Conscientious people are trying to help reduce global warming by driving fuel-efficient cars and using energy-saving light bulbs. Although this helps, studies have shown that reducing our consumption of animal products like meat, milk, and eggs is by far the most effective way to fight global warming.

Environmental Issues

• Greenhouse Gases
• Is Eating Local the Answer?
• Deforestation, Water, and Land Use
• Threat to Biodiversity
• Fur and Leather

Greenhouse Gases

 In a groundbreaking 2006 report, the United Nations stated that raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined, accounting for about 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions.1  In 2009, another study released by the WorldWatch Institute corrected outdated data and took into account a number of factors the original report did not, such as fish farms, and placed the percentage of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from animal agriculture at 51%.2 It was not entirely accurate though; the authors made certain logistical errors, for example, by estimating the number of farm animals living on the planet at any one time at 50 billion. (About 65 billion land animals are killed per year for food, but the majority of them are sent to slaughter within weeks or months of being born.)  Earthsave Canada compared both reports and found the actual percentage of greenhouse gas emissions caused by animal agriculture to be "roughly 30%".3  Regardless of the exact percentage, the fact remains that animal agriculture represents a major threat to the environment, even more than all the transportation in the world.

Senior United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization official Henning Steinfeld reported that the meat industry is "one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems."4 Animal agriculture is one of the largest sources of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide emissions.

Do You Eat Like an SUV? (New Scientist, December 2005)

Carbon Dioxide

The burning of fossil fuels (such as oil and gasoline) releases carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas responsible for global warming. Producing one calorie of animal protein requires 8 to 10 times as much fossil fuel input—releasing 8 to 10 times as much carbon dioxide—than does a calorie of plant protein.5 6 Feeding massive amounts of grain and water to farmed animals and then killing them and processing, transporting, and storing their flesh is extremely energy-intensive. In addition, enormous amounts of carbon dioxide stored in trees are released during the destruction of vast acres of forest to provide pastureland and to grow crops for farmed animals. On top of this, animal manure also releases large quantities of carbon dioxide.7

You could exchange your “regular” car for a hybrid and, by doing so, prevent about 1 ton of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere each year, but according to the University of Chicago, being vegan is more effective in the fight against global warming; a vegan is responsible for 1.5 fewer tons of carbon dioxide each year than a meat-eater. The math is simple: You could spend more than $20,000 on a Prius and still emit 50 percent more carbon dioxide than you would if you just gave up eating meat and other animal products.8

An enormous lagoon of pig manure. 500 million tons of manure are produced every year by farm animals.

Methane

 The billions of chickens, turkeys, pigs, and cows who are crammed into factory farms each year produce enormous amounts of methane, both during digestion and from the acres of cesspools filled with feces that they excrete. About 500 million tons of manure is produced annually by farm animals, and every pound of methane is 72 times as effective as carbon dioxide is at trapping heat in our atmosphere.9 ,10 The Environmental Protection Agency shows that animal agriculture is the single largest source of methane emissions.

 Nitrous Oxide

Nitrous oxide is about 300 times more potent as a global warming gas than carbon dioxide. According to the U.N., the meat, egg, and dairy industries account for a staggering 65 percent of worldwide nitrous oxide emissions. 11

Is Eating Local the Answer?

A study at Carnegie Mellon University showed that the majority of environmental damage associated with animal agriculture occurs during the production phase--that is, the feeding and growing of animals--not during transport.  Only 4% of the cycle is associated with transportation.  Researchers concluded that while a eating local all the time saves you the equivalent of driving 1000 miles per year, eating vegan just one day a week saves the equivalent of 1,160 miles per year.12

Run-off from a manure lagoon, with associated soil degradation.

Deforestation, Water, and Land Use

Animal agriculture is by far the largest human-made use of land.  Crops grown specifically for feeding livestock require a third of all arable land, and the land set aside for grazing takes up 26% of the earth's terrestrial surface.  The expansion this land is "a key factor in deforestation"--for example, 70% of previously forested areas in the Amazon Rainforest are now used as pasture.13  In 2004 and 2005 alone, more than 2.9 million acres of rainforest were cleared, primarily to grow crops for chickens used by Kentucky Fried Chicken.14

8% of the world's water supply goes to the animal agriculture industry, most of it for the irrigation of feed crops.  The United Nations also states that the industry may be the largest source of water pollutants, mostly in the form of "animal waste, antibiotics, hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and pesticides used for feed crops, and sediments from eroded pastures.15

Biodiversity

Cows, pigs, chickens, and turkeys make up 20% of the planet's biomass on land, and as such, present a significant threat to wild and endangered animals. The Worldwide Fund for Nature described livestock as a "current threat" to 306 of 825 valuable eco-regions, and of Conservation International's 35 "global hotspots for biodiversity" dealing with serious levels of habitat loss, 23 are threatened by livestock production.16

Fur and Leather

Are fur and leather more environmentally-friendly than synthetic fabrics?  The answer is no.  Learn more about the environmental issues associated with fur and leather.

Download our new environment leaflet here.

1. 1. United Nations, Livestock's Long Shadow, 2006
2. 2. Goodland, Robert, and Jeff Anhang, Livestock and Climate Change, WorldWatch Magazine, November/December 2009
3. 3. Steele, Dave, Too Bad to be True: Are Farm Animals Really Responsible for 51% of Global Warming?, Earthsaver, winter 2010
4. 4. FAONewsroom, Livestock a major threat to environment, 26 Nov 2006
5. 5. Cornell University, U.S. could feed 800 million people with grain that livestock eat, Cornell ecologist advises animal scientists, 7 Aug 1997
6. 6. David Pimentel and Marcia Pimentel, “Sustainability of Meat-Based and Plant-Based Diets and the Environment,” Am. J. Clin. Nutr., 2003
7. 7. Alternet, So You're an Environmentalist; Why are You Still Eating Meat?
8. 8. New Scientist, Better to Green Your Diet Than Your Car, 17 Dec 2005
9. 9. Goodland, Robert, and Jeff Anhang, Livestock and Climate Change, WorldWatch Magazine, November/December 2009
10. 10. Livestock Greenhouse Gas Footprint, 51percent.org, 2012
11. 11. United Nations, Livestock's Long Shadow, 2006
12. 12. Stewart David, Mountain Xpress, Greenwashed, 1 July 2009
13. 13. FAO Spotlight, Livestock impacts on the Environment, Nov 2006
14. 14. Oppenlander, Dr. Richard A., Comfortably Unaware, Langdon Street Press, 2011
15. 15. FAO Spotlight, Livestock impacts on the Environment, Nov 2006
16. 16. ibid.