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Climate Change:It’s What’s for Dinner
FOOD
The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Or-ganization recently estimated that animalagriculture is responsible for 18 percentof global greenhouse gas emissions. Thatis more than the emissions caused by cars and light trucks combined!
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In theUnited States, 6 percent of greenhousegases come from livestock production, compared with 19 percent fromtransportation. In theEuropean Union,agriculture isresponsiblefor 9 percentof greenhousegas emissionsand the continent is already feeling the impacts of seri-ous droughts, especially in the south.
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These statisticsare signicant and worth noting by the conscientiousconsumer.
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How Does Livestock CauseClimate Change?
One way livestock causes climate change is throughtheir manure, which releases methane. This situationis particularly troubling when animal waste is stored inanaerobic conditions such as the waste lagoons oftenfound at U.S. factory farms for pigs and dairy cattle, orthe huge manure piles connected to American cattlefeedlots.
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,Such manure management is not just an American phenomemon. European countries, includ-ing the Netherlands, Poland and Romania, continue tohave problems with handling their large quantities of manure waste. According to the United Nations report, deforestation— the massive clearing of forests — also plays a big partin exacerbating climate change. More than 70 percentof the Amazon rainforest’s deforested land is used forpasture and a substantial part of the remainingland is used to produce crops fed to animals,such as soya, which Europe imports on alarge scale. Plant production designedto meet the needs of animals cov-ers more and more land worldwide.In the United States, 60 percent of the agricultural output of theMissouri-Mississippi basinis used to feed livestock and land once farmedfor local humanconsumption isnow used forindustrializedfeed produc-tion.
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More than 70 percent of the Amazon rainforest’sdeforested land is used for pasture.
Twenty percent of all fossil fuels used in the UnitedStates go toward food production, including runningslaughterhouses and meat processing plants, fertilizerproduction and water usage to raise cattle, as well asthe post-agricultural processes of transporting, pack-aging and storing food.
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Globally, the food and drink sector uses up to 23 percent of energy resources.
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Muchof this energy is wasted, as an estimated one third of allfood is thrown away in the UK alone — an astonishing5.3 million tonnes a year worth some £12 billion (ap-prox. 13.5 billion Euro).
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W
e all know that driving a gas-guzzling SUV contributes to climate change, but did you know that what you put on your plate could too? Here’s how your food choices affect climate change and what you, as a consumer, can doabout it.
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