Reflection on the Role of Meat to Lower Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Article: The role of meat in strategies to achieve a sustainable diet lower in greenhouse gas emissions

Why I Chose It

When I was in middle school, my science class spent a unit learning about climate change and the science behind it. To me, climate change had just been this really stressful, sad topic about pollution, extinction, and waste, which kind of bummed me out as I’m sure it did many other people. I was really excited to learn about this issue that I’d been told was so important, and it helped it feel more manageable and concrete when we learned that global warming is not in fact magical, and can be explained all the way down to the molecular level and traced back to its sources. I was even more excited when I learned that the problem was related to me in a way I could understand and influence. For example, we learned why red meat could have a larger carbon footprint than other foods, so when I went home that day I asked my parents if we could stop eating red meat in our family, and we still don’t eat red meat today. My family is pretty conscious of where we get our food from, what we waste, and how our food affects our health. However, I’m learning more about carbon emissions every day, and lowering your carbon footprint is more complex than just a simple diet change. As I’ve gone through higher levels of science classes and gained more knowledge about natural processes, it’s spiked my curiosity to learn about climate change on deeper levels.

Why It Matters

I always feel a little more confident and comfortable thinking about huge issues like climate change when they get broken down into smaller, more manageable issues so we’re not talking about the whole planet getting polluted, but just the steps of production for one industry and what role they have in emitting greenhouse gasses. Meat’s carbon footprint is a topic that comes up a lot in climate change discourse, and I think when people hear about this topic they immediately think that people will say they need to change their diet, or they feel like they’re just being reprimanded for eating meat. That’s why it’s important to learn about the science of what’s actually happening. Even if you don’t make drastic changes, you can just learn about the processes behind the foods you eat, and be a little more informed about your role in what goes on every day. In this review, the authors talk about how greenhouse gasses are emitted at different points in the meat production process, how supply and demand influence emissions on a bigger scale, and how the sustainability of farmers’ practices are important for the next generation. The diagram and the table in the review are really helpful in laying out information about meat’s carbon footprint in an understandable way. This piece is also great because it contains a lot of information and complex ideas, but it’s also accessible and doesn’t overcomplicate the concepts or go to a very deep scientific level.

(Disclaimer: I’m not recommending this paper as any kind of diet guide, or saying that you should change your eating habits, just trying to help you learn more about an interesting topic related to the environment.)

Citations

Hyland, John J., et al. “The role of meat in strategies to achieve a sustainable diet lower in greenhouse gas emissions: A review.” Meat Science, vol. 132, Oct. 2017, pp. 189–195, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0309174017302176.

Photo: https://a-z-animals.com/blog/7-reasons-cows-moo-and-what-each-pitch-means/