The Environmental Cost of Meat

Continuing the thread from the last post, I want to shed some light on the environmental cost of our diet.  Here's a link to a 3 year old report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.  Let me highlight a few key points.

"The lifestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global."

1. Livestock production accounts for 70% of all agricultural land and 30% of the land surface of the planet.

2. Massive amounts of deforestation in the Amazon is dedicated toward livestock (as feedcrop or pasture)

3. The consequence:  the livestock sector is reponsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2 equivalents.  This includes methane from the animals, nitrous oxide from manure and ammonia which leads to acidification of ecosystems.

The U.N. report concludes that greenhouse emissions from livestock are greater than all forms of human motor transportation!  That means that the world's appetite for meat causes more damage to the environment than all the planes, trains and automobiles in the world!