livestock & global warming (argument essay + annotated bibliography)
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LIVESTOCK & GLOBAL WARMINGWhy is Animal Agriculture the most destructive contributor to Global warming?
MAJA KEEFER
English 1010
Dr. Stephanie Maenhardt
8 March 2016
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OUTLINE
THESIS
Greenhouse gas emissions from Livestock is is the most destructive contributor to the
Earth’s rising global temperatures.
I. The meat industry is hiding the truth about being a contributor to Global
warming.
A. The greenhouse gas emissions from animal agriculture are higher than the
exhaust from all transportation.
B. Livestock and their byproducts account for at least 51% of all worldwide
greenhouse gas emissions.
C. Emissions for agriculture is projected to increase to 80% by 2050.
II. Animal agriculture is responsible for 80-90% of the water consumption in the
United States.
A. 2,500 gallons of water are needed to produce 1 pound of beef and 1,000 gallons
of water are required to produce 1 gallon of milk.
B. People in California use 1500 gallons of water per person per day, that’s about
half to the production of meat and dairy products.
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III. Animal agriculture is the leading cause of species extinction, ocean dead
zones, water pollution and habitat destruction.
A. ⅓ of the planet is deserted and livestock is the leading cause.
B. Animal agriculture is responsible for up to 91% of Amazon destruction.
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LIVESTOCK & GLOBAL WARMINGWhy is Animal Agriculture the most destructive contributor to Global warming?
Rising temperatures, melting snow, extinct animals, lack of water, dead coral
reefs and habitat destruction. Global warming, also known as the Greenhouse effect, is
affecting the Earth every single day - and this fact is not new to us.
Global warming is a hot topic these days, and a lot people are getting more
aware of what’s going on in the world. There’s a bunch of new documentaries about
the topic, one documentary that got a lot of attention is “Cowspiracy: The Sustainability
Secret”, which is available on Netflix for free.
What is Global warming's main cause?
The Netflix documentary Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret investigates the
main reasons to Global warming and discovers a surprising and unexpected cause.
After months of research and interviews, the filmmaker and environmentalist Kip
Andersen, found out that the biggest contributor to Global warming is livestock and
their byproducts. This is coming as a shock to him - he’s been recycling, using public
transport, biking, taking short showers and trying to use products with minimal waste
- just to make his footprints more green and to not be a contributor to the global
warming.
While making the Cowspiracy documentary, Kip found out that you need 2,500
gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef and 1,000 gallons of water are required to
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produce 1 gallon of milk. He quickly realized that becoming a vegan is the only real
option to make a difference and help planet Earth’s rising temperatures and continued
destruction. With that said, it is crazy to think about that if you eat two burgers in one
day, you have consumed more water use than an average person in California use in
one day (who is not eating meat and just use water resources).
Cowspiracy compares how much land you use when you’re a vegan vs. meat
eater, and the answer is truly shocking. To be a vegan you’ll only need land for your
vegetables, comparing to livestock who needs land for their animal feed and land for
their living. A vegan is using a⅙
th of an acre and a meat eaters are using 16 times as
much land as a vegan. We are 7.3 billion people on this planet, and about 8 million
people of these people are vegan.. So you can just imagine how much land we are
using for just food!
A third of our planet is deserted - and this is mainly because of the livestock. We
have used our precious Earth to grow feed for the animals, we have used chemicals
and toxic in the soil to make the plants grow faster and to not get eaten by insects and
other bacteria. When you do this to the soil it will slowly lose all the important
minerals and nutrients and becomes useless - you won’t be able to grow anything
more. That’s when the farmers/corporations move to their next piece of land.. And so it
goes on.
Toxic waste is also spreading from farming: antibiotics, fertilizers and toxic
metals are getting released when the rain comes in. The waste is then spread into
water systems like rivers and lakes. Within the last quarter-century the health of the
Nation’s water quality declined dramatically. It is not even safe to swim or go fishing in
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some lakes because it is too polluted from the toxic metals - and agriculture is the most
responsible source to make this happen.
For many years it has been stated that Palm oil has been the biggest forest
destruction, little did we know that one of the biggest cause to the Amazon destruction
is animal agriculture. Animal agriculture has been contributing to 91% of forest
destruction, the reason the f armers who cut forests to provide more room for planting
crops or grazing livestock. Livestock production requires extreme large quantities of
harvested feed.
A number of scientists have proven that the Animal agriculture (meat and dairy
products) account for at least 51% of all worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. These
emissions are expecting to raise to 80% by 2050, which is a very scary number since
our gl obal population is expected to reach between 8.3 and 10.9 billion by 2050.
In the Online article from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations. 29 November 2006, Rome. Henning Steinfeld, Chief of FAO’s Livestock
Information and Policy Branch says: “Livestock are one of the most significant
contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is
required to remedy the situation.”
These findings challenge the work of earlier researchers, who tended to assume that
burning fossil fuels was the biggest source to Global warming.
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Conclusion
Why is this problem such a hot topic - with so many wrong solutions for the problem?
Personally I’ve never heard about that Livestock and their byproducts are the biggest
contributor to Global warming - why are we not informed about this? Are big
companies and corporations really that addicted to their money and status?
As human beings we need to start to think about the long term problems we are
causing with our unhealthy way of living. We are all a part of this amazing journey on
planet Earth - we have to stop being so greedy and start to act and solve this problem.
The standard way of thinking about Global Warming is that you can’t do
anything about the problem - that it is already too late. “Cowspiracy: The Sustainability
Secret” tells us the opposite - the documentary urges us to take action. Research has
shown that if we stop eating meat and dairy, we can cut down the Greenhouse gas
emissions with 50% within 10 years!
So where do we start? You don’t totally have cut out meat from your diet in the
beginning, it is very hard to break habits - so I suggest that you start small. I’ve been
eating both meat and dairy products earlier, and when I decided to turn into a
vegetarian (I’m now a vegan) I cut down meat in my meals to 1-2 times per week. After
a while I realized that meat is not really necessary, especially when I tried out all the
meat free alternatives that is tasting exactly like meat! Milk, on the other hand, was
harder to cut out.
I love cheese and milk products like yoghurt and creamer. Switching over to a
non-dairy diet took me a little bit longer, but once I got used to coconut milk (which is
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my absolute favorite these days!) I could not see myself going back to dairy. I lost a lot
of weight after this too (no milk equals not eating desserts and a lot of sweet stuff) and
I don’t feel bloated after eating. What a win-win situation! You should try it too.
It is so easy to be “human” and always think about how to solve the problem
when the damage is already done, but people, it is NOT too late this time. Let us do this
together, let us make this world to a better place for all the species living here.
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WORK CITED
“Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret”. Dir. Kip Andersen, Keegan Kuhn, 2014. Film.
“Livestock a major threat to environment - Remedies urgently needed”
Christopher
Matthews, Media Relations, FAO. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations. 29 November 2006, Rome. Online article.
Dr. Pachauri, Rajendra “ Dr Pachauri on livestock and climate change ” Climate Radio,
the 300-350 Show. 9 November 2008, United Kingdom. Radio show.
“Improved Attribution of Climate Forcing to Emissions”. Science Magazine. 30 Oct
2009: Vol. 326, Issue 5953, pp. 716-718
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Maja Keefer
Dr. Stephanie D. MaenhardtENG10108 March 2016
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Livestock and Global warming
“Cowspiracy, The Sustainability Secret” Dir. Keegan Kuhn, Kip Andersen. Ex-prod.
Leonardo DiCaprio. A.U.M Films, First Spark Media. 2014. Film.
I used the documentary Cowspiracy as my main source for my Argument Essay
because it covers a lot of information about the Animal agriculture and its connection
to Global warming. This documentary is available on Netflix and is directed by Keegan
Kuhn and Kip Andersen - two global warming activists that wanted to know more
about the causes to our raising Greenhouse gas emissions. This documentary examines
the livestock, animal cruelty, GMO’s, pesticides, meat and dairy process, water
consumption, land use and rainforest deforestation. They also investigate the policies
of environmental organizations such as Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Rainforest Action
Network and many more. Cowspiracy’s main focus is about Global Warming, so this
documentary will be a very valuable resource.
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“Livestock a major threat to environment - Remedies urgently needed”
Christopher Matthews, Media Relations, FAO. Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations. 29 November 2006, Rome. Online article.
This online article from the United Nations website UN.org and FAO.org
is written by
Christopher Matthews and talks about the leading cause to Global warming - the
Livestock and its long shadow. The article talks about how cows produce more
greenhouse gas emissions (methane gas) than the entire transportation sector (cars,
trucks, trains, boats and planes combined), and the industry's use land and water -
which is a great source since it’s backing up the statistics from “C owspiracy, The
Sustainability Secret” as well.
Dr. Pachauri, Rajendra “ Dr Pachauri on livestock and climate change
”, Climate
Radio, the 300-350 Show. 9 November 2008, United Kingdom. Radio show.
This Climateradio Lecture is by the Nobel Peace Prize Winner and Chair of the United
Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr Rajendra Pachauri. He talks
about how livestock dramatically have increased the pressure on the environment.
The main focus in this radio show is the impact of meat production and consumption
on climate change, which makes this a great source to my Argument Essay.
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