My concluding thoughts...

From beginning this blog in October, I have learnt so much about numerous components that make consuming beef impact the environment so severely. I most definitely think I have a developed a broader understanding of this relationship through writing this blog and I hope you all have too. My research into different areas has really alerted me about the serious destruction our consumption habits are having. What shocked me the most was the severe damage it is doing to the Amazon through intense cattle-rearing in Brazil. Having visited Brazil myself and admiring the diverse flora and fauna that is abundant, it is devastating that WE are the primary causes of its loss. 

View from Sugarloaf Mountain, Brazil, in March 2015.

(source: Laura Thrower)

One aspect of writing this blog I have seriously enjoyed is it has given me continual motivation to not eat beef - to this day I haven't eaten beef in 5 months! I have even surprised myself as are many of my family as they know that steak and chips is my dream meal. Additionally, my blog posts that have explored whether it is necessary for the entire population to become vegetarian, or even vegan, have definitely made me think twice about what I am buying from the supermarket or ordering from a restaurant. Although neither of these dietary options still appeal to me...

Upon reflection of this blog, I am extremely motivated to inform my friends, family and anyone really about the great impacts that consuming beef are having on our environment and how much they are accelerating climate change. I know that not everyone is going to change their diet, no matter how many statistics I tell them or how many videos I show them. Therefore, I think that it is crucial to implement other ways to reduce the impacts of our consumption habits on the environment. In my opinion, based on my knowledge, the most efficient ways of doing so are:

1. Top-down government intervention in increasing society's knowledge of this issue.

2. Implementation of more efficient land use techniques in cattle-rearing.

3. Taxing of either meat production directly or the GHG emissions produced from doing so.

Nevertheless, I still endeavor to continue not eating beef and actually attempt to cut down on my general meat consumption. One person doing something does not seem like much, but I am a true believer that every little thing someone does to reduce their environmental impact makes a difference. If giving up beef or meat entirely seems too hard, maybe try having one day a week where you don't eat any meat! Remember - we only have ONE planet - why not do something today to ensure we don't loose it? Here's a final little video to motivate you all...

P.S. Thank you all for reading!

Switching it up: how will climate change impact beef production?

As my blog draws to a close, I have decided to look at beef production from a completely different perspective. It is clear, of course, that cattle-rearing is having and will have a huge environmental impact and worsen climate change. But, it is also obvious that climate change is having a direct impact on beef production which may have severe consequences. By 2056, it is projected that world population is set to reach 10 billion which indicates that the demand for food will be huge. In addition, rising gross domestic products (GDP) in developing countries is set to result in a shift from crop-based diets to livestock-based diets, following the similar patterns as the western world (Tubiello et al., 2007). Will our livestock population be able to cope with this AND future climate change? Time to explore this further...

Direct impacts on cattle

Climate change is projected to lead to unprecedented global warming and this intensification of warming has the ability to have detrimental impacts on our cattle population.  One of the direct ways this can affect dairy cattle is by reducing their productivity because they can overheat from too much warming as they already produce huge amounts of metabolic heat from lactating (West, 2003). Furthermore, as climate change is projected to cause temperature rises, the prevalence of pests and insects in regions that do not normally have them (i.e. high latitudes) is expected to occur (Rosenzweig et al., 2001). A study by White et al. (2003) examined the effect of a cattle tick, boophilus microplus, on Australia's beef industry under projected climate changes. One of the findings was that without any adaptation strategies to preventing this tick, the loss in live cattle's weight could be a shocking 7780 tonnes/year by 2030, or even 21,637 tonnes/year by 2100. This vulnerability was corroborated by Tubiello et al. (2007). This could severely impact the livestock industry, leading to economic and social consequences.

Indirect impacts on cattle

One of the heavily explored areas of climate change is its impacts on vegetation and plant growth. Cattle rely heavily on crops as their feed which suggests if climate change makes alterations to the growth of crops, it could have repercussions on beef production. A study by Craine et al. (2009) investigated whether changes in grasslands under climate change could cause nutritional stress in cattle using 'a continental-scale, long term database of cattle faecal chemical composition'. The study mentions that there may be a rise of C₄ grasses over C₃ grasses in the future. C₄ grasses are more prevalent in arid or semi-arid ecosystems with higher temperatures (Ehleringer and Cerling, 2002). These grasses are considered to be less efficient for cattle grazing, initially suggesting how warming may hinder beef production. Additionally the study states that projected rises in CO₂ may lead to declines in plant protein which can further affect cattle growth. Furthermore, studies have mentioned that current models may be actually overestimating crop responses to rising CO₂ levels, as it is initially projected that these increased levels can accelerate plant biomass (Tubiello et al., 2007). This may create problems when predicting what's going to happen within cattle agriculture and beef production.

Is there anything we can do?

As shown, climate change is quite a severe problem for cattle production which stresses the need for ways to reduce its impacts. Studies have reported on suggested adaptation ideas. West (2003) suggests that this can be done through modifying the environments cows graze in, such as shading mechanisms, as well as more technologically-based solutions, such as genetically developing cattle breeds so they can tolerate warmer conditions. However it could be argued that this genetic modification is unethical. Other adaptation methods are suggested in Thornton et al. (2009). One that I had not come across before or even thought of was considering crop and/or livestock insurance schemes, especially in the case of extreme weather events like droughts of floods. 

Looking at the link between climate change and beef consumption from the other end of the spectrum has been an eye opener into the vast consequences that climatic changes may have on livestock. Researching into this has highlighted to me that technological or economic strategies may be the solution to reducing the impacts of climate change on cattle. I am by no means going against my opinions as I still believe that reductions in beef consumption are necessary. However, this blog post has widened the perspectives that I have been looking at this notion from. In many cases, particularly developing countries, people's livelihoods depend on cattle-rearing and beef production, meaning that climate change could be detrimental to their income. This really emphasised to me that action must be taken now, both to reduce cattle's contribution to climate change AND to reduce the impacts of climate change on cattle. Could this really be possible?

(source: idrc.ca)

Rucksacks on cows? Surely not...

Yes the title is correct - okay, maybe not an actual rucksack, but an idea I came across that is being proposed by Argentina's INTA governmental research body is to secure inflatable bags to cows backs in order to reduce methane (CH₄) consumption. The way this is proposed to work is to connect a tube from the cow's rumen (where the CH₄ gets emitted from) to an inflatable bag so that the gases are stored, rather than escaping into the atmosphere. These gases are then transferred into containers which have the potential to be used as an energy source. Very bizarre concept I know, but if it is a solution, could this mean we can have a burger guilt-free?

(source: ecouterre.com)

The Climatarian Challenge results!

As you may remember a few posts back, I decided to begin 'The Climatarian Challenge' through tracking what I had been eating and inputting it into an app to see how much carbon I was 'consuming'. Today was the end of my challenge - sadly I only just failed the challenge by ending on 8002 points (equivalent to 80.02kg of carbon) rather than the 8000 points that was the goal. However I cannot be too disappointed though as I only 'ate' 20g of carbon more than the goal! Using the app has been so interesting and I felt so motivated throughout to seriously consider what I was consuming. The only criticism I would have off the app was that when inputting whether you had eaten a certain type of meat or not, you then had to choose which portion size it was equivalent to out of a choice of three. Unfortunately there was no actual guidelines into what each portion size was equivalent to so a lot of it was guess work, which could have meant I was either under- or over-estimating how much carbon I was consuming. Nevertheless definitely give this a go and I guarantee it will make you think twice about what you are eating - give the video a watch so you know what's in stall!

Dairy products and their impacts

Recently I have been hearing so much about 'Veganuary' - the idea to attempt to become a vegan for the whole of January. I mean, for me, this is not particularly appealing as I think I would probably fail on the first day. However it has given me the inspiration to research into the impacts of the dairy industry on climate change and whether it is beneficial to reduce or even completely avoid dairy products. Additionally this is one of the areas associated with cattle that I have not explored. To my surprise, statistics reported in The Guardian (2014) stated that beef and dairy make up approximately 65% of all livestock emissions; whats more is that dairy consumption is projected to rise globally by 65% by 2050.  In this post I have examined two different studies, both of which are investigating the environmental benefits of reductions of dairy among other greenhouse gas (GHG) polluting products.

1. Westhoeck et al. (2014)

The authors within this study aimed to find out what the effects of replacing meat, dairy and eggs with plant-based food would be on both the environment and human health; here I have just focused on the consequences on the environment. The study explored six alternative diets (however only five were actually presented in the main body of the study) which are shown in this table:

Figure 1 | Table of the five alternative diets.

(After Westhoeck et al., 2014)

The main findings of this study were that the alternative diets where a 50% reduction was observed lead to great reductions in GHG emissions and reactive nitrogen, 25-40% and approximately 40% respectively. This certainly highlights the benefits from reducing meat, dairy and eggs. Although one point I would make was that it is difficult to observe the individual contribution of reducing dairy consumption on these emissions as they are grouped together. Nevertheless it is clear dairy products are prominent contributors to climatic changes. One point that the study does bring to our attention is the questioning over whether these dramatic behavioural changes are actually realistic. Even I can admit that giving up all meat and dairy products is too challenging for me and many other people I have spoken to would not be able to do so. 

2. Steer (2015)

Alternatively to the previous study, Steer (2015) examines solely the impacts of dairy products on the environment which certainly makes exploring its individual contribution to climatic change easier. This study specifically examines whether switching from conventional dairy systems to an alternative production of dairy that uses 'non-bovine pathways' (YDM). This alternative involves producing milk proteins by the combination of yeast and vegetable oil, rather than dairy cows. The study found that this alternative had a significant reduction in many environmental impact categories, shown in this table:

Figure 2 | Modelled land, water and energy requirements, plus GWP, of producing 1 L YDM compared to data for conventional dairy productions. 

(After Steer, 2015)

As shown, the efficiency savings of using this alternative are great. However the ranges for some categories, particularly energy, are very large which suggests some uncertainties in the results. Another criticism of the study is when compiling the values for YDM, for the four categories, for sunflower oil, sucrose, transport and YDM synthesis, numerous studies were utilised to assemble these values. This inconsistency could raise questions about the validity of the concluding remarks.

Perhaps this is the new way forward - rather than changing behaviour, change the product? However it is seriously important to consider whether anyone would actually buy this product. But, it could be argued that there has been a great increase in the purchasing of milk alternatives, for example soy and coconut milk, as projections reported in The Guardian (2016) stated that the milk alternative industry is expected to be worth more than $10bn by 2019. Therefore investing in YDM could be a plausible solution - please comment below your thoughts!