Article 1/6 — read the introductory post to this article series here. This article series is an invitation for people in the United States who are food-secure to examine their current eating habits and consider how food choices can empower their physical and spiritual health.
Summary: Church leaders have been urging us to support the United Nation’s mission to eradicate hunger for decades, yet we have not made nearly enough moral and social progress to do so. Livestock have a bad reputation for their contribution to greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change. This is partly based in fact, but also reinforced with harmful misinformation. We need to work with – not against – the livestock industry to mitigate climate change and protect food security.
In 1970, Pope Paul VI visited the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to speak words of approval and gratitude for their commitment to eradicating hunger and establishing food security for all. He urgently called the Church to partake in this mission asking, “How could the Church, solicitous for the true good of men, not be interested in an activity so clearly orientated as is yours to the alleviation of the greatest distress?”1 Pope Pius XII and Pope John XXIII before him had likewise expressed their profound respect and appreciation for the FAO’s courageous efforts.1 In a call of solidarity, Pope Paul VI urged Catholics to invest in the goals of the FAO, “which we approve with all our heart”:
“These problems [of ecological deterioration] surely are familiar to you. We have wished to evoke them briefly before you only in order to underline better the urgent need of a radical change in the conduct of humanity if it wishes to assure its survival. It took millennia for man to learn how to dominate, «to subdue the earth» according to the inspired word of the first book of the Bible (Gen. 1:28). The hour has now come for him to dominate his domination; this essential undertaking requires no less courage and dauntlessness than the conquest of nature itself. Will the prodigious progressive mastery of plant, animal and human life and the discovery of even the secrets of matter lead to anti-matter and to the explosion of death? In this decisive moment of its history, humanity hesitates, uncertain before fear and hope. Who still does not see this? The most extraordinary scientific progress, the most astounding technical feats and the most amazing economic growth, unless accompanied by authentic moral and social progress, will in the long run go against man.” 1
Fifty years later,
Pope Paul VI’s call for immediate and radical change in the heart of each man seems to have silently dissipated. His urgent words have risen out of our immediate field of vision to hang stagnant above us – much like the unseen, yet ever-thickening, blanket of greenhouse gases infiltrating our atmosphere. Greenhouse gases (most significantly carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and fluorine-containing halogenated gases) are gases that trap the sun’s warming energy within the earth’s atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, in large part due to fossil fuel combustion,# is the largest contributor to anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, responsible for 81.3% of total GHG emissions in the United States.2
The food industry is another large contributor to GHG emissions, particularly through livestock’s production of methane. In the United States, methane accounts for 9.5% of the total GHG emissions.2 The digestive process of enteric fermentation from ruminant livestock is the largest anthropogenic contributor (28.0% of total CH4 emissions), followed by natural gas systems (22.1%), landfills (17.4%), manure management, and coal mining.2 When ruminants like cattle consume forage, cellulolytic bacteria break that food down into fatty acids and CO2. Microorganisms in the rumen called methanogens then metabolize that CO2 along with hydrogen, producing CH4. Through eructation (90-95%) and flatulence (5-10%), cattle produce about 250-500 L CH4 per day. So yes, gassy cows are in part responsible for global warming.
You may have heard the captivating statement that livestock contribute more to GHG emissions than the transportation sector. This is based on the FAO 2006 report titled “Livestock’s long shadow” which states: “[Livestock] currently amounts to about 18 percent of the global warming effect – an even larger contribution than the transportation sector worldwide.”3 Such a claim potentially poses a great danger to food security if future climate change mitigation policies rashly and disproportionately target the livestock sector. This stigma has already damaged the reputation of farmers, the very people devoting their livelihoods to providing our communities with sustaining nourishment. Blaming the livestock industry for our environmental problems displaces responsibility from the individual consumer to the collective other, and it seems to take away the power of individuals’ choices and morality. Because of the widespread manner in which this statement has tainted people’s attitude toward the livestock industry, as veterinarians and as Christians, we must take the time to understand the facts and errors within its words. To protect food security, which is inextricably linked to basic human dignity, we must advocate for FAO policies which seek to mitigate climate change through improvements to the livestock industry, not its abolishment.
There are two main counterpoints to the above misconception. First, in the FAO 2013 report, an updated estimate that livestock only accounts for 14.5% of global anthropogenic GHG emissions was reported “based on a much more detailed analysis involving major methodological refinements and improved data sets.”4 Second, the FAO 2006 report unequally compared a complete, total lifecycle assessment of livestock GHG emissions to an incomplete, direct assessment of the transportation sector.*, 5 There is not yet an accurate lifecycle assessment of global anthropogenic transportation emissions, so we can only say that the direct emissions of the transportation industry (14%)6 is about the same as the more inclusive estimate of both direct and indirect emissions from the livestock industry (14.5%).4
Especially in the United States, which has efficient livestock production and high fossil fuel burning, the difference between livestock and transportation emissions is large. United States agriculture^ accounts for 9.9% of GHG emissions directly, while the transportation sector accounts for 28.2%.2 Over 36% of United States fossil fuel combustion CO2 emissions were related to transportation, with the largest contributor being passenger cars (41.2%).2 This identifies driving as a critical daily habit that we can adjust to help mitigate GHG emissions. We who are food secure additionally have the option – which I would rather call the responsibility – to reduce our carbon footprints in the livestock sector and decrease our food waste (which the following articles will address). The hour has now come to look up and recognize Pope Paul VI’s and many others’ pleading words that have been spoken into our choking air with no one to truly hear them; to look to the left and right and feel the crushing absence of our forests; to look down and see how our human footprints have trampled the soil much more forcefully than any amount of livestock. It will require courage. It will require dauntlessness. It will require sacrifice. It will require love.
So what kind of diet can nourish our bodies and our planet sustainably? The next article in this series of Food & Faith titled "Diving into the Diet" will address this question by exploring a scientific model of the United States agricultural system without any animals and a study conducted by the World Resources Institute on the GHG emissions impact of global diet scenarios.
# Fossil fuels include coal, oil, and natural gas, and collectively they contribute to about 76% total GHG emissions.2 Other human activities like deforestation and agriculture contribute to the rest of the CO2 emissions.2 Since the end of the preindustrial time period around 1750 up until 2018, CO2 concentrations have increased by 46%, CH4 by 165%, and N2O by 23%.2
*The total lifecycle assessment evaluated the multiple direct and indirect factors contributing to GHG emissions within the livestock industry, such as deforestation needed to clear land for pasture area, animal feed production and processing, ruminant enteric fermentation, manure storage and processing, as well as animal product processing and transportation. The direct assessment considered only the direct emissions from fuel combustion involved in transportation. Factors like making and maintaining vehicles, roads, and airports as well as harvesting, refining, and shipping fuel were not included in the estimate.
^ “United States agriculture” is defined as the combination of “enteric fermentation in domestic livestock, livestock manure management, rice cultivation, agricultural soil management, liming, urea fertilization, and field burning of agricultural residues.” 2
References:
- PAUL VI, Visit of Pope Paul VI To the FAO on the 25th anniversary of its institution (16 Nov 1970). Available at: https://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/speeches/1970/documents/hf_p-vi_spe_19701116_xxv-istituzione-fao.html. Accessed Jun 20, 2020.
- United States Environmental Protection Agency 430-R-20-002. Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990–2018. Available at: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks. Accessed Jun 20, 2020.
- FAO. 2006. Livestock’s long shadow – Environmental issues and options. The Livestock, Environment and Development Initiative and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome. Available at: https://www.fao.org/3/a0701e/a0701e.pdf. Accessed Jun 20, 2020.
- Gerber, PJ, Steinfeld, H, Henderson, B, Mottet, A, Opio, C, Dijkman, J, Falcucci, A & Tempio, G. 2013. Tackling climate change through livestock – A global assessment of emissions and mitigation opportunities. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome. Available at: https://www.fao.org/3/i3437e/i3437e.pdf. Accessed Jun 20, 2020.
- Pitesky ME, Stackhouse KR, Mitloehner FM. 2009. Clearing the air: Livestock’s contribution to climate change. Adv Agron 103:1–40.
- United States Environmental Protection Agency. 2019. Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data. Available at: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data. Accessed Jun 20, 2020.