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The meat industry and climate change

It's high time to realise our mistakes and turn our heads toward a plant-based diet so that we can balance the food chain.

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priya123
priya123https://ambiladharma.com/
I am passionate about sharing my knowledge on Indic talks which includes ancient India, Indian culture and tradition , Greatness of Temples in architect and its sanctity and Indian History .

Introduction

As the population increases, the demand for food also increases. According to the World bank data, the population has increased from 303 crores in 1960 to 775 crores (approximately) in 2020. Due to the increase in population, demand in every field has increased drastically. Especially in the food sector. People want to taste a variety of food which leads to the meat industry.

With the introduction of “Industrial animal agriculture”,  the production of meat has quadrupled in the last 50 years and now in today‘s time, the production of the meat industry has crossed 320 million tons of meat every year.

Raising animals for food has become one of the biggest threats to climate change. Global livestock production is producing much more Greenhouse emissions than all cars, planes, ships and whatnot. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report, livestock production contributes 14.5% of Global Greenhouse gas emissions. People are suffering from many uncommon diseases due to the increase in global Greenhouse gas emissions.

The change in climate is going to kill lakhs of people due to broken links in the food chain. If we are not going to curb or restrict meat production, then we are certainly going to lose the planet Earth with our greedy activities.  In order to keep the Global temperature below 1.5 degrees Celsius, We need to drastically cut off the meat industry production.

Meet demand and pandemic

As meet demand has been increasing over a period of time, many uncommon diseases have also reached another level and are ready to kill millions of people in just one short time the live example is CORONAVIRUS (SARS). This happens when humans come into contact with animal-borne viruses or pathogens. The viruses and pathogens move from animal to human while consumption of meat or even through markets which provide fresh meat to human beings. When animals get butchered it releases chemical toxins in their body which are later consumed by a large population of human beings and this is how the chemical toxins enter into the human body and create many uncommon diseases which are unidentified and finally take the lives of many. 

Three out of four emerging diseases have its root coming from animals. Moreover, farmed animals are injected with antibiotics which keep them alive and fasten their growth so that the supply of meat can be achieved. Due to the overuse of antibiotics, bacteria living in the intestine of animals become resistant which leads to the emergence of “Superbugs” or pathogens.

The “Food and drug administration” (FDA) in the United State and “Centres for Disease Control And Prevention “ recommended that antibiotics in animals should be used only when needed and only for animal health not to fasten their growth.  Unfortunately, these recommendations are only limited to papers.  Meat  Industrialists are not interested in it at all. According to the UK Government, “superbugs“ would be the leading cause of death by 2050. 

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), in some countries, approximately 80% of All antibiotics produced are sold to livestock farms. And most antibiotics are used to fasten the growth of animals. According to a report, nearly 90% of farmed animals Globally are living in factory farms and these farmed animals are kept in very limited space and in very unhygienic manners which can lead to the outbreak of pandemics. Like swine flu, Coronavirus, Ebola and many more. It had been said in 2007 by the American Journal of Public Health that the mass raising and slaughtering of animals for food is the beginning of the Global pandemic. 

To keep Farm animals alive, meat industrialists need to feed them and to feed such a large number of animals, deforestation Is a must factor to do so that they can provide agricultural fields to animals. Converting natural habitats into agricultural fields releases carbon which is one of the major factors of the greenhouse effect. Crop fields are treated with chemicals which later get mixed with water and in surroundings and make that area toxic. 

Amazon deforestation

As meat production increases, more land gets encroached by the meat industry for the livestock population to go on.  It gives a clear indication that to get more land, deforestation will take place exponentially and the wild animals’ habitats are vanishing every year. The deforestation going on in Amazon forest is the prime example of meat industry land encroachment.

According to a report, Brazil’s Amazon rainforest saw the highest annual rate of deforestation in over 15 years. And the leading cause of deforestation is cattle ranching. Other factors are mining, road construction, soybean farming and many more. The Amazon forest is one of the biggest forests to sink Carbon dioxide and keep Global temperatures cool. But as the activity of deforestation of the Amazon rainforest is increasing exponentially, in the coming 30 to 50 years the Amazon rainforest will become a desert and will release around 50 billion tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere and the Global temperature will cross the 1.5 degree Celsius and will cause uncountable death, Says Carlos Nobre, a climate Scientist in Brazil. The meat industrialists are still not ready to listen to this alarm and it continues to worsen the situation.

Climate change from Beef Consumption 

Beef consumption is increasing by 25% from 2000 to 2019  which is becoming a major cause of greenhouse gas emissions. Beef emits  20 times more emissions than pulses and lentils per gram of protein. According to the “water footprint network “, 1 kg of beef needs around 15000 litres of water. 

Beef consumption causes many different kinds of skin diseases and many uncommon health issues. Beef production is majorly responsible for the deforestation going on in South America. Responsible for the destruction of 2.71 million hectares of Tropical forest each year in that region.

Conclusion

I’m not against anyone’s likes and dislikes. My only concern is “if your food habit is raising alarm for planet Earth’s survival then surely you must have to react in a manner through which we can make planet Earth a gentle place otherwise,  you are going to mess it up through your disgusting food desires and greed to make more and more money at expense of planet Earth existence or any other planet.  For the last two decades,  the whole world is witnessing multiple kinds of a pandemic like Swine flu, ebola, SARS, MERS and covid-19. 

Our body is not designed to digest these kinds of foods but still, we are ready to make our stomachs a graveyard for dead animals in the name of delicious foods or in the name of getting proteins.  But have you ever realised what you are consuming in the name of proteins? Have you ever realised the toxic chemicals present in animals when they are slaughtered or the viruses they are infected with?  Perhaps NO.

The most unfortunate part is that we are not ready to accept these scientific talks. This factor is hardly discussed in public forums because there are lobbies that don’t want it to be discussed in public but now the whole world is getting the red signal to stop this stupidity otherwise we are going to lose life in such a manner which will be proved to be the most critical nightmare in everyone’s life.

IPCC (Intergovernmental panel On climate change ) has argued that a plant-based diet is the only option left to reduce climate change or Greenhouse gas emissions. Earth has provided everything to sustain life on this planet Earth but we,  human beings, messed up everything by considering nature as a Second class citizen and treating nature like hell to fulfil the desire of humans. We have left no stone unturned in denigrating nature and somehow we are digging our own graves. We forget our responsibility  “How to live with nature “.

It’s high time to realise our mistakes and turn our head towards a plant based diet so that we can  balance the food chain .

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priya123
priya123https://ambiladharma.com/
I am passionate about sharing my knowledge on Indic talks which includes ancient India, Indian culture and tradition , Greatness of Temples in architect and its sanctity and Indian History .
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