The environment doesn’t appreciate our meat obsession.
The average meat-eater in the U.S. is responsible for almost twice as much global warming as the average vegetarian, and close to three times that of the average vegan, according to a study (pdf) published this month in the journal Climatic Change.
The study, which was carried out at Oxford University, surveyed the diets of some 60,000 individuals (more than 2,000 vegans, 15,000 vegetarians, 8,000 fish-eaters, and nearly 30,000 meat-eaters). Heavy meat-eaters were defined as those who consume more than 3.5 ounces of meat per day—making the average American meat-eater (who consumes roughly four ounces per day) a heavy meat-eater. Low meat-eaters were those who eat fewer than 1.76 ounces. And medium meat-eaters were those whose consumption fell somewhere in between.
The difference found in diet-driven carbon footprints was significant. Halve your meat intake, and you could cut your carbon footprint by more than 35 percent; stick to fish, and you could cut it by nearer to 50 percent; go vegan, and the difference could be 60%.
The variations were so drastic that the study’s authors suggested that countries should consider revising their definition of a sustainable diet. “National governments that are considering an update of dietary recommendations in order to define a ‘healthy, sustainable diet’ must incorporate the recommendation to lower the consumption of animal-based products,” the study says.
The livestock industry is responsible for roughly 15 percent of global carbon emissions. And the resources necessary to produce even the smallest amounts of market ready meat—like, say, a quarter pound hamburger—are staggering.
The good news is that while Americans might still eat more meat than mother nature would prefer, they are scaling back, and especially so with the most environmentally unfriendly kind—per capita beef consumption has fallen by 36 percent since its peak in 1976, according to data from the USDA. The bad news is that the rest of the world appears to be headed in the opposite direction. Global demand for meat is expected to grow by more than 70 percent by 2050, largely driven by burgeoning middle classes in the developing world.
Exposing the Big Game 
Unsustainable: Anthropocene Extinction Era: Elk and deer do not need to be saved from wolves or other predators, they have millenniums of natural balance for mutual benefit. It is the blood sport killers (hunters and trappers) that are the additive problem. Humans kill 27 million animals daily for consumption, millions more yearly from hunting and”management” and this is not counting the sea life, 90 billion per year for consumptrion. Humans kill millions of sharks every year. Animal farming is one of the most damaging to the earth and cruelest things we do to the planet, the environment (land, sea and air); it is also eating up wilderness and forest and jungles, polluting rivers and streams, polluting the air, downdrawing stream levels Man is crueler than any alien so far imagined or presented in alien movies. Man is working himself toward extinction by animal farming, extraction industries, development, encroachment on the wild, destruction of biodiversity and is taking most everything else with him. We are 7 billion headed toward 10 billion by the middle to the end of the century. We may have the planet at a tipping point in global warming which also has disastrous effects on much land and sea animal life. The wolves and other predators are healthy factors in the wilderness ecology. Game farming for sports killing is not. We have several major species on the brink and hunters and poachers and farmer/ranchers, extraction industries, development and encroachment are still going at the the destruction. What humans are doing is not healthy for us or the planet or the other animals. We instituted agencies like the EPA and ESA and international and national conservation organizations to protect us from ourselves and the by products of seeking monetary gain at all costs then we try to politically undermine and gut those agencies. We are a destructive species and cannot seem to help ourselves. The direction we are going is not sustainable. For the health of ourselves, the planet, other life, biodiversity, we need to change the way we eat, stop human sprawl, preserve habitat, and basically learn to live with wildlife and healthy environment instead of against it.
It’s so unsustainable, we are right at the doorstep of disaster and yet we still don’t want to change the way we’ve always done things! What will it take to get us to change? Even the way we approach alternative energy is the same old way – profit first, huge, first, and who cares about the environment – our insatiable needs come first, then we’ll worry about the birds, tortoises, whales, and on and on – (if any survive).
Exactly.
So very true but we are so far gone I think we’ll just have to go over the edge. A pity.
For the sake of this planet, Homo sapiens needs to go extinct. The problem is, this species will be taking most of the other beings with us.