By Rose Huish-Neave –

With more deaths than any human war, the meat industry kills 200 million animals per day and 18,000 humans per year [1]. More antibiotics are used on livestock than on our sick populations and are the primary cause of deforestation worldwide [2]. Humans could solve world hunger if crops grown for livestock redirect to the 3.5 billion people struggling to access stable, healthy food.

If it’s so easy, why don’t we?

It is becoming more evident in recent years that companies’ drive to become more environmentally conscientious is dependent on product demand. The power falls to the consumer – us – to stop buying meat for factories to change their inefficient practices [3].

Figure 1: Filthy Calves at a Dairy Farm. Taiwan. J.A. McArthur via Unsplash

To answer why the meat industry continues: a 2019 Swiss study investigated what factors increased the likelihood of eating meat substitutes [4]. It concluded that contributing factors included: being educated, female, and environmentally conscious. Being health-conscious had no impact on meat consumption, although studies show that processed and red meat can increase the risk (and severity) of cancer, diabetes, and stroke [5]. A vital distinction made within the study was that participants believed soy-based ‘meat’ was as environmentally damaging as conventional meat. As well as this, the assumption was that vegetables imported by plane were more detrimental than meat [4].

This misunderstanding may account for the lack of personal responsibility taken by consumers.

Schools educate on global warming and fossil fuel burning, but it’s never the complete story. The farming of meat is fuelling the destruction of our Earth, accounting for 15% of all global greenhouse emissions, which is more than all transport emissions combined. [6]

These greenhouse emissions come from deforestation in developing countries as a means of quick land preparation for growing crops to import to countries like the UK. These practices are abundant in the Amazon rainforest, an ecosystem vital for biodiversity, regulating the climate system, and acting as a carbon store. Most detrimentally, forests become carbon emitters once pushed past an environmental tipping point, which is increasingly close to being reached. Minorities are exploited for these grazing lands and can promote pandemic outbreaks with animals migrating out of natural reserves [2].

But this process extends to wealthier countries too.

In developed nations, air pollution rises and causes the death of 18,000 people in the US alone annually. These emissions are from the transport of goods and farming itself [1]. Cultivating meat is ridiculously inefficient, only converting 3% of cow food intake into edible meat [6].

Now that you know the impact of meat on greenhouse gas emissions, will you opt for a more environmentally aware meat substitute, like some in the Swiss study? Mitigating climate change can include enjoying family meals, as well as avoiding global warming.