How does meat consumption contribute to global warming?

Question

How does meat consumption contribute to global warming?

Answer 1

Eating meat doesn't cause global warming.  The processes by which meat is raised, slaughtered, packaged and shipped do.  If you eat only fresh, local, organic proteins you will mitigate your contribution to the problem.

Yes, Joey, we can see that you have a B***S*** degree.

Answer 2

read the book "Skinny B*&%h"  its very informative

Answer 3

al gore and family eat so much they end up with gas,ie.......global warming

Answer 4

The production of the meat does, not the consumption itself, but the support of the production does, by giving your money to people who produce the meat.  These people are damaging the planet... whole ecosystems are being destroyed to produce meat, whole forests, rivers, streams, well... there are many documentaries on the subject, watch one.

Answer 5

well, those animals have to be transported places which requires a lot of gas and all the machinery used for slaughter produces emissions i suppose.

Answer 6

Global warming is not true. It just like saying that there is a Santa Clause or that a animals have feelings.

Answer 7

Animal agriculture produces more greenhouse gas emissions than automobiles. Cows raised for beef and dairy, in particular, emit massive amounts of nitrous oxide and methane.

Animal waste and feed cropland dump more pollutants into our waterways than all other human activities combined.

Meat-based diets require 10-20 times as much land as plant-based diets – nearly half of the world's grains & soybeans are fed to animals.

Answer 8

It does not.

Answer 9

There is a massive amount of livestock animals in the world for human consumption.  People have to cut down large amounts trees to create grazing areas for animals.  Less tress = more CO2.  Also animals create methane, a green house gas, when they expel gas.  In certain compacted conditions animals can strip the natural resources, grasses and nutrients, so that nothing can grow after the animals have left the area.   I'm sure there are other reasons, but there are a few.

Answer 10

Gisela B - don't take it so personal!!!

Silly question!  How does watching television or wearing socks or brushing your teeth or bird watching lead to global warming?  No one can answer that because no one knows if and how global warming occurs.  There are only far out guesses.  Our knowledge of the earth and its temperatures and cycles (if you believe the earth is billions of years old) would only be .00000001% complete.  It would be like watching someone take one breath and knowing how many breaths they will take in a lifetime.

Answer 11

I believe that joe2 answered it succinctly.

Answer 12

It's not the consumption of meat, per sey, but the production. It Meat takes massive amounts of energy, and the resources used are far greater than those used to obtain plant foods.

Take, for example, a loaf of bread. The energy required includes:

- planting the grain

- getting water to the grain

- harvesting the grain

- transporting the grain

- processing the grain

- transporting the flour

- baking the bread

- transporting the bread to the store

- transporting the bread to your home

- toasting the bread/keeping it refrigerated/etc

Now, take a steak. (For this case, I'm assuming that the cows are feedlot and non-organic... in other words, the kind you usually buy in the store or get at a restaurant.)

The energy involved includes:

- planting the grain

- getting water to the grain

- harvesting the grain

- transporting the grain

- processing the grain

- transporting the feed

- transporting the water to the cows for drinking and cleaning

- producing and transporting antibiotics and hormones

- transporting the cows to the slaughterhouse

- slaughtering the cows

- transporting the water to the slaughterhouse to clean it (and cleaning the slaugtherhouse)

- butchering the cows into usable parts

- transporting the meat to the store

- keeping the meat at a safe temperature

- transporting the meat to your home

- cooking the meat

This, of course, doesn't take into account the transportation of people who work at each of these steps, but they are there. Basically, with meat, you add a whole other set of steps to the production process. In addition to what is needed for the meat itself, you also need to keep in mind the resources that go into producing them.

Also, yes, cows f**t a lot. But I think that's a relatively small factor.