Category Archives: Environment

Can beef be climate-friendly?

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Meat eaters may now feel that they can eat beef without worrying about the impact on the climate.  In late 2021, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) launched a verification program that allows meat producers to label their product “low-carbon” if it meets certain criteria. They have subsequently renamed the “low-carbon” designation “climate-friendly.” Just last month, Tyson Foods and Schweid & Sons, in partnership, offered the first burger to earn that designation for sale.

This is a classic case of greenwashing – using language that intentionally misleads the public into believing that something is environmentally friendly.  The USDA’s climate-friendly certification program is run by third party companies contracted by the USDA to evaluate meat producers’ agricultural practices to determine the emissions output.  If that measurement is at least 10% lower than an industry benchmark set by the auditing company for emissions, the producer gets USDA approval to label their products “climate-friendly”.

The problem is three-fold. First of all 10% is not much of a reduction in emissions.  But even worse, the benchmark is set so high that even average beef producers will qualify.  The benchmark is set at 26.3 kilograms of CO2 equivalent emissions per kilogram of carcass weight.  Reducing that by 10% means that beef producers must emit no more than 23.67 kg of CO2 equivalent per kilo of weight. But a 2019 study found that the US average for this metric is only 21.3 kg. In addition, the third-party verification process relies on the honor system, allowing companies to report their own calculations with a total lack of transparency, creating an obvious conflict of interest.

Not only are these problems enough to make the “climate-friendly” designation meaningless, but they don’t take into account all the other ways that raising beef causes harm to the environment such as the water and air pollution from manure, the massive amounts of water needed to raise crops to feed the cattle, the biodiversity lost through monocrops and cutting down the rainforest to raise cattle and grow crops.

This new program is particularly harmful because it leads producers and consumers to think they are doing something to benefit the environment, when in fact beef is by far the least climate-friendly food a person can eat. Don’t be fooled by these new labels.

Plastic from fishing kills coral reefs

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Scientists have made a surprising discovery about the plastic in the ocean’s coral reefs. The majority of plastic comes from fishing operations, not land-based plastics. Although the researchers found much consumer debris, such as water bottles and food wrappers, which are often the main source of plastic pollution in other ecosystems, nearly three-quarters of all plastic items documented on the surveyed reefs were related to fishing like ropes, nets, and fishing lines.  

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COP28 to serve mostly vegan food

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Maybe they’re finally seeing the light about the heat caused by raising meat. This year’s annual United Nations Climate Change Conference will reportedly serve “mostly vegan food” following backlash at previous years’ events.

The annual conference sees world leaders come together to discuss how to tackle the climate crisis. In the past, it has sparked major backlash for sidelining – and often completely ignoring – animal agriculture’s impact. This is despite the fact that livestock farming is a major contributor to global warming and ecological destruction.

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Global Warming – what aren’t they telling us?

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Brace yourself. The earth’s temperature was off the charts last month. Last month was the planet’s hottest June on record by a huge margin.  More recently, the Fourth of July was the hottest day on earth in as many as 125,000 years—breaking a record set the day before.  

While natural variations may be able to explain part of it, few climatologist would deny that human activity is the driving force towards global warming.  But which human activity is the biggest driver of global warming? The answer may surprise you and even many environmentalists are in denial about it. It’s raising meat.  

According to a UN report, raising meat causes more global warming than all the cars, trucks, trains, planes, boats and ships in the world put together. A report by scientists at the World Bank and published in Foreign Affairs magazine, stated that raising meat causes more global warming than all other causes put together.   Why don’t we know about this? Because major news organizations won’t tell us.

A review of 1,000 articles found that the vast majority –  93 percent – fail to even mention animal agriculture at all. In most articles, the writers downplayed the effectiveness of plant-based diets on tackling the climate crisis, the study found. The mention of dietary changes away from meat and dairy and toward plant-based nutrition was rarely mentioned at all. Of course, there are bright spots. Former Vice President Al Gore faced reality and became a vegan himself.  

Since we raise over 60 billion farm animals and catch over 2 trillion fish every year, of course there are going to be consequences. Did we think we could all do that without impacting the environment? Fortunately we are not helpless and we have a choice. Following a plant-based diet is a powerful action each of us can take to fight global warming and sustain the environment.   Learn more:

Diets that fight global warming

Eliminate animal agriculture, stop global warming

Polluting our water

Deforestation and methane reductions

Polluting our water

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Raising meat causes dirty water. When it comes to protecting the environment, global warming often takes center stage. However, the water pollution problem hasn’t gone away. State courts are starting to pay attention and require our waterways to be better protected.

Farm animals produces a lot of waste liquid. It is often stored in lagoons which leak and can break open and cause an enormous amount of water pollution.

Factory farms, where most of our meat comes from, pollute the water with abandon, drain precious water resources, house farm animals under very harsh conditions, and threaten the health and quality of life for those who live and work nearby. Factory farms are one of the largest sources of water pollution. This is because we raise so many animals for food. Consider how much waste comes from the 9 billion chickens, 95 million cows and 75 million pigs we raise each year in the United States for meat, dairy and eggs.

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Countries encourage plant-based foods for the planet

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It’s now well established that the production of animal products is bad for the environment, whether it’s the air and water pollution caused by the production of manure, the destruction of the rainforests to clear grazing land for cattle, the soil erosion caused by free-range cattle, but most importantly the excessive greenhouse gases released from cows in the form of methane.

Many cities and even countries have started to recognize these essential facts, and to acknowledge that changing our diet is critical, especially to prevent the continuation of global warming. By pushing plant-based food consumption and supporting alternative protein development, some governments, at the local, state or national level, have started to take important steps to reduce meat consumption.

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Plant-based diet beats Keto

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The evidence is in. Yet, another study shows that the plant-based diet is best for the environment when it comes to global warming. Producing the food for a plant-based diet causes less global warming than any other diet. This study specifically compared the plant-based or vegan diet to the vegetarian diet, the standard American diet, the Paleo and the Keto diets.

To understand the results of the latest study we need to get technical for a minute. The way to say how much greenhouse gas is emitted in any “farm to your dinner table” diet is to measure it in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents for every 1,000 Calories. The lower the number the less greenhouse gas is emitted. The lower the number the better for the environment. Here’s how the different diets stack up.  The plant-based, or vegan diet, comes out as having the least greenhouse at 0.69. Next comes the vegetarian diet at 1.66. Then it gets much worse. The typical American meat centered diet hits the environment at 2.23 But the worst diets, in terms of global warming, were the Paleo diet at 2.62 and last place goes to the Keto at 2.91.

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Plant-based proteins can help reach net zero emissions

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In a new report “The Breakthrough Effect” published for the World Economic Forum, three key “super-leverage” points have been identified as accelerating the move toward zero emissions across ten of the highest emitting sectors in the world economy. The public purchasing of plant-based proteins is identified as one of these super-leverage points, because of the impact of reducing meat production on the world’s rainforests in particular.

With time running out to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees centigrade, the report produced by an international team in conjunction with the University of Exeter, shows how parts of the global economy could move rapidly towards zero emissions by using government actions as super-leverage points.  The three key actions they identify are:

  • the mandate of the sale of electric vehicles,
  • requiring green ammonia to be used in the manufacture of fertilizers,
  • and, most significantly for us, the public purchasing of plant-proteins.

A tipping point is reached when a low-carbon solution is able to outcompete its higher-carbon alternative, creating a feedback loop that supports the low-carbon solution, thus influencing transitions in multiple sectors of the economy simultaneously. In the case of plant-based proteins, a tipping point may be triggered once plant-based alternatives cost the same amount as animal protein and can offer an equivalent attractiveness (taste, texture, nutrition).

If global government purchasing (in hospitals, schools, prisons and government departments for example) of plant-based alternatives to high-carbon emitters, such as meat and dairy, is required, this could rapidly increase demand and help producers reach the economies of scale needed to bring costs down.  It would also introduce millions of people to plant-based foods and help to shift social norms around meat consumption.

Researchers say that changing the market on this scale could free up 400-800 million hectares of land, equivalent to 7-15% of global agriculture land today, which would provide more land for carbon storage and biodiversity, while drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions and cutting incentives for deforestation.

The report concludes that the scale and pace of the economic transitions required to meet climate change goals are unprecedented in human history. While they cannot guarantee the outcome, the report writers urge policymakers to take decisions, such as switching public purchasing of food to plant-based proteins, and to act without delay!

Big meat emits more methane than big oil

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Big meat emits more methane, a potent greenhouse gas, than big oil.  If the 15 big meat companies were treated as a country, a recent report noted, it would be the 10th-largest greenhouse gas-emitting jurisdiction in the world. Their combined emissions outpace those of oil companies such as ExxonMobil, BP and Shell, researchers found.

The analysis from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and Changing Markets Foundation found that emissions by the companies – five meat and 10 dairy corporations – equate to more than 80% of the European Union’s entire methane footprint and account for 11.1% of the world’s livestock-related methane emissions.

Methane, expelled by cows and their manure, is far more potent than carbon dioxide, trapping heat 80 times more effectively and emissions are accelerating rapidly, according to the UN. According to the UN, cutting methane is the “strongest lever” we have to slow global heating. A University of Oxford study published in 2018 found that a 90 percent reduction in beef consumption was needed to avoid climate breakdown. In April 2022, a UN report also stated that the world must eat less meat. 

Despite this, many world leaders, along with the general public, have been reluctant to accept that our diets are unsustainable. This year’s annual UN climate conference – COP27 – once again drew controversy for serving beef. The decision was blasted by The Vegan Society, which called it “disappointing.” 

The US has resisted regulating farm methane emissions, choosing instead to offer voluntary incentives to farmers and companies for reducing greenhouse gasses. But change is unlikely unless the Environmental Protection Agency is allowed to regulate those emissions, said Cathy Day, climate policy coordinator with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. The 15 companies studied are based in 10 countries, five of which have increased livestock methane emissions in the past decade, the report said. China’s emissions have increased 17%, far more than other countries.

The effect of animal agriculture goes far beyond methane when it comes to global warming. It’s one of the biggest drivers of deforestation, due to the pressure to clear forests to raise crops for animal feed or provide grazing land. In addition, animal agriculture is one of the biggest users of fossil fuels, used to plant, fertilize and harvest the animal feed, transport the animals to slaughter, to meat processing plants before being send to grocery stores.

The only solution to reducing the greenhouse gases and devastation caused by animal agriculture is for everyone to stop eating animal products.

Crab harvest failing, try vegan instead

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Earlier this month, Alaska announced that it had canceled the entire snow crab harvest for the year. The sudden shutdown of the snow crab season has left the state shocked.

The population of the species, which lives in the cold waters of the Bering Sea, has fallen below the regulatory threshold for the first time, so they cancelled the harvest in the hope of reviving the species. The crab count was 8 million in 2018 and fell to only 1 million in 2021. The sharp drop is due in part to aggressive commercial fishing, but climate change is a more likely culprit. These creatures thrive in water temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius.  The worry is that the waters will not be cold enough to sustain these crustaceans.

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