The Connection Between Veganism and Climate Change

How does what we eat contribute to our ongoing climate crisis?

Climate change is becoming a major part of all of our lives as the temperatures heat up and it feels like nature is fighting against us. With this ongoing change, we have learned to adapt and try and cut back on our carbon footprint. However, one of our most debilitating practices isn’t being adequately addressed.

It is well known that carbon emissions are seriously perpetuating global warming. We are working to reduce our emissions from things like burning fossil fuels for electricity, heat, and transportation. Still, there is nearly no acknowledgment of the harmful effects eating meat and dairy has on the environment.

“University of Oxford recently reported that a vegan diet is the single biggest way to reduce one’s impact on the planet—far larger than cutting down on flights or buying an electric car.”

Is it really that big of a deal?

Industrial Agriculture contributes to 25 - 30 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. This is a very sizable amount. The west especially is fueling climate change through agriculture and deforestation, which together contribute to a quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. This is all because of how our system is set up. In America especially, there is such high demand for meat and dairy that in order to keep up with the demand, we need more space and more food for these animals. Space and food mean deforestation for monoculture, which cuts back on trees, and diverse plant ecosystems help with carbon emissions significantly. We are consciously harming ourselves.

Diverse plant ecosystems are actually one of the best agricultural practices to reduce carbon pollutions. Plants actually have this amazing superpower; it's called sequestering carbon!

Carbon Sequestration is the long-term storage of carbon in plants. Carbon emissions are very high because of industrial agriculture; therefore, more plants and healthy soil can assist in bringing these emissions down.

The issue is, we are killing our soil. Yes-you read that correctly-soil is alive! Pesticides kill the microbes that help sequester carbon and keep the soil alive. Tilling the soil is also a problematic practice. Since the soil is sequestering carbon, then when it is tilled, all of that carbon is released into the atmosphere again. We are tilling on such a massive scale that proper carbon sequestration cannot occur.

When we use pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and tilling practices enough, we end up completely killing the microbes in our soil, and it turns to dirt. Dirt is dead, and when the topsoil turns to dirt, it results in desertification and events like the Dustbowl of the 1930s.

Okay, but what does eating meat have to do with it?

The other part of industrial agriculture pollution comes from our vast meat and dairy industry. Our growing population has an unreasonable demand for animal products, especially beef. Cows that are farmed for meat and dairy are actually contributing to global warming significantly. These animals produce a compound called methane, which is found in their feces and then released into the atmosphere. We are farming such a ridiculous amount of cattle that methane emissions are significantly contributing to climate change.

Another factor that is causing our greenhouse gas emissions to rise is the crops that we grow to feed this massive meat and dairy industry. In factory farms cows do not graze on beautiful green fields; they are fed feed corn and other fattening foods while kept in a tiny, filthy space. The demand for meat is so high, and the crop yield for feed corn needs to match that demand. Growing the amount of crops needed for both cows and people results in mass deforestation. Forests, just like other plant systems, sequester carbon. Since we are clearing multitudes of fields just to feed cows for us to then eat, we are creating a massive outlet of carbon emissions. Also, cows aren't even meant to eat corn, so when beef and dairy cattle are fed these crops they actually produce more gasses due to health issues.

In the last 50 years we have adopted a strict monoculture system when it comes to growing crops. This monoculture system is used for feed corn but also all industrial agriculture crops. Monoculture is the cultivation of a single crop in a given area. This means one field is used to grow the same crop every year and only that crop. This strategy is completely unnatural. I mean, think of how natural ecosystems are set up. You don't walk into the woods and find only one species growing there; you see a multitude of living things. You see trees, shrubs, grasses, fungi, etc. Ecosystems require a certain amount of diversity to thrive. Monoculture reverses this process entirely and contributes to the killing of our soil. When we grow this way we are constantly fighting nature and simultaneously harming the very fields we rely on to feed the growing population.

Our growing population and unreasonable demand for meat are going to make our planet unable to sustain today’s diets.

If we do not change our practices, we will face more droughts, increased global warming, and extreme desertification.

What can we do?

The biggest thing we can do is cut back on our meat and dairy intake and potentially go vegan. If you do buy plant-based food, make sure that it's organic and that you are supporting minimum till/non pesticide and GMO farming. Ultimately, it is most important to acknowledge this issue and then communicate its importance to your local representatives.

Sources:

Harrabin, Roger. “Plant-Based Diet Can Fight Climate Change - Un.” BBC News, BBC, 8 August 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49238749

“Factory Farming: The Industry Behind Meat and Dairy.” PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, 30 December 2020, https://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/factory-farming/

The Natural Resources Defense Council. “Industrial Agriculture 101.” NRDC, 12 August 2020, https://www.nrdc.org/stories/industrial-agriculture-101

Sewell, Christina. “Removing the Meat Subsidy: Our Cognitive Dissonance Around Animal Agriculture.” Journal of International Affairs, Columbia, SIPA, 11 February 2020, https://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/removing-meat-subsidy-our-cognitive-dissonance-around-animal-agriculture