Global Elimination of Animal Farming Could Save the Planet
The elimination of all animal agriculture in the following 15 years would severely diminish greenhouse gas emissions and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Research into the climatological impacts of raising animals for food implicates that eliminating all animal agriculture has the potentially to considerably change the direction of global warming.
The project is a cooperation among Michael Eisen, professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and Patrick Brown, a biochemistry professor emeritus at Stanford University and the CEO of Impossible Foods Inc. This company sells plant-based alternatives to meat.
Eisen consulting with Impossible Foods, and Brown used a simple weather model to watch the combined effect of eliminating the emissions associated with animal agriculture and restoring native flora on the 30% of the planet’s land area that is currently used for housing and feeding livestock.
They discovered that the resultant drop in methane and nitrous oxide levels, along with the conversion of 800 gigatonnes (800 billion tons) of CO2 to forest, grassland and soil biomass, would arguably have as much of a beneficial impact on climate warming as a 68% yearly reduction in global carbon dioxide output.
It is clear that stopped animal farming has the possibility to decrease worldwide atmospheric global levels of the three main greenhouse gases, which is at the moment needed to avoid a climate catastrophe, as we were hesitant to react to the climate crisis, explanation form Eisen, who is also a research scientist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) at UC Berkeley.
Annual Carbon Dioxide Equivalents of Dietary Scenarios
The important factor for the large long-term effect that Eisen and Brown note is that its effects accumulate quickly. Brown says that this shows that eliminating animal farming should be as high a health priority as eradicating fossil fuel use.
Eliminating animal agriculture would do faster and better impression in the following 20 to 40 years, the critical window for preventing climatological failure, and so it should be at the forefront of the priority list of possible climate solutions.
Previously under-recognized potential opportunity to dramatically change the trajectory of the global climate challenge in a few decades, with innumerable associated environmental and public health advantages and minor financial disruptions
his study was published February 1, 2022 in the journal PLOS Climate.
Not an impossible task
According to them, reviewed the effects of raising animals for food over many years. Eisen consumes meat after being convinced of the alarming impact that animal agriculture has on the planet’s climate.
The studies on the impact of animal agriculture have focused on the current influence of methane emissions from animals, their manure, nitrous oxide from the nutrients used to grow animal feed, and the raising and transporting of CO2-produced animals and meat. However, two reports from the previous year addressed a different element of animal agriculture: the potential that grazing lands have for growing understory vegetation and removing carbon from the atmosphere.
Most studies on the impact of animal agriculture have focused on today’s influence of methane emissions from animals, their manure, nitrous oxide from fertilizer utilized to cultivate animal feed, and the CO2 produced raising and transporting animals and meat. However, two reports within the previous year addressed a different element of animal agriculture: the possibility that grazing land has for growing back vegetation and withdrawing carbon from the atmosphere.
Nevertheless, livestock contributes to the global climate changing. All acknowledge that it contributes to global warming in some way,” Eisen said: It contributes through emissions, and it contributes because otherwise that land would certainly contain carbon.” Most analysis only really looks at one of these things.”
Greenhouse gases and animal agriculture
Although the livestock industry is now responsible for about 16 percent of yearly greenhouse gas emissions, by some estimates, about a third of all the carbon dioxide that humans have pumped into the atmosphere since the beginning of animal husbandry is a result of clearing land to graze animals and grow feed or provide fodder for animals used as food.
The scientists have invested the pandemic years in researching climate models and climate change literature to assess the direct and indirect influence of eliminating animal agriculture worldwide. Although cows and other cattle, such as buffaloes, account for about 80 percent of the impact of animal agriculture, they also considered the influence of pigs, chickens, and other domestic animals used for food, though not world fisheries.
Their conclusions are that a 15-year phase-out would quickly eliminate about one-third of all methane emissions worldwide and two-thirds of all nitrous oxide emissions, allowing the atmosphere to reach a new equilibrium at lower levels of both.
Much better nutrition without animal products
While Eisen and Brown acknowledge that animal goods are essential to nutrition in many countries – they provide approximately 18% of the calories, 40% of the protein, and 45% of the fat in the human food supply – they point out that worldwide, some 400 million people currently live on entirely plant-based diets. Existing crops could replace calories, protein, and fat from animals with very little influence of land, water, greenhouse gases, and biodiversity, requiring only minor adjustments to improve nutrition.
Based on his experience with Impossible Foods, Brown said, “there is persuasive evidence that animal agriculture can be replaced without requiring meat lovers to compromise on nutrition or any of the sensory pleasures they love.”
Both scientists hope their research will pressure policymakers to contemplate decreasing or eliminating animal agriculture – barely mentioned in the latest IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report – as an essential option for reducing greenhouse gases. They expect a robust discussion now that their data and assessment are online through the open access journal PLOS Climate.
A future with no animal products
To define what eliminating animal agriculture would entail without making it too challenging,” Eisen affirmed. A lot of unknowns definitely think probably the biggest uncertainty is whether people will consider this potentially and act upon it as a partnership.”
The scientists and global policy leaders will recognize that this is the most vital chance humanity has to turn the trajectory of climate change around and capitalize on it,” Brown said.
The study was conducted without outside funding. Eisen worked on the project as an HHMI researcher, along with his research on gene regulation in fruit flies.
The planet’s climate is presently under greater threat than it has ever been in history. To the extent that scientists can find ways to contribute, I think it’s really up to us to do it,” Eisen said.
Read the original article on Scitech Daily.
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Reference: “Rapid global phaseout of animal agriculture has the potential to stabilize greenhouse gas levels for 30 years and offset 68 percent of CO2 emissions this century” by Michael B. Eisen and Patrick O. Brown, 1 February 2022, PLOS Climate.
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000010
