Commentary
The next big climate deadline is for meat and dairy, writes Kenny Torella sharing information from the December 2023 United Nations Climate Change conference. He quotes Harvard’s Helen Harwatt who says, “We need to see major changes in livestock production and consumption . . . really deep and rapid changes over the next decade.”
Beyond the obvious reduction in greenhouse emissions, the urgencies are driven by the Paris Agreement of 2016 where 196 countries committed to global emissions-reduction targets “to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases.” <Link>.
Source: The next big climate deadline is for meat and dairy, VOX, March 20, 2024. Link. Summarizing, Torella wrote, “After decades of inaction, we’re left with two options: aggressive policy to achieve that required depth and pace of reductions, or a dire level of global warming.”
Who should we believe?
Harwatt’s survey results reveal a consensus among climate scientists that the annual slaughter of around 80 billion land animals for food is simply unsustainable. Methane from cattle digestion and stored manure makes up roughly 4.5 percent of emissions in the U.S.
Meanwhile, our food waste contributes an estimated 8 percent of U.S. annual greenhouse gas emissions <Link>. Additionally, the greenhouse emissions from our human waste <Link> rarely make the headlines.
The question of what time frame and what model to use when calculating the impact of different greenhouse gasses is difficult, according to University of Wisconsin research <Link>. On average methane molecules oxidize to CO2 and water in the atmosphere in just 12 years.
INSIGHTS: And then . . . consider that America’s pet dogs produce some 10.6 million tons of poop every year <Link>.