The Price of Meat

Humans have been eating meat for thousands of years. We have progressed much since the time when man hunted wild animals for food, however, modern livestock farming is much more taxing on nature and our environment than we believe.

Greenhouse gases are no new problem but they are only becoming more of a problem as humanity continues to develop and grow as a species. The UN predicts greenhouse gases to increase by a staggering 80% by 2050, and if we don't do something immediately then we may never be able to save the only world we have.

To many people's surprise, one of the main contributors to these destructive gases is none other than animal agriculture. Livestock as well as the meat industry are producing a vast amount of carbon emissions and are destroying our planet's atmosphere. Most of the time we blame transport, such as cars, planes, and boats, for humanity's carbon emissions but shockingly animal agriculture is responsible for a surprising 18% of all of our greenhouse gases; while transport as a whole only account for 13%.

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One of the most guilty culprits for producing greenhouse gases is cows. They belch out between 70 to 120 kg of methane every year, per cow. Methane, like carbon dioxide, is a dangerous greenhouse gas. However, it dwarfs the impact of CO2, as methane is 23 times more destructive to our environment. Average sirloin steak at 3oz will give nature around 89kg of extra toxic greenhouse gases to deal with, the same amount as more than a 35-mile journey would produce in an average car.

On the other hand, 85g of tofu only produces around 3kg of emissions. Furthermore, a study done by Grain and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy from 2018, found that the top five major meat businesses (JBS, Cargill, Tyson, Fonterra and Dairy Farmers of America) together produced more dangerous greenhouse gases than some of the biggest oil companies in the world, including ExxonMobil, Shell, and BP. As Well as that, JBS, Tyson, and Cargill combined produce more greenhouse gases than all of France.

Another impact that meat farming is having on our environment is the vast amount of water that is being inefficiently wasted raising livestock when it could be used in other more important areas. In the United States alone the vast majority, around 80-90% of available water is dedicated to agriculture alone. Although that does also include growing crops, livestock requires much more water to raise for less total food produced. The most efficient meat-to-water animal is chicken which requires 4,325 liters of water per kilogram of meat, while cows drink a shocking 15,415 liters of water for a measly 1 kg of beef. Meanwhile, vegetables only require 322 liters for one kilogram of food. That means that for every kilogram of beef produced almost 48 kilograms of vegetables can be made with the same amount of water, and when people are starving even here in the UK, the choice is obvious. It is estimated by PETA that one person going vegan saves on average 219,000 gallons of water every year per person. Globally, the rearing of livestock for meat is using up one-quarter of all of the earth's available freshwater. We are wasting precious and valuable resources to satisfy our own selfishness while people are dying from a lack of water and our planet is slowly becoming inhospitable.

Not only are we draining the earth of its water and destroying its environment, but we are also using up a large portion of available land to raise livestock only for it to end up on our dinner plates. Out of our limited amount of space here on earth, a huge 26% of our ice-free land is used for the sole purpose of raising livestock. Here in the UK agriculture uses up almost 70% of our land and the majority of that (45%) land is used for livestock. The effects are even worse in different areas of the world as in the United States, an astonishing total of 56 million acres of land are used for animal farming alone. However the worst of it is in the tropical rainforest of South America; since 1970, over just the past four decades, 90% of the cleared rainforest has been used for land to rear livestock. Not only is this killing animal, destroying natural habitats; damaging the ecosystem; ruining traditional South American tribes, and demolishing a natural source of the air we require to live but it is also contributing to the huge amount of environmental damage that farming animals do to our planet.

Lastly, farming animals consumes grains and other crops inefficiently and they could be used elsewhere for a better purpose. We live in a time of both extreme wealth as well as extreme poverty. While we are enjoying our steaks and chicken roasts, people in less fortunate areas of the world are dying of hunger and starvation. UNICEF research states that each day 22000 children die of poverty; every single day. To further this the united nations environmental program estimates that the number of calories wasted on feed for animals could theoretically feed almost half of the world's population alone. It has not always been like this though. Research shows that over the past 30 years human beings have doubled the amount of meat that we eat on average.

Some, however, would argue that we need the meat industry to keep functioning as a society. They would argue that it is a huge source of jobs and employment, and brings in a large portion of income to our country. That is simply statistically wrong. That "huge" amount of jobs offered by the agriculture and farming business across all of the UK is a pathetic 1.5% of the workforce, and that also includes crop farmers as well as livestock farmers. Not only that but it is only responsible for only 0.62% of our national gross income as a country.

Another counter-argument may be that we must keep the meat industry because we have always eaten and enjoyed meat and thus we must keep the tradition going. Well, we have not ended up where we are as a species by keeping up ancient traditions and forgoing change. Humanity can only improve upon itself if it takes action to change, such as the development of agriculture in the first place, from which all of society is based. If not, then we would still be hunter-gatherers and would not have the level of complex technology and intellectual advancement that we have today. Change is required for us to progress and adapt. So when the earth is dying, our ozone layer dissipated, and humanity as a species is becoming extinct you can savor the taste of your traditional steak and regret not taking action to try and save the very planet you live on.

The evidence is there, and the facts are clear. We have all been told that we need to take action against the emission of greenhouse gases, and we have been slowly making progress. First, we cut down on fossil fuel consumption, to reduce carbon emissions. Then we invented cars and trains that do not produce dangerous nitrogen dioxide into our atmosphere. Now, we need to cut down on the amount of food, water, and land that is used for farming animals but not for us, instead of for our children and our grandchildren, and the generations to come. The effects may not be immediate but the sun is not estimated to die for another 7.5 billion years, so we should probably plan for a long future ahead of us.