Wanna try a small quiz?
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You decide to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by becoming a vegetarian for one year. Your friend doesn’t want to change her diet, but decides to cut down by purchasing only bulk foods (nothing with any form of packaging).
How many years would it take your friend to save the same amount of greenhouse gases as you?
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The answer is 11 years.
This mini-quiz from New York Times tells us that “not using plastic packaging for 11 years” and “going vegetarian for a year” are equivalent in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. According to a 2013 study, the carbon emissions from plastic bags are much less that those from consuming meat. (Of course, setting aside the problem of the massive amount of plastic waste.) I took a wild guess and answered 5 years, and apparently, I wasn’t the only one who had the wrong answer. It seems that there are a lot of people out there who haven’t given much thought on what they do three times a day–their diet.
Meat and Dairy Consumption Makes the Planet Even Hotter
These days, more people are talking about the greenhouse gas emissions generated from meat and dairy consumption. Food production accounts for a quarter of the global greenhouse gas emissions, and according to FAO’s data, 14.5 percent is due to meat and dairy. This is even higher than the total emissions produced by cars, trains, airplanes, and ships combined.
But, do you understand why food production results in carbon emissions? It’s just different from factories, power plants or vehicles which you can actually see some smokes coming out from. It’s not easy to intuitively link the idyllic farming scene to greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, there are the following elements that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions:
- Digestion and manure of livestock: A surprisingly large amount of methane gases are produced from cows and sheep burping and farting, and methane has much more potent warming effect than carbon dioxide.
- Transportation of livestock
- Production of feed
- Land use change: Large-scale clearing of forests is required for pasturing and growing feeds. Green areas that suck up CO2 from the atmosphere are disappearing and the land is used for farming.
Cows laying around burping might not seem to be a big problem. But the problem is there are a massive number of cows around the world–the number of farmed animals is 15 times larger than that of wild animals! Per every person on Earth, there are three chickens. Although meat consumption has peaked in the Northern hemisphere, economic growth in the developing world is pushing it higher these days. Increasing appetite for meat has something to do with nutritional needs, of course, but socio-cultural factors play in as well. Eating meat tends to be perceived as a symbol of wealth in many cultures. In China, meat consumption was only half in the 80’s, but in 2018, it quadrupled.
Do We All Need To Be a Vegetarian?
So, do we all have to stop eating meat for good? As a big meat lover myself, the idea of becoming a vegetarian sends shiver down my spine. According to IPCC’s data, an annual amount of 8 billion tons of CO2 can be reduced by 2050 if everyone becomes a vegan, mostly owing to reforestation. The below graph shows that the possible greenhouse gas reduction becomes more modest as we move to less strict type of vegetarian diet.
However, every single person on Earth becoming a vegetarian is not only utterly impossible, but not a silver bullet to climate change. True, plant-based diet leaves less carbon footprints ON AVERAGE, but not for all kinds of plant. The below bar graph shows the exceptions including chocolate and coffee (which happen to be my favourites!). Greenhouse gas emissions from coffee and chocolate production are quite high due to nitrogen fertiliser and land use change, respectively.
In addition, there are other health goals that need to be considered besides cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Are you familiar with “Impossible Burgers”? They are vegetarian burgers to replace beef, and you can try them in the U.S., Hong Kong, Macau, etc. This burger probably got its name from the “impossibly” similar taste to real meat. I haven’t tried one yet, because somehow they are more expensive than real burgers. These burgers boast carbon footprints 20 times smaller compared to their meat-based counterparts. But ironically, they are not as healthy as you think because of the fair amount of saturated fat and salt for the sake of taste.
Moreover, consuming almond milk instead of cow milk seems like a good choice to make to reduce carbon footprints. But almonds require a huge amount of water to grow which leads to another problem of water shortages. There are so many aspects that are connected with one another, carbon emissions cannot be the only criteria to determine our diet.
So.. What Do We Do?
As a mom, giving up meat is not something I can just do–or something I want to do. But we need to know what follows our diet choices, given that we eat three times a day, everyday.
Food production is not the only food-related area that brings about greenhouse gas emissions. A study conducted by a Swedish university found that carbon emissions from food waste accounted for 8 percent of the total, and the ratio is rising rapidly due to the lock-down situation amid COVID-19. My home country South Korea is one of the few nations which have really strict restrictions on food waste disposal, but most of the countries do not have such rules.
Recently, Vox.com also pointed out some non-climate related issues entailing meat consumption [1]. As meat production takes up larger scale, there are increasing cases of industrial hazards, higher possibility of another outbreak of zoonotic diseases, and overuse of antibiotics on livestock. Even without thinking about climate, these issues might give us a good opportunity to consider our dietary choices.
The IPCC data from above categorizes plant-based diet into different forms. There is a wide range of diet styles from the most strict vegan to vegetarian or flexitarian. Going completely vegan might be too much, but choosing one of these and trying a new lifestyle might be something you can do. It will help the Earth, but also your body.
- Vegan: No animal source food
- Vegetarian: Meat/seafood once a month
- Flexitarian: Limited meat and dairy
- Healthy diet: Limited sugar, meat and dairy
- Fair and Frugal: Limited animal source food but rich in calories
- Pescetarian: Diet consisting of seafood
- Climate carnivore: Limited ruminant meat and dairy
- Mediterranean: Moderate meat but rich in vegetables
* Featured image: Taste of Home
[1] https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/4/22/21228158/coronavirus-pandemic-risk-factory-farming-meat
hoon's blog on energy and climate change 