Turns out the much quoted Livestock’s Long Shadow vastly underestimated the greenhouse gas emissions produced by the world’s production of meat and dairy. Forget 18%, a new study suggests it is actually over half of the world’s GHG emissions.

The Worldwatch Institute, an indepedent research body based in Washington, have just released the study Livestock and Climate Change in their November/ December edition of World Watch, which finds that animal agriculture accounts for at least 32.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide GHG emissions.

So what went wrong with the Food and Agriculture’s report, Livestock’s Long Shadow? The report explains that some GHG emissions were “obvious but underestimated, some are simply overlooked, and some are emissions sources that are already counted but have been assigned to the wrong sectors”.

This new report challenges the FAO’s Livestock’s Long Shadow on several issues. Firstly, FAO completely excludes the carbon dioxide produced by animals breathing.

FAO only counts the emissions from changes in land use but not the vast amounts of potential carbon absorption by trees which has been lost by converting forests etc to grazing and growing animal feeds. If the land was not used for animal agriculture, it would regenerate and “could potentially mitigate as much as half (or even more) of all anthropogenic GHGs”. FAO does not take this in to account; considering 26 percent of land worldwide is used for grazing livestock and 33 percent of arable land for growing feed, clearly there is huge potential for carbon absorption if this land as converted back to forest and other natural habitats.

The FAO used an outdated figure for methane’s Global Warming Potential (which compares it’s potential for global warming to that of carbon dioxide), which means that it is grossly underestimated.

Livestock’s Long Shadow also ignores the fact that meat and dairy is accountable for more emission than plant based foods due to more; fluorocarbons, which are used to cool animal products; production, distribution and packaging (including of products such as leather, feathers, skin); cooking; disposal of liquid waste and disease, such as zoonotic diseases (such as swine flu) and other diseases cause by animal products, such as heart disease and cancer, which require carbon intensive medical treatment.

They conclude “By replacing livestock products with analogs [ie meat and dairy alternatives], consumers can take a single powerful action collectively to mitigate most GHGs worldwide”.

I have to say, I did suspect for a minute that there might be an animal group behind this report, perhaps there’s a hidden agenda? But no, the report was written by Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang. Goodland worked at the World Bank for 23 years and was a lead environmental adviser (he’s since spoken out about how the World Bank is “damaging the planet and punishing the poor“), he also received an award from IUCN for outstanding contributions to environmental conservation. Anhang is a research officer and environmental specialist at the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation.

You can read the report on the World Watch Institute website here.

Everyone’s talking about cows this week. In the US, plans commenced to produce an environmentally friendly cow, which will produce less methane. If they are successful in creating this ‘cow of the future’, I’d be interested to hear what they’re going to do about the other impacts of the dairy industry, such as deforestation to grow soy feeds, water pollution and of course, the male dairy calves – the often forgotten rejects of the trade who end up in veal crates or killed at birth as their flesh in not good enough for human consumption.

Here in the UK, Blade Farming think they may have the solution to the male dairy calf problem. They have launched a breeding scheme with eight of their top Holstein bulls who produce cows suitable for the dairy industry but also bull calves which are suitable to be used for beef. Farmers can buy semen from specially chosen bulls and the offspring will be tagged with an orange tag to identify them. Blade have said they would ‘love to buy the calves’ to raise for beef and their main customers, Tesco and McDonalds, are supporting the scheme. Compassion in World Farming apparently are pleased since the scheme may reduce the number of calves shot at birth.

The whole problem is that we have selectively bred cows for years to create those which produce high quantities of milk and those which produce what we deem to be high quality beef. All our messing with nature has created suffering and waste. Blade Farming’s scheme will only make the unsustainable and environmentally damaging dairy and meat industries more profitable, driving prices down and fuelling higher consumption.

It seems we are always looking for ways we can maintain the status quo and we keep coming up with all these crazy ideas when the answer is staring us in the face; it’s all about consumption. We cannot maintain the status quo, we need to consume less if we are to create sustainable societies. According to a report released by Canadean Ltd, global milk consumption is down 0.5% from last year, so it looks like we’re heading in the right direction at last!

The National Farmer’s Union have got all upset this week as they claim that the Climate Change Committee’s recommendation to the Government will not be possible without a massive reduction in livestock production.

The Climate Change Committee’s recommendation is to increase the target for greenhouse gas reduction from 60 to 80% and also to include all greenhouses gases in the targets, such as methane and nitrous oxide which are maining produced by the agricultural sector.

Also this week, a former head of the NFU, Hugh Richards, admitted two dozen breaches of animal welfare laws. Richards was awarded an OBE in 1999 for his services to agriculture and was described as “pillar of the community”. Hmmm, tell that to his animals.

So, not a good week for the NFU. But they best get used to it, climate change isn’t going away any time soon, and neither is the country’s sharp eye of animal cruelty.

A study by Germany’s Institute for Ecological Economy Research has proved yet again that a meat-free diet is the best dietary choice for the environment.

The study shows that a diet which includes meat is responsible for annual greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to the same as driving a mid-sized car 4,758km. A vegetarian diet is responsible for generating 50% less (same emissions as driving 2,427km) and most remarkably, going vegan cuts the emissions released by around 87% (to the equivalent of driving just 629km).

It’s also interesting to note switching to an organic meat-based diet only reduces emissions by around 8% - from the equivalent of 4,758km to 4,377km.

The calculations are based on emissions of greenhouse gases, including methane produced by the animals themselves, as well as emissions from food production including manufacturing feed and fertiliser and the use of farmland.

This is certainly not the first or last to prove that eating meat is bad for the environment. Now enough of the studies and more action! No more excuses.

At last Greenpeace joins the vegan and vegetarian campaigning groups and tells us we should go vegetarian to reduce our carbon footprint.

The scientists from the university of Aberdeen who wrote the report rightly point out that ‘a vegetarian diet produces much less Greenhouse House Gas over a lifetime’. They go on to look at the huge amounts of grain and forage required to produce just one kg of meat, the methane produced by sheep and cows and the fact that ‘the average amount of kcal fossil energy used per kcal of meat produced is 25. This is more than 11 times that of plant-based products, with an average input/output ratio of 2.2′

The energy needed to produce one kg of sheep meat is around 20 times more than that for potatoes, chicken meat uses around 11 times more.

For individuals wishing to reduce their GHG footprint, adopting a vegetarian diet, or at least reducing the quantity of meat products in the diet, would have beneficial GHG impacts.

Read the report.

The Worldwatch Institute has released it´s Vital Signs 2007-2008 report, which highlights the key factors contributing to climate change.

“You see many trends in climate change, whether we are talking about grain production which is affected by droughts and flooding. Or meat production as livestock production makes up about 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions,” said Erik Assadourian, director of the Vital Signs project.

The report shows that meat production hit a record of 276 million metric tonnes in 2006 (43 kilograms or 95 pounds per person).

The rising consumption of meat is also one of the main factors contributing to the rain forests of South America being cleared for soy bean plantations. Assadourian fears that 22 million hectares of forest and savannah could be cleared to grow soy beans in the next 20 years.

The report also points out that the consumption of fish has grown by three times since 1950, at a massive 156 million metric tonnes of seafood, even though many fish species are becoming threatened.

There´s just one report after another telling us the same fact – meat is destroying our planet.

You can buy the full report here

A new study hit the press today, again urging people to cut down their meat consumption to save the planet from climate change.

An international team of experts published their report in the medical journal The Lancet. They pointed out that agriculture contributes nearly 25% of the world’s greenhouse gases, the vast majority specifically from livestock. Rainforests are cleared to provide grazing land and to grow the huge amount of crops needed to feed animals. Sheep and cows also produce large quantities of methane which is more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide. Then there is the transportation of animals and meat around the world.

Professor McMichael and his colleagues argue that “for the world’s higher-income populations, greenhouse-gas emissions from meat eating warrants the same scrutiny as do those from driving and flying”.

McMichael urges that Westerns cut down to 90 grams of meat per day by 2050, and shockingly points out that many people in the Western world eat roughly their own weight in meat every year, on average about 224 grams a day.

It is no wonder that heart disease and cancers are killing so many people in the Western world. Meat is destroying the planet and our bodies, not to mention the countless animals who are forced to live a life of pain and misery to satisfy our taste buds.

This is an important study, however, I do wish McMichael had the courage to say that we all need to stop eating meat completely, now, if we really want to make a difference.