Final essay:

Will eating less meat really help solve climate change?

(3002 words)

For as long as most of us can remember, the world population has been told over and over that climate change is a major issue that we as a global society are going to have to all face in the future if we do not act now to fix the problem. The United Nations main goal for alleviating climate change has been to attempt to keep the global average world temperature from rising above 1.5 to 2 degrees celsius by the year 2100. We have not made much progress towards hitting our goal within the timeframe much due to the lack of willingness from politicians to enact laws and citizens to change the way we operate. One of the most effective ways we could mitigate our average global temperature from rising and therefore improving the climate would be for the world population to cut down on our consumption of meat. Eating less meat is an effective way for individuals to help to contribute to mitigating climate change by reducing the demand for meat, we can decrease greenhouse gas emissions from livestock  farming, alleviate much of the environmental impact of meat production like deforestation, and promote more sustainable plant based food systems that can help address the complex challenge of climate change. Mass meat production is likely one of the biggest reasons we are facing such harsh climate change today around the globe, and the evidence below will show how cutting down on the entire process will help the planet immensely. 

Meat production has been increasing rapidly since the 1960s. Since then, production has quadrupled to meet the increase of demand as more and more countries become wealthier and are able to afford the product and as production and processing has become cheaper over time. In 2020, 72.07m tonnes of beef, 109.84m tonnes of pigmeat, and 133.36m tonnes of poultry were produced around the world. This mass increase of meat consumption is an issue for our climate change goal, as beef and lamb/mutton are the #1 and #2 biggest greenhouse gas emitters in the food sector. The average American eats about 283 pounds of meat per year which is the highest among anywhere in the world, unsurprisingly as we have very low cost ways of processing many forms of meat into cheap foods. This mass consumption of meat around the world has and is still causing detrimental impacts to our environment which will take decades to resolve. As this figure increases, we will see more of the problems I listed above continue to increase and make our planet hotter and less stable. We will need to make room for the livestock by clearing more forests (also taking up room we could use to grow more efficient foods like vegetables and beans), pumping more and more greenhouse gasses into the environment and only making matters worse for the entire planet. 

Our man-made releasing of greenhouse gasses into the environment is one of the biggest contributing factors to our issues with climate change that we face today. Ever since the industrial revolution in the 1800s, the average global temperature has been rising at rates we have not seen in thousands of years and there is a major significant correlation with that increase and our increase of factory production and greenhouse gas emissions. Many factories in other sectors pump out millions of pounds of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere yearly, but the production of meat products is one of the worst contributors to the problem. Beef is the number one biggest producer of greenhouse gas emissions by far producing 60 kilograms of greenhouse gasses per pound of beef produced. 60 kilograms is a massive figure when compared to the plant based food products in figure 2 (below). Wheat/rye, tomatoes, corn, bananas, peas, apples, root vegetables all produce about 1 kilogram of greenhouse gasses per pound produced. This is clearly a massive difference and if we were able to scale up the production of even just those plant based items mentioned above and reduce the production of just beef, the difference in emitted greenhouse gasses emitted would help us reach our goal of the average global temperature from rising from 1.5 to 2 degrees celsius much more quickly. With the United States being the biggest meat consuming country in the world and also ranking #12 in obese population, we may see a mass change in our obesity rates with less consumption of meat and higher consumption of fruits and vegetables. This production of greenhouse gasses is mainly due to the process of raising the cow, processing, and land use changes. Transportation of the meat product and store refrigeration for example is not a major contributor. Buying locally from a farmer will not lower your environmental impact much when purchasing meat products.

Deforestation is another major contributing factor within the meat production sector that contributes heavily to greenhouse gasses being emitted into the atmosphere. About 5 million hectares of forest are cut down each year, 41% just for the raising of cattle for beef product, mostly in the tropics region. About 2.1 million hectares of forest are deforested every year just for one type of meat product. 24% of the deforestation in Brazil alone is for cattle raising and meat production. These figures seem to only be increasing as the demand for meat around the world is increasing each year and more rapidly as more countries become richer and are able to afford it, as well as the production and processing costs becoming much cheaper over time. Many countries in Latin America have taken it upon themselves to seize the opportunity to make money during this increase of demand, but at a cost to their beautiful, rich, environmentally beneficial forests and world environmental impact of those greenhouse gas emissions. This problem only continues to get worse as regulations have not been put in place to slow down the production of beef in these tropical regions. In figure 3 we can also see that the second leader in tropical deforestation is oilseeds, accounting for about 18% of the deforestation in the tropics region. According to figure 4, 76% of the soybeans that are grown are for animal feed for farms. The demand for soybean production has increased rapidly, faster than even the demand for meat since the 1960s. The major increase for soybean demand however did occur right around the exact same time that the demand for meat and production increased across the globe. So while 41% of the tropical deforestation is just for the raising and production of beef, another 18% of tropical deforestation is due to soybean production which 76% of is used for farm animal feed. Combined that is over 50% of the tropical deforestation being directly linked to the production of beef. The demand increase of meat and more specifically beef in this case is directly correlated to this issue, if we do not cut down on our consumption of meat/beef, these tropical countries are going to have a very hard time in the near future when they have run out of land to deforest for more meat production and/or soybean production for animal feed.

The production of meat can be very bad for the environment. It releases a lot of greenhouse gasses into the environment, it causes mass deforestation mainly in the tropics regions as demand for meat products increases and the available open land decreases, while also creating a massive demand for soybeans which is also directly linked to deforestation in the tropics. What is the solution? I am not proposing that we cut out meat entirely from everyone’s diet. Cutting the production of meat entirely is not only logistically unreasonable, it may cause irreparable damage to the world economy as mass layoffs would ensue and many would be out of a job. Many farmers would have to quickly pivot into growing likely fruits and vegetables and that harsh quick transition would be a disaster. Even if we were to figure out a plan to slowly weave out livestock farming entirely, there would be issues of black markets, protests/riots from backlash, mass lobbying from “big meat”, etc. I propose that the entire world should cut down on their consumption of meat products in order for us to reach closer in further hitting our goal of not raising the global average temperature from 1.5 to 2 degrees celsius by 2100. Figure 6 below more clearly outlines my proposal. By 2100 we will emit 1356 billion tonnes of greenhouse gasses into the environment purely from food production if we do not change anything as it is right now in order to cut down on those emissions being produced. That amount will put us over our high end of the goal of lowering the global average temperature by 2 degrees celsius by 2100. The blue bars/numbers in figure 6 below are explaining how we could change our eating/farming patterns in order to reach our goal by 2100. “High yields” is referring to the idea of being able to yield more product from a crop by genetically modifying the crops in order to improve their yield. This would reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 14%.“Half food waste” is arguably the easiest change that we could make as a global society almost immediately. If we cut down on global food waste by 50%, we will see a 27% reduction in greenhouse gasses being emitted into the atmosphere. Halving the food waste with global composting efforts and propaganda pushed from government agencies across the world to influence citizens is something we have the resources to do and could start working on right now, but we don’t really. “Healthy calories” is referring to the idea that if people stopped overeating and only ate the amount of calories that they should be consuming in one day (about 2000 calories in the US) while also feeding undernourished people a proper daily diet with sufficient calories, we could reduce our food emissions by 30% by 2100. “Best farm practices” refers to the idea that farmers invest more time and money into researching how to create more efficient fertilizers and rich soil in order to improve yield from a crop. This would reduce our global food emissions by 40% by 2100. Finally, a plant rich diet (more plant based foods and less meat consumption, especially beef) would help reduce food emissions by 40% by 2100. Just achieving 50% of these goals would give us a 67% chance of hitting our goal of the average global temperature only rising 1.5 degrees celsius by 2100, a much bigger improvement than if we did nothing at all and gave ourselves a 67% chance of hitting a 2 degree celsius increase in the average global temperature. A plant rich diet is arguably the category in which we as a society have put the most effort into focusing on in more recent years. Meat production for all meat besides poultry has decreased in demand slightly since 2010 while there has been an increase for plant based foods. Bloomberg reported in August 2021 that the plant based food market industry increased in value from $29.4 billion to $162 billion from just 2020-2021. Beyond meat, Oatley, and Impossible Foods are some of the new and more notable companies in the industry, creating products such as plant based meat, alternative milks, yogurts, etc. Jennifer Bartashus, senior consumer staples analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence believes that these new alternative food companies and their products are not just quick fads that will fade off quickly, but that these companies are creating new staple products that could dominate the plant based food industry, even possibly taking a 5-10% market chunk from the real meat and dairy industries. These alternative products are often much healthier and better for the environment than their real counterparts. Plant based meat often contains the same or even more protein and healthy vitamins and minerals compared to real meat, while being lower in saturated fat, sodium, calories, etc. Same goes for alternative milk products, an oat milk product (Oatley’s staple) often contains healthy fat, less sugar, and more vitamins. The public have already shown that there is heavy demand for more plant based foods and alternatives to less healthy foods, I think this boom in plant based and alternative foods will be here to stay for the formidable future. 

In conclusion, eating less meat, especially beef could have a great impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate climate, reducing deforestation in the tropics region of the world, and a plant based diet could help us on our way towards getting closer to our goal of lowering the global average temperature from rising above 2 degrees celsius by 2100. Meat lovers like me I believe will have a hard time transitioning over the next few decades as more restaurants and grocery stores start to sell more and more alternative meat products like Beyond Meat unless these products improve on their quality of taste quickly. For this essay I went out to my local Whole Foods and bought some Beyond Meat patties and Oatly oat milk. I have tried oat milk before, but that was Trader Joe’s brand. I have never had plant based fake meat before this. I did not like the Oatly oat milk and I did not like the Beyond Meat burger. The Oatly oat milk made me realize as well that there isn’t a standard taste for oat milk. I liked the one I bought from Trader Joes a while back, but the Oatly brand was not good. Real dairy milk tastes pretty consistent from brand to brand as long as the fat content is the same, so it made me wonder if the lack of consistency from brand to brand will hurt the growth of these alternative milk products. The Beyond Meat was not good either, it wasn’t dry like I expected but it did not have the classic beef taste that I was expecting which disappointed me greatly. Like any new company, these companies are going to experiment and change their products over time in order to appeal to a wider audience and hopefully in the future if I buy more Beyond Meat that it will taste more like the real deal. I hope to see these alternative brands improve their products and flourish in the future for the sake of the planet.

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