A recent study led by the Technical University of Munich has found that organic meat production is just as bad for the climate as other farming methods and "the lowest impact meat was still far more damaging than the worst plant foods”. The message is clear: to minimise our impact on the environment, we should switch to a plant-based diet.
The message echos that of some other significant studies in recent times.
As reported here, a study in 2019 led by researchers at Oxford University concluded that "fruit, vegetables, beans and wholegrains were best for both avoiding disease and protecting the climate and water resources. Conversely, eating more red and processed meat causes the most ill health and pollution.”
In 2018, a huge Oxford-led study concluded that "avoiding meat and dairy is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce your impact on Earth”. The study, published in the journal “Science”, was the largest analysis to date of the environmental impact of the livestock and dairy industries. Joseph Poore, who led the research, stated that “a vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use. It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car.”
As noted here, the best way to reduce the carbon footprint of what you eat is to focus on what you eat, not whether your food is local. The advice to “eat local” is misguided in the sense that it usually disregards the environmental impact of food production. “Eating locally would only have a significant impact if transport was responsible for a large share of food’s final carbon footprint. For most foods, this is not the case... Transport is a small contributor to emissions. For most food products, it accounts for less than 10% and it’s much smaller for the largest GHG emitters. In beef from beef herds, it’s 0.5%.”
Indeed, it's been clear for some time that "the ongoing global appetite for meat is having a devastating impact on the environment driven by the production of crop-based feed for animals". As stated in that article, "the vast scale of growing crops such as soy to rear chickens, pigs and other animals puts an enormous strain on natural resources leading to the wide-scale loss of land and species, according to the study from the conservation charity WWF.”
In respect of soy, "around 70 percent of the world’s soy is fed directly to livestock... the logical way to help stop soy-related deforestation is to stop eating meat." As explained in that article: "By choosing to eat more plant-based foods, you can drastically cut your carbon footprint, save precious water supplies and help ensure that vital crop resources are fed to people, rather than livestock. With the wealth of available plant-based options available, it has never been easier to eat with the planet in mind.”
A report by Dr. Richard Carmichael from Imperial College London, titled "Behaviour change, public engagement and Net Zero” (2019), reached some important conclusions:
"While there are large variations in the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the same foodstuff depending on where and how it is produced, it is abundantly clear that the foods producing by far the most emissions come from livestock farming: meat, especially beef and lamb from ruminants, and dairy produce. The livestock industry by itself accounts for an estimated 14.5% of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions (Gerber et al., 2013). In contrast, plant-based foods are consistently much lower impact than even the most sustainable meat and dairy products. The IPCC Special Report on 1.5ÂșC acknowledges, with ‘high confidence’, that emissions could be reduced through shifting to less resource-intensive diets by reducing demand for meat and dairy, particularly where consumption is higher than suggested by human health guidelines, a conclusion increasingly shared (Chatham House, 2015a; Poore and Nemecek, 2018; Ranganathan et al., 2016; Willett et al., 2019). In countries with high per-capita meat consumption, a shift to plant-based diets would deliver up to around a 73% reduction in diet-related emissions compared to current levels and would require 70-80% less farmland (Aleksandrowicz, Green, Joy, Smith and Haines, 2016; Poore and Nemecek, 2018). Other research finds that halving the consumption of meat, dairy products and eggs in the European Union would achieve a 25–40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture (Westhoek et al., 2014).
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Plant-based eating is becoming increasingly popular, particularly among younger people. Recent surveys have found that 7% of respondents identified as vegan, 14% as vegetarian and 31% as eating less meat, with the number of UK vegans increasing from 0.5m to 3.5m between 2016-2018 (Comparethemarket.com, 2018). Other surveys report that a quarter of UK shoppers are looking to cut down their meat intake in the next 12 months (for 18 to 34-year-olds the figure is 35%) with almost a third of vegans having converted in the past 12 months (Harris Interactive, 2018). Sainsburys has seen an 82% increase year on year in customers searching for vegan products online and a 65% year-on-year increase in sales of plant-based products (Horton, 2019)."Some farmers and commentators have argued that veganism is not necessarily the answer to the world's climate problems. However, alternative models proposed - such as the Knepp Estate's vision of grass-fed livestock on a 'rewilded' farm - are not practical on a level to meet anything like the current demand for animal products in Western developed societies - as explained
here and
here. Further, as pointed out by
this Oxford University study,
"grass-fed livestock are not a climate solution. Grazing livestock are net contributors to the climate problem, as are all livestock. Rising animal production and consumption, whatever the farming system and animal type, is causing damaging greenhouse gas release and contributing to changes in land use.”
All in all, the message from the above peer-reviewed studies is clear: switch to a plant-based diet to minimise your impact on the environment.