You probably heard or read some of this information. There are some great resources in documentaries, books and articles regarding the impact of livestock (meat and dairy) production on the earth. Some are listed at the end of this. All this information is readily available, so don’t hesitate to check my work.
I’ll save the impact of meat and dairy consumption on you for another day.
The (negative) impact of meat and dairy production is in a few general areas:
- Greenhouse gas emissions
- Water use
- Land use
- Deforestation – clear cutting more land to convert it to use for livestock
- Wildlife habitat is lost among other impacts
From “Meat and Dairy Production” by Ritchie and Rosner in 2017, 14.5% of all greenhouse gases are produced by livestock production. That’s roughly equal to emissions from all cars, trucks, airplanes and ships. That’s alot! Source: Meat&Dairy
A (very) large study of 40,000 farms in 119 countries in the journal, Science, confirmed several eye opening facts. All meat and dairy provides 18% of all calories in the world and 37% of all protein but utilizes 83% of all farmland and produces 60% of all of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions. The authors concluded that if the entire world went plant based, land use for agriculture could be reduced by 75% and still feed the entire world, returning much land to its natural state. One of the study authors, Joseph Poore of the University of Oxford in the UK, stated “A vegan diet is probably the biggest way to reduce your impact on the planet. It is bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying electric cars”. Source: Reducing_Your_Impact
Lastly, water use is another impact. According to Professor Arjen Hoekstra, agriculture in total uses 85% of the world’s fresh water, with only 5% used for domestic consumption (our showers, cooking, watering lawns, washing our cars or driveways, etc.). Good luck saving the world by taking shorter showers. Most of the water use for livestock is in production of the feed for livestock. In the US, 68% of all grain production is for livestock feed, so meat and dairy use a very sizable portion of the world’s water. Source: Water_Use
I’ll stop here. There is a lot more information out there and I will leave the deforestation and animal cruelty topics to others.
Some more resources:
Forks Over Knives is a good starting point. It is a classic, more concerned with the health benefits of a plant based diet.
In Defense of Food is based on Michael Pollan’s best-selling book, discussing how traditional diets have been “making us sick”.
Cowspiracy : The Sustainability Secret has been around a while. This one does focus on the environment.