Climate Change and Animal Agriculture a Selection of Research Papers
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Climate Change and Animal Agriculture A Selection of Research Papers Part 4 - The Benefits of a Plant Based Agricultural System. ........................................................................ 2 Analysis and valuation of the health and climate change co-benefits of dietary change, Marco Springman, PNAS, 2015. ........................................................................................................................... 2 The Impacts of Dietary Change on Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Aleksandrowicz et al, November, 2016 ......................................................................................................................................................... 2 Natural Climate Solutions, September 2017 ................................................................................................. 2 The Lifestyle Carbon Dividend, 2015 ................................................................................................................ 3 Protein futures for Western Europe: potential land use and climate impacts in 2050, Roos et Al, 2016, FCRN ............................................................................................................................................................ 5 Livestock – Climate Change’s Forgotten Sector: Global Public Opinion on Meat and Dairy Consumption, Rob Bailey et al, Dec 2014 ....................................................................................................... 6 Grazed and confused? Ruminating on cattle, grazing systems, methane, nitrous oxide, the soil carbon sequestration question – and what it all means for greenhouse gas emissions. FCRN October 2017. ................................................................................................................................................. 7 The Meat Eater's Guide to climate change and health, Environmental Working Group and Clean Metrics Corp. 2011 ....................................................................................................................................... 7 Systematic review of GHG emissions for different fresh food categories, Clune S, Crossin E, Verghese K, Journal of Cleaner Production (2016) ................................................................................... 8 Page 1 of 10 Part 4 - The Benefits of a Plant Based Agricultural System. Veganism has the potential to reverse Climate Change, save millions of lives, restore damaged forests and ecosystems and stop the 6th Mass Extinction of wildlife. The following research papers illustrate just some of these benefits. Of particular importance is the paper The Lifestyle Carbon Dividend, which shows that climate change can be completely reversed by a transition to a vegan diet and reforestation. The other research papers highlight various issues including the negative impact of animal agriculture subsidies and the incredible inefficency of food and protein production by farm animals. They also highlight the human health, climate change and ecosystem benefits of a transition to a plant based diet. Analysis and valuation of the health and climate change co-benefits of dietary change, Marco Springman, PNAS, 2015. This research paper concluded that Moving to diets with fewer animal-sourced foods and more fruits and vegetables would have major benefits. They estimated that adoption of global dietary guidelines would result in 5.1 million avoided deaths per year. Adoption of a vegetarian diet would save 7.3 million lives and global veganism would save 8.1 million lives. (plus the countless lives of other species). Business as usual resulted in GHG emissions associated with food consumption to increase by 51% by 2050. Food-related GHG emissions in the dietary guidelins scenario were 29% less than reference emissions in 2050 and 7% greater than emissions in 2005/2007. The vegetarian diets resulted in food-related GHG emissions by 2050 that were 45–55% lower than the 2005/2007 levels and the vegan diet resulted in emissions that were 63–70% lower than the reference.“ The report also estimated that a “global switch to a vegan diet would lead to healthcare-related savings and avoided climate damages of $1.5 trillion (US).“ The Impacts of Dietary Change on Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Aleksandrowicz et al, November, 2016 This paper found “14 common sustainable dietary patterns across reviewed studies, with reductions as high as 70–80% of GHG emissions and land use, and 50% of water use (with medians of about 20–30% for these indicators across all studies) possible by adopting sustainable dietary patterns. Reductions in environmental footprints were generally proportional to the magnitude of animal-based food restriction.“ Natural Climate Solutions, September 2017 This paper did not assume adoptation of a vegan diet but did assume that agricultural areas that were established on previously forested areas would be reforested and people would eat less meat. Natural climate solutions (NCS) can provide 37% of cost-effective CO2 mitigation needed through 2030 for a more than 66% chance of holding warming to below 2 °C. One-third of this cost-effective NCS mitigation can be delivered at or below 10 USD per MgCO2. Most NCS actions—if effectively implemented—also offer water filtration, flood buffering, soil health, biodiversity habitat, and enhanced climate resilience.....Forest pathways (reforestation and avoiding deforestation) offer over two thirds of cost-effective NCS mitigation needed to hold Page 2 of 10 warming to below 2 °C and about half of low-cost mitigation opportunities. Reforestation is the largest natural pathway and deserves more attention to identify low-cost mitigation opportunities. Reforestation may involve trade-offs with alternative land uses, can incur high costs of establishment, and is more expensive than Avoided Forest Conversion (which will increase with Biomass goals). Climate Mitigation Potential in 2030 of Natural Climate Solutions Grey Line is Historical Anthropogenic CO2 emissions before 2016; Black Line is business-as- usual; Green Line shows the net emissions trajectory needed to keep global warming to below 2 °C (green line). Green area shows cost effective NCS (aggregate of 20 pathways), offering 37% of needed mitigation through 2030. The Lifestyle Carbon Dividend, 2015 Assessment of the Carbon Sequestration Potential of Grasslands and Pasturelands Reverted to Native Forests, GC13E: Livestock, Land Use and the Environment, AGU Fall Meeting, 14-18 December 2015, Sailesh K. Rao, Atul K. Jain and Shijie Shu. Page 3 of 10 Page 4 of 10 This paper calculated the carbon sequestration potential of grasslands and pasturelands that can be reverted to native forests as 265 GtC (on 19.6 MKm2 of land area), just 41% of the total area of such lands on Earth. According to ISAM, all the grasslands and pasturelands on earth, put together, comprise 47 MKm2 of land and sequester just 53 GtC today. That works out to a little over 1.1 KgC/m2. On average, native forests sequester more than ten times as much carbon per unit area than grasslands. In a separate 2012 study by Meiyappan and Jain they calculated the emissions of GHG from global historical land use changes showing a large increase after the 1950s as tropical forests were deforested for beef, soy, palm oil, and wood products. When the grasslands and pasturelands are assumed to revert back to native forest biomes that existed prior to the industrial era and these include tropical, temperate and boreal forests. The results are validated with above ground re-growth measurements. Since this carbon sequestration potential is greater than the 240 GtC that has been added to the atmosphere since the industrial era began, it shows that such global lifestyle transitions have tremendous potential to fully reverse climate change. You can read an interview between Keith Akers and Sailesh Rao on this study here. Protein futures for Western Europe: potential land use and climate impacts in 2050, Roos et Al, 2016, FCRN “The paper shows that even under extreme assumptions, some form of dietary change will be necessary to reach EU climate change targets. Results indicate that land use could be cut by 14–86 % and GHG emissions reduced by up to approximately 90 %.“ (with a plant based diet) Page 5 of 10 Livestock – Climate Change’s Forgotten Sector: Global Public Opinion on Meat and Dairy Consumption, Rob Bailey et al, Dec 2014 This Chatham House Report begins with an overview of the problem posed by livestock emissions pointing out that “Human consumption of meat and dairy products is a major driver of climate change. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with their production are estimated to account for over 14.5 percent of the global total. This is more than the emissions produced from powering all the world’s road vehicles, trains, ships and aeroplanes combined.“ The impact of animal agriculture is increasing with “Demand for animal products rising fast. By 2050, consumption of meat and dairy is expected to have risen 76 per cent and 65 per cent respectively against a 2005–07 baseline, compared with 40 percent for cereals.“ According to one study, if current dietary trends (increasing global consumption of animal products) were to continue, emissions of CH4 and N2O would more than double by 2055 from 1995 levels. Average global estimates suggest that, per unit of protein, GHG emissions from beef production are around 150 times those of soy products, by volume, and even the least emissions-intensive meat products – pork and chicken