13/12/2023
Part 3.
How Does Eating Meat Affect Climate Change?
Greenhouse Gasses
Food-related greenhouse gas emissions come from a variety of sources throughout the animal farming supply chain. Sources include burps and manure from the animals themselves, the storage of their manure, the use of fertilizer on the fields used to raise them, fuel for transport, the land used to feed and raise them and the heating and machinery required for animal agriculture production.
Water Usage and Pollution
Feeding and raising animals as livestock uses far more water than growing crops like soy or lentils. Beef production requires 15,415 liters per kilogram of meat, 112 liters per gram of protein and 153 liters per gram of fat. One third of all the water used by the animal agriculture sector goes toward the production of beef. Another 19 percent goes to dairy cattle for the production of milk and other dairy products.
Livestock farming also pollutes waterways, disproportionately impacting Black and Indigenous communities, as well as other communities of color. This pollution comes mostly from manure pits or lagoons created to hold the waste of the thousands of animals housed on factory farms. When pits leak or overflow, the nitrogen and other contaminants in the manure pollute local water sources, causing or exacerbating numerous health problems in the surrounding communities. To avoid overflow, farmers often apply too much manure to fields, which also leads to pollution runoff.
How Does Climate Change Affect Livestock?
The production of meat and other animal products is a large contributor to climate change, which in turn makes life worse for the millions of animals living on factory farms.
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