20th August 2018
By LoveEarth
Comments Do you know the impact animal agriculture has on the environment?
We are supporting the rapid growth of this industry because of our abnormal (and to be honest, quite excessive) carnivorous diets!
Let us open your eyes a bit…
Greenhouse Gasses & Animal Agriculture
Animal agriculture is responsible for MORE greenhouse gas emissions than ALL transportation emissions combined! Coming in at an estimated 18%, animal agriculture beats out the 13% of emissions transportation is responsible for.
You think that’s bad? How about the fact that livestock and their byproducts account for at least 32,000 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year! Cows alone produce 150 BILLION gallons of methane a day.
Did you know, in a 20-year time frame, methane is 25-100 times more destructive and has 86 times the global warming potential than that of CO2?
Even without fossil fuels, we will exceed our 565 gigatonnes CO2e limit by 2030, all from raising animals for food.
Do you know what Nitrous Oxide is?
Let us break it down for you a little…
■ Livestock is responsible for 65% of all human-related emissions of nitrous oxide.
■ Agricultural soil management is the largest source of N2O emissions in the United States, accounting for about 77% of total U.S. N2O emissions in 2016.
■ Livestock, especially ruminants such as cattle, produce methane (CH4) as part of their normal digestive processes. This process is called enteric fermentation, and it represents almost one-third of the emissions from the Agriculture economic sector.
■ The way in which manure from livestock is managed also contributes to CH4 and N2O emissions. Different manure treatment and storage methods affect how much of these greenhouse gases are produced. Manure management accounts for about 15% of the total greenhouse gas emissions from the Agriculture economic sector in the United States.
■ Statistics show greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture have increased by approximately 17% since 1990. One driver for this increase has been the 68% growth in combined CH4 and N2O emissions from livestock manure management systems.
■ The production of one calorie of animal protein requires more than ten times the fossil fuel input as a calorie of plant protein.
■ Producing a single hamburger uses enough fuel to drive 20 miles and causes the loss of five times its weight in topsoil.
■ More than a third of all raw materials and fossil fuels consumed in the United States are used in animal production.
Water, Land, Air, & Animal Agriculture
Nearly half of all the water used in the United States goes to raising animals for food.
It takes more than 2,400 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat and only 25 gallons to produce one pound of wheat.
To produce a day’s food for one meat-eater takes over 4,000 gallons; for a lacto–ovo vegetarian, only 1200 gallons; for a vegan, only 300 gallons.
Animals raised for food produce approximately 130 times as much excrement as the entire human population and animal farms pollute our waterways more than all other industrial sources combined. Run-offs of animal waste, pesticides, chemicals, fertilizers, hormones, and antibiotics are contributing to dead zones in coastal areas, degradation of coral reefs, and health problems. YIKES!
Raising animals for food (including land used for grazing and land used to grow feed crops) now uses a staggering 30% of the Earth’s land mass.
Seven football fields’ worth of land is bulldozed every minute to create more room for farmed animals and the crops that feed them.
Of all the agricultural land in the United States, 80% is used to raise animals for food and grow grain to feed them—that’s almost half the total land mass of the lower 48 states.
The massive amounts of excrement produced by livestock farms emit toxic gases such as hydrogen sulfide and ammonia into the air. Roughly 80% of ammonia emissions in the U.S. come from animal waste.
When the cesspools holding tons of urine and feces get full, factory farms will frequently get around water pollution limits by spraying liquid manure into the air, creating mists that are carried away by the wind.
Air pollutants generated by animal farms can cause respiratory illness, lung inflammation, and increase vulnerability to respiratory diseases, such as asthma. Emissions of reactive organics and ammonia from animal farming can play a role in the formation of ozone (smog) and air pollution.
Food & Animal Agriculture
In America, 70% of the grain grown is fed to animals on feedlots.
It takes up to 16 pounds of grain to produce just 1 pound of meat…Fish on fish farms must be fed 5 pounds of wild-caught fish to produce one pound of farmed fish flesh.
The world’s cattle alone consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people—more than the entire human population on Earth.
Enough Said. Let us end world hunger, reduce greenhouse gasses, and better preserve natural resources by eating fewer animal products!
■ Want to learn more about the subjects touched upon in this post?
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