           “Climate change is the change in global or regional climate patterns and is attributed largely to the increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide(dictionary.com).” Livestock production has been a huge contributor to climate change due to the need for excessive amounts of land. There is currently competition for land between energy, timber, food, water, settlements, recreation, etc. With the increasing demand for food comes the demand for land used for livestock production. The competition for land creates more problems when it comes to climate change, which impacts food production, causing more demand for land to produce food and so on (Smith et al). The relationship between food production, especially the meat industry, and our climate is correlational; they both increase together. By changing our own diets, we can stop this trend and start reversing the negative impacts we have on our planet. With our production having such a great impact on our daily carbon footprint even a small change for the better can make big bounds towards a cleaner earth.

The problem we face now is that food production is increasing so rapidly that it is making an impact on the climate, despite not even being able to keep up with the growing population. Our population is expected to increase from 7.2 to 9.6 billion in less than 50 years. With the current demand for agricultural products we will not be able to sustain that growth. Both dairy and meat demand is expected to rise drastically, both doubling. With the livestock already directly affecting our climate it simultaneously affects its own production cycle. Climate change affects natural resources, quality and quantity of feed, livestock diseases, heat stress, and biodiversity loss all at the same time our demand for their products continue to increase (Rojas-Downing).  One of the direct ways our land was affected by land conversion was one-half of all natural forests and one-third of all natural forests. Land conversion is the conversion of formal forests, plains, amazons, and more to land for crop and animal production. The current global extinction rate for earth inhabitants is 1000 times the estimated background rate the planet used to have. The Amazon is the greatest example of deforestation being converted to livestock production with over three quarters of the converted land being used for livestock pasture and feedcrop production. Another great example of biodiversity being destroyed is in the forests of Costa Rica; half are gone, and all the land that has been cleared is now dedicated to livestock production. There is more land being used for livestock grazing than land that is being preserved. The destruction of these habitats drives the increase in loss of species. With the loss of these predatory animals it can cause massive ripples in the ecosystem. Next, our waterways are affected by the mass amounts of manure and fertilizers. By using nitrogen fertilizers to feed livestock, there will be more CO2 released from manure; equivalent to 2,200,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide. This runs off into our water supply, slowly increasing the amounts of pollutants in our oceans, which coincidentally poisons another source of protein that is popular in our diets, fish (Machovina). 

Farming contributes large amounts of pollutants in the form of fertilizers annually. These pollutants run off into our ground water and streams, affecting the quality by contaminating it with nitrogen and phosphorus (epa.gov). These chemicals cause harm to aquatic life after large amounts are deposited into the water (epa.gov). While scientists have attempted to decrease the environmental effect of raising livestock, they have discovered that the amount of fertilizer is key in reducing the pollution put off by farming and livestock production (epa.gov). Typically, farmers tend to use far more chemicals than what is needed (epa.gov). There is a peak time to fertilize crops that results in more efficient production, and farmers often fertilize at non-optimal times, therefore wasting the fertilizer and contributing greatly to unnecessary runoff (epa.gov). There are other options like planting “buffer” plants that would help stop the pollutants from escaping the farm and causing harm, reducing tilling, managing animal waste better, and installing drainage plants (epa.gov). The consensus is that something must be done to keep these chemicals from getting into our water supply. 

The very way that we raise our meat points to the obvious, meat is bad for our environment. Meat is produced in a very different way than fruits and vegetables. It takes years to raise animals to the age we can send them to the slaughter house. Before killing the animals and preparing their meat for consumption, corporations must prepare the space and resources needed to raise the animals. First, we cut down trees and clear land to create a grazing area for animals. Next, we have to breed the animal and nurture it until it is at the optimal age to be slaughtered and consumed. This takes fresh water and food to be done. The food needs to be grown on separate land and then harvested and transported for them to eat. This same food could go straight to our tables but instead is used in a middle ground step to aid in meat production. These animals are creating huge amounts of emissions just by living. Every day they release huge amounts of methane into the air and ground from their manure. The huge amounts of runoff go into our ground water and streams polluting the water. Next, when the animal is ready for slaughter they must transport it and prepare it. After they kill it the animal is trimmed down creating waste. The animal is then packaged using plastics, paper, paper board, and more which is considered municipal solid waste (MSW). With food being eaten by every person up to three times a day this led to food packaging being the culprit for over two thirds of the of the total packaging waste volume (IFT). On top of all this packaging the food is sometimes transported all around the globe if not bought locally. Importing and exporting food products adds even more carbon emissions to our air. While transportation can affect the environment whether it is meat or not, a logical solution could be to get as many locally sourced groceries as possible, eliminating the need for preservatives, packaging, and transportation.

Our government is getting us to eat more and more meat by teaching us since we are young what is supposed to be a part of our daily diet using the food pyramid. The pyramid itself is being called controversial because the “guidelines are influenced too much by food manufacturers, food producers, and special interest groups (Heid).” This means that the very people telling our youth what to eat are the same people who profit from us buying their products. There is obvious deception being done by these lobbyist and people’s health is at stake. The use of this food pyramid has caused mass public confusion in the process leaving people hopeless in what to believe is truly beneficial to their health. The creators of this food pyramid don’t even use hard evidence to show the correlation between being healthy and eating processed meats, “the discrepancies between the Advisory Committee’s report and the final guidelines are evidence that USDA and HHS do not rely on science to form their nutrition policies (Heid).” This shows that they are feeding the public information they know isn’t true in order to get capital gain in the process. There is a shown link between the government issued health guidelines and the amount of people with diabetes or obese. Not all government issued food guidelines are bad, the FDA released a warning the public about trans-fat and how it can harm your health (Heid). To begin the fight against climate, change the first people that need to take a stance is our government. Without their help the public will continue to believe their skewed statements or continue to be confused. They need to warn the public of the dangers of over consumption of meat products and outline how it can affect their health. 

Another problem we face is the waste that comes with eating meat. We begin our trail of waste before it even reaches our table. All around the world we produce enough food to feed everyone three times as much as they need, but we waste most of that. Some of this is wasted by being left in the ground, bio fuels, and quality control. A huge chunk is wasted on feeding animals. Almost one third of the food we produce is used to raise the meat we are feeding every day. All of this food uses up land that could be producing more food for humans. For example, if the land we used to grow corn or soy for animals was used to produce food for humans, on top of converting the land for raising meat we would cut down our waste exponentially. It is clear we may never ditch meat, if this is the case we need to decide which meats are worth it. Some meat like chicken create ten times less carbon emission when compared to beef. This is a huge difference and can feed the same amount of people with even less land. To help our planet we need to “reduce meat, switch type of meat and, of course, cut waste (Berners-Lee).” Also, we lose about one sixth of daily food production to processing, distribution, and household waste. This is mostly occurring in developed countries like ours where there is a lack of sharing. This means many people are growing obese while there are others hungry searching for food. With an improvement in organization and portion sizes we could feed millions more people every day while not wasting the food we are producing (Berners-Lee). We all need to come together as a community to fix this ongoing problem before it creates a bigger problem later on in our lives.  

Some people believe that cutting meat out of everyone’s lives will impact the poor in a negative way. Meat and junk food is seen as a cheap meal compared to buying fruits and vegetables. We tend to eat these products with no nutritional value every single day because of wants and not our needs. When it comes to eating these products they both have one thing in common, we don’t need them in order to survive or maintain health. These products are just marketed by the government telling us they do. Eventually the USDA acknowledged that eating more fruits and vegetables led to better health but didn’t specify that these foods should be replacing our original diet of junk and meats. They told us that we needed at least five serving a day just expanding our appetite even more by adding food instead of cutting the bad out and replacing with the good (Bittman). This causes more people to become obese from over eating instead of swaying people to eat healthier. With a more accurate image of what we should be consuming every day I believe that people would be more open to a meat free diet or at least reducing their daily consumption. With the government’s ability to reach out to millions of people they can create a large impact on the restoration and recovery of our environment through teaching the public right from wrong. Currently people believe they are eating better when they consume their five servings per day but they are continuing to load up on large amount of meats and high fats foods. This needs to be addressed by our food regulating agencies while putting a stop to the confusion in our daily diet. What needs to by laid out is, vegetables are a good better alternative than junk food, you don’t need to eat meat to maintain a healthy lifestyle, and animals have a negative impact on our environment. 

There is only one negative to switching our diet from primarily to vegetable based diet, and it’s temporary. Due to the large demand for meat products means there is a huge demand for labor jobs dealing with this sector. Disbanding this industry means losing up to 1.1 billion people from all around the world. These same people are also some of the poorest part of the population (Rojas-Downing). Although these jobs might be lost there would be creation of jobs in the crop industry. To make up for the loss of our meat products we would have to increase our crop yield. There is so much more promise by converting our agriculture land to cultivated lands as there is room for increased productivity compared to cows as they will always grow the same unless altered genetically. Even with these alterations a cow will still take up the same amount of room and with increased demands comes more demand for land. “Total global cultivated land area has not changed since 1991” which means we have become more efficient with our use of land and production of crops (Rojas-Downing). We need to reverse the trend in our demands and rethink the way we utilize land. 

If we want to be able to live long healthy lives on this planet one hundred years from now we can’t continue down our current path. There is no denying we are facing a current crisis with pollution and trying regulate and change our ways all while our population is booming. We have cities around the world with “code red” days where some people are restricted from going outdoors due to the high amounts of smog in the air. This shouldn’t be the situation. We should all be able to go outside and enjoy a breath of fresh air whenever we want to. This seems like a basic human right to enjoy clean air outside of their homes. Our problem right now is a lack of compassion from government officials and company CEO’s. The first concern in their minds is not the wellbeing of the planet we live on but the amount of revenue their company brings in every year, even if that means cutting corners when it comes to their carbon footprint. Some government leaders continue to deny the obvious facts that our scientists keep restating. With the full support of our leaders and major companies that sway our everyday lives we can create a major change for our planet. 

First, we could start with changing our own daily diets. The meat industry is responsible for a majority of our daily carbon footprint and if we all cut it out of our diets we would be much closer to a clean earth. For starters, our government agencies can acknowledge the massive impact the foods not only have on our planet but our own health. Eating meat isn’t beneficial to eat in large quantities and can even cause long term damage. They can lay out beneficial diet guidelines that help us transition from primarily meat filled diets to plant based. The rest will come easily, when a majority of the population is demanding more plants to consume, prices will go down, health will improve, and emissions will decrease drastically. We know cutting livestock from our daily lives will cut down transportation, land use, animal pollutants, food packaging waste, obesity, and more. This choice might not seem plausible or appetizing right now but when the world is fighting for the right to eat and breath, it might just be the conventional decision.

Food production has been one of the fastest growing industries in America especially. In the middle of the technological advancements, chemical alterations, and research concerning food, we may have lost sight of the actual impacts. We must be told a clear and concise diet that is beneficial to our health. This means no outside persuasion from lobbyist and companies who benefit from “helping” shape our diet. With the quick growth of our global population we all need to work together to find a solution. Without an alternative path forward more people will starve and our land supply will slowly deteriorate, along with the quality of our climate, until the entire Earth is suffering from the effects.
