Animal agriculture produces one-fifth of all greenhouse gases – more than all the world’s planes, boats, cars and trains combined. Even if fossil fuel emissions stopped immediately, emissions from our food system alone could lead to an increase of global temperatures by more than 1.5C. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) say plant-based diets represent a “major opportunity” to both mitigate and adapt to climate change and includes a policy recommendation to reduce meat consumption. But still, the government does nothing.
The UK’s current animal-fueled diet requires a land area equivalent to the size of over 60 million football pitches. Livestock take up around 83 per cent of the world’s farmland but only provide 18 per cent of the calories we eat. Transitioning to plant-based diets has the potential to reduce global diet-related land use by 76 per cent allowing us to rewild lands and restore carbon sinks (eg forests and peatlands).
Half a billion people in the world face severe water scarcity all year round, yet we squander precious natural resources on inefficient and unsustainable animal agriculture. Beef’s water footprint per gram of protein is a staggering six times greater than that of pulses. Animal agriculture is also a major source of water pollution; the UK Environment Agency’s 2021 annual report states that the top pollutants for water are pesticides and nitrates from animal manure.
Animal agriculture is also the largest driver of habitat loss, ecological degradation, species decline and species extinction globally. We are experiencing the world’s sixth mass extinction and one million species are now at risk of disappearing forever while three-quarters of the world’s food comes from just 12 plants and five animal species. We are destroying the Earth’s rich biodiversity for the sake of a burger and a shake.
