Climate and Earth's Resources

1 Introduction

Vegans will not use animals for food, material gain or other reasons; they believe that animals have a right to a life free of exploitation and unnecessary suffering. The ramifications of this standpoint are astonishing, and, when followed through, reveal that veganism is vitally important for the future ability of the earth to support life as we know it. In other words, veganism is not just a personal view about animals, but a way of life that changes the world

Is that overstating the case? Not at all. When the damage done to earth’s systems by livestock farming is understood, it becomes clear that meat production is unsustainable and devouring the planet and its life [1-1]

This Piece will show just a few of the reasons why the widespread take up of vegan diets must be at the heart of any plan for a living and flourishing planet.

2 Planetary Boundaries

The concept of Planetary boundaries [2-1] describes a set of nine planetary limits within which humanity must remain if it is to continue to develop and thrive. The concept was initially described in 2009 by Johann Rockström from The Stockholm Resilience Centre [2-2]

We have been living within the boundaries for over 10,000 years during a stable geological period named The Holocene. But human activity is now pushing the planet over the boundaries into a state unlike any humanity has known before.

Many of the consequences are well known, for example the increasing concentration of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere which is leading to a rise in global temperatures.

Other effects are not precisely known but are alarming because they could be irreversible, or accelerated by positive feedback effects or can change suddenly after long periods of relative stability.

Rockström identifies nine boundaries which should not be crossed:

Climate
Biodiversity
Biogeochemicals – Nitrogen, Phosphorus
Land use
Fresh water
Novel Entities / Toxic substances
Ozone
Atmospheric aerosols
Ocean acidification

However, in October 2023 it was reported that six of the nine boundaries listed above have been crossed [2-3] : “This planetary boundaries framework update finds that six of the nine boundaries are transgressed, suggesting that Earth is now well outside of the safe operating space for humanity”

A range of actions by governments, business and individuals will be required to halt and reverse these trends. It is striking to see that a widespread take up of a vegan diet will effectively address several of the boundaries. Boundaries 1-5 and 9 are all affected by agricultural practice and consumption. possibly others are also. Diet has global consequences!

3 Climate Change

The evidence for Climate Change grows stronger every year, seen in rising global temperatures, the strength and frequency of storms and intensity of droughts, caused by the increasing concentration of Green House Gases (GHG) in the atmosphere.

Current global CO2 emissions are over 40 Billion tonnes (Gt) per year [3-1], and continue to increase [3-2]. A further 250 Gt [3-3], [3-4] may well push global temperatures permanently past 1.5C above pre-industrial levels into a zone that humanity has never encountered before. At current rates of emissions this ‘budget’ will be exhausted by 2030, but already temperatures of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels have been reached during 2023 [3-5]

So GHG emissions need to be reduced immediately and quickly to avoid permanently high temperatures.

An effective way is to take up a vegan diet. This type of diet can reduce an individual’s carbon footprint from food by up to 73 per cent [3-6].

Livestock farming is a major source of GHG for several reasons. The Amazon rain forest is being destroyed to make way for land to grow feed for factory farmed animals and for ranching [3-7]. Also, ruminant animals like cattle, sheep, goats and camels produce nearly as much methane as fossil fuel emissions, roughly 115 million tonnes annually [3-8]

4 Fresh Water

Agriculture accounts for 92% of the freshwater footprint of humanity; almost one third relates to animal products [4-1]

Where I live in Hertfordshire, water companies supply an average of 170 litres per person per day [4-2]. But that is not the whole story; in addition to this, three thousand litres of water is needed to produce the food the average British person eats every day [4-3]. Over 40% of this food is imported.

Clearly our lifestyle affects not only our own fresh water supply but by taking water from other parts of the world in the form of imports we reduce the availability of water for people in some of the most vulnerable areas in the world. How can we change our lifestyle to reduce the impact on water availability

Meat-free diets could cut our ‘water footprint’ in half [4-3]

5 Land Use

Land Use Change occurs where forests, grasslands, wetlands and other vegetation types are converted to human use, and in most cases to agricultural land. [5-1]

It is a driving force behind the serious reductions in biodiversity and many other environmental problems

Livestock need space to grow their food. In the worst case, to produce 100g of protein, lamb and beef herd cattle need 75 to 80 times more land than is required to grow the equivalent protein content of tofu (soybean). Even the humble pea is 50 times more effective than beef herd in terms of land use.

Just to make sure those remarkable numbers aren’t missed, here’s the details [5-2]

Land use (square metres) per 100 grams of protein

Lamb and Mutton 184.8
Beef (beef herd) 163.6
Beef (dairy herd) 21.9
Peas 3.4
Tofu (soybean) 2.2

“Replacing the meat in our diets with soya spectacularly reduces the land area required per kilo of protein. One study suggests that if we were all to switch to a plant-based diet, 15 million hectares of land in Britain currently used for farming could be returned to nature” [5-3]

If everyone shifted to a plant-based diet we would reduce global land use for agriculture by 75% (3 billion hectares) [5-4]

Globally, about two-thirds of farmland is animal pasture [5-5].

One note to add before it is claimed that vegans eat soya products and are responsible for deforestation. The amount of soya grown to be consumed directly by humans is far less than that grown for livestock, and is far more efficiently used as shown above. If there was a wider uptake of a vegan diet then less soya would be grown, not more.

6 Phosphorus

It seems the global food supply is extremely vulnerable to disruption in the phosphorus supply chain [6-1]. Most of the Phosphorus is found in just a few countries, some of them affected by conflict and subject to increasingly uncertain economic and political conditions.

Some solutions to this problem are to not waste Phosphorus in the first place, or to recover it from waste. But there is another way to reduce the threat of a global food crisis. Take up a vegan diet.

This is because “meat consumption is the most important factor affecting Phosphorus footprints … dietary trends present an important challenge for sustainable Phosphorus management” [6-2]

Research in 2012 on U.S. diets found that meat based diets require over seven times more Phosphorus than plant-based diets, “The United States’ annual per capita consumption of phosphorus is between six and seven kilograms for a meat-based diet, and less than one kilogram for a plant-based diet” [6-3].

While UK diets may include less meat, it is clear that meat diets require significantly more Phosphorus than vegan diet and could save the world from a global food crisis

7 Oceans

The oceans! The site of another front in the war on the planet. And remarkably a plant-based diet, if widely adopted, is an effective weapon against the myriad assaults of rising temperatures, acidification, pollution, overfishing and seafloor dredging

By reducing an individual’s carbon footprint, a vegan diet is reducing the source of ocean warming which is damaging marine habitats. If we are looking for ways to support the vast range of marine life from iconic penguins and polar bears to the invisible zooplankton then a vegan diet is an effective tool to use.

Regarding ocean acidification, around a quarter of the CO2 that humanity emits into the atmosphere dissolves into the oceans. There it forms carbonic acid, making it increasingly difficult for marine species such as corals and shellfish to build shells and skeletons, eventually degrading ecosystems, and leading to drastic reductions in fish stocks.

A report in Nature indicates that the 30% increase in ocean acidification cannot be reversed at any significant scale except by reducing CO2 emissions; there are no quick technological fixes! [7-1]

Vegan diets reduce the causes of Ocean pollution. A recent report reveals the vast quantity of fishing gear dumped or lost at sea [7-2]. According to the authors, these are having a huge and deadly impact on fish and other marine life.

Each year, 78,000 sq km of purse seine nets and gillnets, 215 sq km of bottom trawl nets, 740,000 km of main long lines, and 15.5 million km of branch lines were lost.

To stop eating fish is the most effective way to save the life in our seas [7-3]

In Conclusion

There are so many ways that the adoption of a vegan life benefits this “small blue dot”, its land, rivers, oceans, atmosphere and our fellow travellers. It puts a brake on our exploitation of the earth’s natural resources; it reduces the risks to our global food supplies by cutting our use of scarce resources; it allows nature to thrive in the land we would no longer need.

But time is short. Without widespread changes by individuals including taking up a vegan diet, and by governments, these benefits are in danger of being lost.

References

Introduction

[1-1] https://www.monbiot.com/2018/06/13/butchery-of-the-planet

Planetary Boundaries

[2-1] https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries/the-nine-planetary-boundaries.html

[2-2] https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art32

[2-3] https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-news/2023-09-13-all-planetary-boundaries-mapped-out-for-the-first-time-six-of-nine-crossed.html

Climate Change

[3-1] https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/248913/window-avoid-15c-warming-will-close

[3-2] https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/mlo.html

[3-3] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01848-5

[3-4] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67242386