I will be addressing the act of removing beef from one’s diet to help reduce the demand for beef, which overall helps mitigate Climate Change. My position is that one should remove beef entirely from their diet, or at least reduce their consumption of beef raised in a feed-lot system. I personally do not consume beef. People might not agree with this lifestyle, they may like having beef in their meals, or do not believe that cows are a large source of methane as a greenhouse gas. I plan to address those concerns with alternate options and compelling evidence. I will also be touching on how to start cutting beef out of your diet if you want to make a difference.
I. Why Is This Important?
When carbon is emitted into the air, it remains in the atmosphere for centuries, between 300 and 1,000 years (10). This surplus of greenhouse gasses in the air gets trapped in the atmosphere and absorbs radiation and heat as it attempts to radiate from Earth. It is proven that the amount of greenhouse gasses is directly correlated with the global temperature on the Earth. This has caused the average temperature of the world to increase slowly over the past few decades, since the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution was the beginning of humans releasing multitudes of emissions into the atmosphere because of our production of goods and machinery (16). We cannot go back in time and undo the amount humans have released, however, we can take preventative measures so we do not release detrimental amounts. Beef and dairy account for 14-18% of human greenhouse gas emissions (7). The US is the highest beef producing nation or region, making up 17% of total beef production (7). People tend to think that they cannot make a difference by making such a small change, but if everyone thinks that way, nothing will improve. Climate change affects everyone, and if you are able, you should try to contribute in more ways than one.
II. Cows and Their Production of Greenhouse Gasses
According to Global Change Biology, “Beef and dairy contribute over 70% of livestock greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), which collectively contribute ~6.3 Gt CO2-eq/year (Gerber et al., 2013; Herrero et al., 2016)”. Beef production produces 2-9 times as much greenhouse gasses than any other animal product (14). The three major options for reducing the amount of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere from beef production are productivity improvements with livestock, implementing the best practices to produce beef, and changing the human diet. Places where the demand for beef is low, the average greenhouse gas emissions produced is also lower.
An additional problem with raising cattle and producing beef is feeding all of these animals. Estimates state that “if the crops grown for animal feed and biofuel were instead directly consumed by humans, at a global level approximately 70 % more calories would be available in the global food system” (14). That means three million more people could be fed with just the calories being fed to beef producing cattle. This animal feed also takes up about 33% of the world’s land that is suitable for crops (14).
III. What Changes Can YOU Make?
There are a few topics of achievable changes I’m going to talk about. My main focus will be changing your diet, however, if that is something that you are not willing to do, then I will also be mentioning productivity and livestock management.
Productivity
One way to increase productivity in manufacturing is to improve the feed-ratio. Larger shares of rations should contain protein and energy rich feed by containing natural grazing systems or human provided feed. This also helps the milk-yield, which means less cows are required to produce the expected yield. Studies show that an increase in productivity is restricted in dairy and meat sectors as opposed to vegetable sectors (3). Increasing productivity is not going to solve this problem as a whole. The startup to increase productivity is expensive, and people aren’t usually willing to spend more money if they can get something more or less effective for a lesser price. For example, the increased produced beef is more expensive compared to the cheaper and more accessible beef made with grain-feed. It also takes a lot of work to calculate what is lacking and how to fix that with budgets and space. This is also something that an individual person can’t control, this method is for the people at the top of the beef-producing chain, like managers and farmers.
Another option for increased productivity is using specific breeds of cattle. Cows are healthier and more productive in a pasture-grazing method. Different genotypes of cows are better suited for different pasture-based systems because of environmental variation (3). So what if we used certain types of systems depending on the breed and the environmental variations of the area that said livestock are being raised? Using dairy cows, for example, would significantly increase productivity. Not only are we getting dairy products from these cows, like milk and cheese, but they also produce calves for veal. However, it is important for me to note that I am highly against eating veal because I don’t like the thought of killing baby cows.
Livestock Management
Recently, the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) called for improved livestock management to not only mitigate climate change, but improve biodiversity, animal welfare, and ecosystem services (3). In the paper Reducing climate impacts of beef production: A synthesis of life cycle assessments across management systems and global regions, used Life Cycle Assessments (LCA), which measure environmental impacts, to account for information across land-based carbon sequestration methods, like integrated field management and intensive rotational grazing. Integrated field management (IFM) is a form of agricultural management using carbon-rich organic compost or intercropping feed plants with trees. Intensive rotational grazing (IRG) promotes better plant growth, forage quality, and carbon sequestration during field recovery. IFM had the most significant difference in reduction of emissions, and was the only strategy that could have the possibility of zero emissions (3). These methods encourage increased energy intake in the beef produced, which is important for dietary energy. Not only are the cows receiving more nutrients and having a healthier lifestyle, but the humans who consume them are benefiting as well.
The thing about productivity and livestock management is that it’s not really up to us, unless we become farmers. If you don’t want to give up beef but still want to contribute, you can research what brands have products that are made more sustainably before grocery shopping. However, not everyone has access to the stores or financial resources that come with these high-cost certain brands. And obviously, most people are too lazy to take the time to do the research and even find what these brands are. It’s also up to the farmers. It’s a lot less expensive and a lot less effort to do things unsustainably, like they are doing now.
Changing Your Diet
Researchers have said that changes to our diet are necessary for mitigating climate change, like eating less processed food, more locally grown and organic foods. I’m arguing that unless you can get it sustainably raised, you should take beef out of your diet completely. The essence of Marquès’s argument is that if we substitute beans for beef, then we can reduce up to 74% of greenhouse gas reductions and free up 42% of the United States cropland (1.6 times the surface area of California). They concluded after analysis and equations that substituting beef for beans in a US diet would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 334 million metric tons per year. Plant based products have advantages such as less depletion of natural resources, reduced GHG emissions, and less noncommunicable diseases, which are chronic diseases that cannot be passed from person to person. (5)
Figure 1:
Carbon Dioxide reductions needed to achieve US climate change targets set for 2020, in comparison to the Carbon Dioxide reductions achieved from substituting beans for beef. (5) As you can see, substituting beans for beef would have helped us achieve our 2020 reduction goal.