Eat that hamburger and you are supporting global warming


There are a lot of reasons to stop eating meat.  Improving our health is a large one given the association between meat consumption and chronic, life-threatening diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and various cancers.  Every time we choose to fill our plates with plant foods instead of animal products, we are doing our bodies a huge service both in the short and long term.  However, most people don’t realize how forgoing a steak, hamburger or piece of chicken is enormously protective against the warming of the planet and the destruction of the rain forests.  The evidence has become overwhelming that global warming is happening and it is happening fast, and we humans are largely responsible.  Limiting meat consumption around the world is the number one solution recommended by scientists to slow and potentially tackle this issue that will undoubtedly impose devastating consequences if we do not take realistic actions to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.


Cows. Flickr: Joost J Bakker IJmuiden


The World Preservation Foundation is an organization based in the United Kingdom devoted to researching the most effective means to reduce global warming urgently.  The primary conclusion of the prestigious scientists studying this issue is that over fifty percent of all human caused greenhouse gas emissions are from livestock raising (and the dietary patterns that drive it). This figure was derived from a 2009 report from the Worldwatch Institute in addition to the United Nations’ famous report, Livestock’s Long Shadow, which argues that livestock farming is one of the most significant contributors to this serious environmental problem.1 This means that a 50 percent reduction in livestock products worldwide could result in a minimum 25 percent reduction in GHG emissions.2 Those are huge figures! Imagine what we could accomplish if we all ate less meat.  Unfortunately meat consumption is still rising throughout the world.

Why is the production of animal meat from factory farms so detrimental to our planet? Livestock farming contributes methane, ozone, black carbon and nitrous oxide to the environment, as well as carbon dioxide.  These gases warm the planet rapidly, which will result in ever more challenging environmental problems if we do not take action to limit emissions.  For instance, methane interacts with aerosols in the atmosphere and becomes 28 times stronger than carbon dioxide over the course of a century to increase the global warming process.  Additionally, the potency of methane to carbon dioxide increases over time, trapping 100 times more heat over 5 years.  Also note, scientists have shown that black carbon (aka soot) is responsible for 45 percent of the warming of the Artic.  Black carbon is 680 times as heat-trapping as carbon dioxide and it causes ice sheets and glaciers around the world to melt even faster.3  Brazilian researchers have found black carbon in the most rapidly warming areas of Antarctica, where 50 percent is related to the burning of trees in the Amazon, and 40 percent to the livestock industry.4

How does livestock create black carbon? It actually comes from animal waste produced on factory farms, waste processing, and the burning of vegetation to accommodate crops used to feed livestock.  NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies reports that cutting black carbon produced from biofuels like wood or dung could help reduce the estimated 1.5 million premature deaths per year attributed to biofuel soot.5

In addition to the above statistics, there really are so many environmental consequences to eating meat that we don’t think about as we peruse the aisles of the grocery store.  For example, the raising of animals for food production sacrifices much more land than would the amount of land used to grow fruits, vegetables, and other plant crops.  We are now clearing acres upon acres of the rainforest to feed the growing demand for animal products in developing nations.  Not only does this cleared land sacrifice the original forest and its capacity to sequester carbon in trees or in the soil, but these lost trees sacrifice a tragic amount of plant and animal species.  It is truly sad to imagine the loss of life in the rainforest due to human inflicted degradation. Statistically we are talking big numbers: two thirds of the plant and animal species on earth reside in tropical forests, of which 5 million acres are destroyed every year releasing 2 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, contributing 20-to 25% of global warming.These dense forests are the “lungs of the earth” and our healthy survival is potentially dependent on their existence. 

Not eating meat or reducing our consumption is highly protective to our health, but we all should take note that we are doing a huge service to the planet and posterity by avoiding meat and sharing meat-free meals with our families and friends.  Check out for more information.



1. Livestock’s Long Shadow, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2006.

2. Livestock and Climate Change, Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang, Worldwatch Institute, November/December 2009

3. A number of studies have addressed this issue, particularly those by Professor Heitor Evangelista and colleagues of Janeiro State University in Brazil, Professor Mark Jackson of the University of California at Berkeley, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. See news reports by Lauren Morello, “Cutting Soot Emissions May Slow Climate Change in the Arctic,” Scientific American, August 2, 2010, as well as by Randy Boswell, “Soot Is Second Leading Cause of Climate Change: Study,” Ottawa Citizen, August 1, 2010,




4. Aerosols May Drive a Significant Portion of Arctic Warming,

Adam Voiland, NASA’s Earth Science News Team, August 2009

The Cattle Realm report, Roberto Smeraldi, Amzônia Brasileira (Friends of the Earth– Brazilian Amazon) 2008

5. Jacobson, M. Z. (2010), Short-term effects of controlling fossil-fuel soot, biofuel soot and gases, and methane on climate, Arctic ice, and air pollution health, J. Geophys. Res.115, D14209, doi:10.1029/2009JD013795.

6. Statistic from:


Stephanie - October 28, 2011 3:31 PM

YES! This is so true, and I'm glad to see a post about it!

Not only are we depleting the rainforest, but we are also using an extraordinary amount of water for livestock, and sullying the environment in general. Plus, we could seriously alleviate world hunger if we stopped growing grain to feed cattle and started using it to feed humans instead.

A good video to watch on the topic of all the reasons you should eat less meat is John Robbin's Diet for a New America.

JB - October 28, 2011 10:05 PM

This is one of the reasons I got involved with raising my own meat. Sustainable farming and raising meat animals on forage based systems improves the soil, reduces runoff and produces better meat with healthier fats. If you like a little meat in your meals, be smart and make a good choice about the meat you buy.

Thanks for this article, a lot of people don't make the connection between global warming and factory farms, it is excellent information!

J Escher - October 28, 2011 10:50 PM

Health! That's the absolute best reason to not eat meat! Global Warming is NOT proven. There is much science that does not support the idea of Global Warming. I appreciate your choice of belief, but for Dr. Fuhrman to go off in this direction seriously harms the message. Please keep HEALTH at the center of the message. Thank you kindly.

Karen O - October 29, 2011 7:12 AM

Great post!

A plant based diet is an elegant solution to so many problems we face. It makes perfect sense that something that would keep us well would keep our planet well too.

Nova - October 30, 2011 12:55 AM

Great post, Talia. Thank you. Fifteen years ago I stopped eating meat after learning of the amount of land and water required for my meat-based protein vs. plant-based protein. I had no idea and was so grateful for the information.

I concur with Karen O that it makes so much sense that the health of our physical bodies and the health of our physical planet would be intimately connected.

J Escher, I think we need to remember that even when people were dying from lung cancer, there were many scientists who claimed that the link to cigarette smoking was not proven and that people were being made to feel alarm unnecessarily. At some point one simply has to weigh the risks and benefits to such claims and counter claims.

If the scientists warning about the link between smoking and lung cancer had turned out to be wrong, the consequence of my heeding their warnings would simply be that I would have to go through the challenge of breaking a deeply ingrained habit (but saving a lot of money and other benefits).

If the scientists claiming the link between smoking and lung cancer was unproven had turned out to be wrong, the consequence of my following their skepticism would be that I ran the very real risk of being among the painfully ill or dead.

For me the risk/benefit ratio lined up with the warnings, proven or not, and I have never regretted that, especially given that the links turned out to be very real indeed.

Since we all depend on the health of our planet just to breathe, hydrate, and support the very food supply we need for our ETL diets, I find that I am quite willing to pay as much attention to these climate studies and links as I did to studies on smoking and to Dr. F's meta-analyses of nutritional studies. To me it is all health-related.


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