Livestock’s carbon footprint ‘catastrophic,’ say climate experts
Feeding animal products to the world’s billions is now taking its toll, if some climate experts are to be believed. According to them, livestock farming now accounts for the use of 70 percent of the global freshwater and 38 percent of the world’s land-use conversion. Some 70 percent of the Amazon Rainforest, in fact, has already been cleared for grazing and feed crop production.
The “Livestock and Climate Change” published in the latest issue of World Watch magazine reported that livestock and their byproducts actually account for at least 32.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide GHG emissions as noted by Inquirer Science/Health on April 20. Forbes online, in its April 28 issue, wrote that the 2006 report estimated that 18 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions attributable to cattle, buffalo, sheep, goats, camels, pigs and poultry (chicken) were in fact updated to 51 percent, citing an analysis performed by Robert Goodland, a former World Bank Group environmental adviser, with cowriter Jeff Anhang, an environmental specialist at the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corp.
Excess atmospheric carbon
Goodland, who in 2008 was awarded the first (and as yet only) Coolidge Memorial Medal by the International Conservation Union for lifetime achievements in environmental conservation, wrote in his blog: “A shocking 45 percent of all land on Earth is today used for raising livestock and growing crops to feed them. But most land used for livestock and crops can grow trees instead. Reforestation and regeneration of forest are the only ways to create new, large-scale capacity to sequester today’s excess atmospheric carbon. If it is not sequestered, then it will take at least a century to dissipate.”
Goodland continues: “Replacing a quarter of today’s livestock products with alternatives would allow forest to regenerate on a vast amount of land. As a result, this may be the only pragmatic way to stop global warming in the next 5 years—which many experts believe may be the last chance to avoid irreversible climate disruption. It’s the view of the International Energy Agency, not a radical group.
“Some argue that millions of poor people have no alternative to raising livestock for their livelihoods. But tens of millions of poor people’s livestock have died recently due to climate disasters. Replacing them would risk a similar fate for the new animals. Supporting new livelihoods for those whose livestock die in climate disasters would be less risky. Microfinance, mobile banking, computers and off-grid electricity have generated dramatic growth in many poor rural communities.”
Warning
Meanwhile, Meatless Monday Philippines founding chair Custer Deocaris, a balik scientist of the Department of Science and Technology, warned that the year 2017 will be the last year that IEA has estimated for all countries to lower their CO2 emission. “Otherwise, if the target is not met, the rise of global temperature to 2ºC by 2050 will be irreversible. Most climate experts are saying 4ºC is a more possible scenario. Since 51 percent of CO2 comes from the livestock sector and that 52 percent of allowable man-made CO2 emissions were used up already by this sector since 2000, the option would be to go vegan and all efforts should be concentrated from now to 2017.
“The world needs a paradigm shift. As we approach 2017, the truth will get more inconvenient. You cannot be an environmentalist if you do not wish to cut down on meat or go vegetarian,” Deocaris previously stressed.
Deocaris, who came up with local calculations using the IEA figures as his basis, estimated that the amount of water used by 101 million Filipinos every lunch time based on the per capita meat intake would be around 40,622,913,794 liters. This would approximately be equivalent to 5.2 Ipo Dams (the water capacity of the dam is pegged at 7.5 million cubic meters). He also cited as references (to his calculations) the Inventory of US Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Sinks, the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Last April 20, Inquirer Science came out with Deocaris’ calculations: One meatless lunch by 97-million Filipinos would have been equivalent to 12,722,851 kg of CO2 saved (if all protein of the average Filipino diet with meat is replaced by soya during this meatless lunch).
It takes about 12,000 liters of water to produce one kg of beef, compared with just 850 liters to produce the same weight of wheat.
Palace underwater by 2050
Deocaris also predicted that if climate change is left unchecked, “before 2050 arrives, Malacañang will long be underwater.”
“We need to emphasize that the 2-degree threshold set by IPCC by 2050 actually means a 12- to 32-meter rise in sea level. It takes just 1.6 degrees to completely melt the Greenland Ice Sheet! So far, temperatures have already risen by 0.76ºCelsius.” He cited the link https://www.bitsofscience.org/2-degrees-climate-warming-pliocene-sea-level-rise-5353/ as the basis for his pronouncements.
According to the IEA, if nothing substantial would be done by 2017, it would be too late to reverse a 2-degree rise in average global temperatures by 2050.
