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According to the 2006 UN report, global production of meat and milk will more than double by 2050. We cannot let this happen. Our planet is already being devastated. Long-overdue changes based on the truth could halve livestock usage by 2015

Atmospheric Damage

Animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalents. By comparison, all transportation emits 13.5% of the CO2. In addition to CO2, environmentally toxic gases produced by livestock include nitrous oxide, methane, and ammonia generated from the animals’ intestines—belching, flatus, and manure. The report says “The impact is so severe that it needs to be addressed with urgency.”

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Produces 65 percent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2.

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Accounts for 37 percent of all human-induced methane (which is 23 times as warming as CO2).

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Generates 64 percent of the ammonia, which contributes to acid rain and acidification of ecosystems.

Land Damage

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The total area occupied by grazing livestock is equivalent to 26 percent of the ice-free terrestrial surface of the planet.  In addition, the total area dedicated to producing feed crops for these animals amounts to 33 percent of the total arable land.

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Clearing forests to create new pastures is a major source of deforestation, especially in Latin America where, for example, some 70 percent of former rainforests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing. The forests are the major “sinks” for removing the greenhouse gases from the atmosphere—they are the “lungs of the Earth.”

Water Damage

The livestock business is among the most serious users of the earth’s increasingly scarce water resources; in addition, contributing to water pollution, excessive growth of organisms, depletion of oxygen, and the degeneration of coral reefs, among other things.

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The major water-polluting agents are animal wastes, antibiotics, hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers, and the pesticides used to spray feed crops.

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In the United States livestock is responsible for 55 percent of the erosion and sediment, 37 percent of the pesticide use, 50 percent of the antibiotic use, and a third of the load of nitrogen and phosphorus put into freshwater sources.

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Widespread overgrazing disturbs water cycles, reducing replenishment of above and below ground water resources. Significant amounts of water are withdrawn for the production of feed.

Species Loss

Livestock’s very presence in vast tracts of land and its demand for feed crops also contribute to loss of other plants and animals; livestock is identified as a culprit in 15 out of 24 important ecosystems that are assessed as in decline. The loss of species is estimated to be running 50 to 500 times higher than background rates found in the fossil record.

Is Change Realistic?

Al Gore wants us to switch to more efficient forms of transportation, not to give up our cars overnight.  An enthusiastic campaign to reduce our dependency on livestock would not have as a primary goal making everyone become vegan (eliminating all animal foods); but more realistically, to cut the consumption of meat and dairy products—say, in half in 8 years.  That could mean something as simple as asking people following the Western diet to consume on average two to three times more mashed potatoes (or other starchy vegetables) daily, instead of their usual animal-based foods—I believe this is not too much to request in order to save the earth!

Al Gore Does Not Discuss the Role of Food Animals

Not once during the 96 minute presentation, An Inconvenient Truth, did Al Gore mention animal foods as a cause of global warming or suggest any form of management of livestock as a solution.  This oversight would be similar to not mentioning cigarette smoking in a discussion of lung cancer. With all due respect to Al Gore, I must speculate as to why he ignored this essential connection.  Ignorance could not have been the reason. Catastrophic damage to our environment from livestock, especially cattle, has been recognized for decades.  Nor do I believe his exclusion of this topic was for political correctness. His documentary is filled with unrestrained challenges to almost every segment of business and society. Al Gore is a brave and honest man, but he has human frailties, too.

Al Gore identified one reason for his leaving out the livestock connection in his documentary when he said, “You know more than a hundred years ago, Upton Sinclair wrote this: ‘It's difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on him not understanding it.’” Al Gore has been involved in the business of raising Black Angus cattle for most of his life.  Today quite a few Angus breeders from around the country are among his closest friends.

Young Al Gore with Black Angus from the family farm

In his “must see” documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore failed to tell people that cows, pigs, sheep, and poultry are a far greater polluters of the planet earth than are all the cars, trains, and airplanes. 

Al Gore is a giant, defending the truth. I am confident he will not let his personal life stand in the way of his mission—whether or not he himself changes to a plant-food based diet.