The Link Between Meat Eating and Climate Change

Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends, delivers a keynote address on the devastating role factory farms are playing in the climate change crisis at Animal Legal Defense Fund's "Future of Animal Law" conference at Harvard Law School in March 2007. According to the 2007 report by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), livestock generate a whopping 18 percent of human-related greenhouse gas emissions—that's even more than the gas-guzzling transportation industry. For more information, visit http://aldf.org/article.php?id=434

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• animal
• rights
• protection
• law
• factory
• farming
• climate
• change
• animals
• welfare

[organicfilms81]

Damn, wake up. There's so much methane BECAUSE there's so many animals and there's so many animals BECAUSE people want to eat lots of meat. So that produces more methane than if there was only animals in the nature living FOR THEMSELVES. Now there's billions and billions of animals living, eating, shitting and dying FOR HUMANS. It's like trying to explain something to a 5 year old child.

[sulara1]

Stop eating meat!

[julianchosun]

@thestreetsempty:

Actually that study is now out of date. It's been superceeded.

Google 'Goodland and Anhang, Livestock and Climate Change, 2009.'

The entire lifecycle and supply chain of the meat and dairy industry produces not 18% but rather at least 51% of total green house gas emissions.

[julianchosun]

@NinjaGhostScorpion:

That's fine. The question that raises though, is: Do you want to live with the consequences of eating meat, which includes the huge impact of global warming and climate change?

The entire lifecycle and supply chain of the meat and dairy industry produces not 18% but rather at least 51% of total green house gas emissions. Google 'Goodland and Anhang, Livestock and Climate Change, 2009.'

[whedonfreak976]

@IndifferentSky He will not respond boo boo, he closed his account.

[mjbarrowful]

Climate change is not a threat to the planet. The planet Earth has gone through many things that are far worse than burning CO2. We breath CO2 out of our mouths after respiration. The consequences of CO2 "pollution"  will not be a problem. The reason for not eating meat is mostly an ethical choice regarding the welfare of animals.

[julianchosun]

A study put out the year after this clip was published estimated that livestock generate not 18%, but actually, conservatively, at least 51% of all green house gases.

Google 'Goodland and Anhang, Livestock and Climate Change, 2009.'

[IndifferentSky]

@cattlewrangler there is no need to eat meat, sorry, you're wrong.

[IndifferentSky]

@OvoidCranium Where is your study on this? It's an entire industry that contributes to CO2, not just animal butts. It's interesting that millions of animals can be carbon neutral. That's pretty fascinating.

[IndifferentSky]

@NinjaGhostScorpion you may not want to, but others can view you for what you are and if you don't like that, that is just tough. I'm sure pedophiles don't WANT to quit what they do either, and why should we care?

[mphello]

@ALDFstaff

Excellent!

Lifelong vegan and animal rights soldier here.

I am so glad I got to meet Jeremy Rifkin in person at a conference for the animals in Washington DC in 1990. His book, "Entropy", changed my life when I read it in 1984.