Meat’s affair with Global Warming.

There is no denial to the fact that a lot of us are avid meat lovers. But did you know that this warming of stomach with meat delicacies can warm up our planet too.

Isn’t it strange to believe that this specific fondness in our consumption habit is a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and thus a cause of Global warming. (being 14.5%)

For our trawl, lets mince the meat into two categories-

a. Ruminant meat -

Ruminant meat is from herbivores (For instance- Cows, Sheep, Deer, Goats, Buffaloes, etc.) which have stomach that contain a specialized bacteria capable of digesting tough and fibrous material, such as grass.

Ruminants belch out methane, a greenhouse gas which is 28–34 times more powerful than CO2 over a 100-year period.

b. Other meat-

Other meat includes pork and chicken.

In comparison to ruminants, Chickens and pigs do not produce as much methane.

One of the reasons for this animal emission through belching is due to the varied biological growth cycle of these animals.

Unlike Pigs and chickens, Cows for a fact take longer to grow and reproduce requiring more feed (Grass) and eventually larger land to graze causing tropical deforestation. To nourish these cows, farmers have to stimulate plant production for good yield which would be difficult without use of fertilizers. However, the fertilizers used by farmers are nitrogen based which emits out greenhouse gases like CO2 and nitrous oxide during its production.

With all said and heard about emissions and global warming through animal based products, the climate impact is considerably 50 times smaller of plant based food and so can be our consumption delight.

Considering the increasing global population with rising meat products demand, the greenhouse gas effect is ought to soar up consequently, with current practices.

Does this require us to stop consuming meat for saving our planet?

May be not. Even the animal based dairy products have a higher climate cost than pork and poultry because of the resource intensive nature of cattle rearing. Further, it is proved that the farming and production conditions affect meat and dairy emissions. Thus, improvising the farming practices and production conditions can limit the emissions.

It is advised to consume less meat. Thus, it shall not be surprising to see the “meat tax” in future to curb meat consumption.

About the author: This post is written by CA Porus Navale and Rajendra Varma.