The livestock industry and climate

EU makes bad worse

January 2008

Preface

Climate change is developing into the greatest threat ever to our world’s survival. There is a relatively high awareness of and preparedness for some of the worst emissions, such as heavy industry and the transportation sector. But one of the most damaging contributors to climate change is, remarkably enough, conspicuous in its absence from the debate: the food industry.

What we eat accounts for approximately a third of the average Swedish family’s impact on climate. The figures for the rest of Europe are about the same. Certain kinds of food cause many times more damage than others: meat, for example. Last autumn, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) presented Livestock’s Long Shadow, a 400 page report on livestock raising and climate change. The meat industry and livestock raising contribute 18% of the total emissions of greenhouse gases. That is in fact a greater impact than that of all of the world’s land transportation, reported FAO.....

Source: The livestock industry and climate
Author: Jens Holm & Toivo Jokkala

Link: Climate change: Commission dishes the dirt on the importance of soil
Link: Go green, eat vegetarian
Link: MEP Jens Holm
Link: Scientists: Pace of Climate Change Exceeds Estimates
Link: 'The Cow Is a Climate Bomb'