Idea 1 research

My first idea is to do something about what the effects of consumption and production of meat has on the environment.

I haven’t fully bulked out an idea for what I would base an app or website off of for this idea yet, so I’ve decided to do research into the statistics on this.

Livestock farming has a vast environmental footprint. It contributes to land and water degradation, biodiversity loss, acid rain, coral reef degeneration and deforestation. Nowhere is this impact more apparent than climate change, livestock farming contributes 18% of human produced greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. 

Climate change alone poses multiple risks to health and well-being through increased risk of extreme weather events, such as floods, droughts and heatwaves, and has been described as the greatest threat to human health in the 21^st century.

Meat production is highly inefficient, this is particularly true when it comes to red meat. To produce one kilogram of beef requires 25 kilograms of grain, to feed the animal, and roughly 15,000 litters of water. Pork is a little less intensive and chicken less still. 

The scale of the problem can also be seen in land use: around 30% of the earth’s land surface is currently used for livestock farming. Since food, water and land are scarce in many parts of the world, this represents an inefficient use of resources. 

Feeding grain to livestock increases global demand and drives up grain prices, making it harder for the world’s poor to feed themselves. Grain could instead be used to feed people, and water to irrigate crops.

If all grain were fed to humans instead of animals, we could feed an extra 3.5 billion people. 

Industrial livestock faring falls well short of the minimal standard that since animals are sentient creatures, we should ensure these needs and interests are at least minimally met and that we do not cause them to suffer unnecessarily. Most meat, dairy and eggs are produced in ways that largely or completely ignore animal welfare, failing to provide sufficient space to move around, contact with other animals, and access to the outdoors. 

In short industrial farming causes animals to suffer without good justification.

At the production level, industrial livestock farming relies heavily on antibiotic use to accelerate weight gain and to control infection, in the US, 80% of all antibiotics are consumed by the livestock industry. 

This contributes to the growing public health problem of antibiotic resistance. Already 23,000 people are estimated to die every year in the US alone from resistant bacteria. As this figure continues to rise, it becomes hard to overstate the threat of this emerging crisis. 

High meat consumption, especially red and processed meat, is linked with poor health outcomes, including heart disease, stroke, diabetes and various cancers. 

 

Currently the average meat intake for someone living in a high-income country is 200-250g a day, far higher than the 80-90g recommended by the United Nations. Switching to a more plant-based diet could save up to 8m lives a year worldwide by 2050 and lead to healthcare related savings and avoided climate change damages of up to $1.5 trillion. 

 

Contribution of farmed animal product (%)

-       Calories- 18

-       Proteins- 37

-       Land use- 83

-       Greenhouse gases- 58

-       Water pollution- 57

-       Air pollution- 56

-       Fresh water withdrawals- 33

Grazing and land used (m²year per 100g protein)

-       Lamb and mutton- 185

-       Beef- 164

-       Cheese- 41

-       Pork- 11

-       Poultry- 7.1

-       Eggs- 5.7

-       Farmed fish- 3.7

-       Ground nuts- 3.5

-       Peas- 3.4

-       Tofu- 2.2