FILET mignon commands a princely sum on many restaurant menus. But bill-payers may not realise its trusty cost to the planet. Meat provides 17% of global calorific intake,but it requires a disproportionate amount of water and feed. And more land is given over to grazing animals than for any other single purpose. Overall the livestock sector accounts for between 8% and 18% of global emissions—about as much pollution as comes out the tailpipes of the world’s cars. Ruminant livestock, such as cattle and sheep, and fill stomachs containing bacteria able to digest tough,cellulose-wealthy plants. But along the way, huge volumes of gases are farted and belched too. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that the world’s domesticated ruminants annually release 100m tonnes of methane—a greenhouse gas 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.
Much research in recent years has looked into meat’s environmental hoofprint. A study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2013 presented findings on the quantities of greenhouse gases associated with producing a kilo of protein from different animals....
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Source: economist.com