Peer2Politics

For the past decade, scientists have debated whether a massive Antarctic ice shelf is thinning from warmer air above or warmer oceans below.

The frustration that I have with environmentalists ignoring animal agriculture as the primary cause of climate change was shared a few days later when I attended ‘Cowspiracy’, in which this was the main premise. Despite the conspiracy theory nature of the title, the movie was much better thought out than that. The documentary referred to the fact that UN reports had been repeatedly reporting animal agriculture as the leading cause of Greenhoouse Gases (GHG), with the World Institute equating this proportion to 51% of GHGs, or 32 000 million tonnes [1] This takes into account Methane (with a global warming power at least 23 times that of Co2) and land clearance. The Standard American Diet is much less efficient in terms of land area use compared to entirely or mostly plant based diet, with many studies suggesting the difference is quite dramatic [2], [3]. livestock agriculture now covers 45% of the earth’s surface [4]. Consider that transportation, the next highest emitter of GHG emission, contributes a much lesser proportion at 13%.

Every once in a while, a chart or statistic or image comes along that reminds us, all over again, why it is that this global warming thing is so terrifying. This week, it was those darn walruses, who — after a summer when Arctic sea ice was at its sixth-lowest level on record — mobbed an Alaska beach in the largest such haul-out ever observed there.