominates the allocated space to produce a lot less food. This uneven equation is not the only reason to worry about meat being a sustainable food source, with a growing population and the available land shrinking.
Planet killing cow burps Livestock creates 14.5 percent of greenhouse gas from human-related emissions, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation. Cows are responsible for two-thirds of that statistic. In fact, eating a couple of hamburgers a week for a year creates the equivalent amount of greenhouse gases as heating a home in the UK for 95 days. It’s become common knowledge that whilst we are filling up fields with cows, the cows are filling up the air with unpleasant gases. Livestock farming produces methane and nitrous oxide. Methane comes from a process which sounds much nicer than it smells, enteric fermentation, and by methane we mean around 95 percent burps and five percent farts expelled from your cow-shaped meat. Microbes in a cow’s stomach break down cattle feed into energy and protein, whilst expelling methane to the tune of between 70 and
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120 kg from its orifices per year, equivalent to around 2,300 kg of CO 2 a year – that’s about the weight of a car. Staying with a car analogy, this is the same as burning 1,000 litres of petrol. Times that by 1.5 billion cows and bulls and you’ve got a burpy, farty cloud of doom around the planet. It’s not just the cow’s wind, it’s also their eight gallons of gushing urine a day, which produces the nasty greenhouse gas nitrous oxide.
Changing ‘pee-haviour’ Researchers in New Zealand and Germany have tackled this problem by experimenting with potty training calves, and after just 45 minutes every other day for a few weeks, 11 out of 16 animals were trained to use a latrine they termed the MooLoo. The calves learned they would only receive a treat if they used the latrine whilst receiving a mild spray of water if they had mishaps. Cows have the intelligence of two-tofour-year-old children, perhaps for some, another strong incentive to eat more vegetables. Cows indoors create another problem. If your cows are in a barn, the urine and excrement mix up to create the air pollutant, ammonia. In a very literal way, but also for the environment, this can stink.
Seaweed to calm the tummy In context, the biggest climate-killing bodily release is by far, the cow burps, so short of stopping cow farming, what can be done to calm those grumbly bovine stomachs. One solution suggested is to add a sprinkle of asparagopsis taxiformis, a red seaweed to the cow’s nosh,
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