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What’s The Beef With Eating Beef?

By Sarah Liez

“The Garden of Earthly Delights,” a painting by Hieronymus Bosch, depicts three panels: Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, a growing society permeated with sins such as overpopulation and excess, and a nightmarish, decaying hellscape. The film “Before the Flood”—a documentary in which actor and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio meets with scientists around the world to discuss the disastrous consequences of climate change—opens with this illustration. DiCaprio describes the painting as portraying “a paradise that has been degraded and destroyed.” 

A portion of the movie tackles the industrialization of animal agriculture and its connection to climate change through a significant issue known as methanogenesis, a process in which the mass-husbandry of cattle adds a large sum of methane—a greenhouse gas that rapidly increases the global temperature—to the atmosphere. While methanogenesis is a massive, global issue, if enough individuals make deliberate changes to their diets by turning away from beef and towards other meat alternatives and plant-based products, we can create a widespread shift in the industry that will call for less cattle production. We as consumers have the power to decrease the effects of methanogenesis and global warming. After learning this through the documentary, my diet and perspective on the meat industry instantly changed. I developed some serious beef with eating beef. 

Climate change—an urgent, catastrophic phenomena—is at the center of this issue. It refers to global shifts in temperature and weather patterns rooted in anthropogenic causes— meaning that human actions are driving these changes. We contribute to the warming of the planet by adding large amounts of greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere. These gases, such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane, store and release massive amounts of heat. We generate and emit these substances through a variety of human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels for electricity and transportation. Another primary contributor to global warming is, as previously mentioned, a natural process known as methanogenesis. This entails the biological production of methane through anaerobic organisms, such as cattle and chickens, which discharge methane by passing gas. 

Although methanogenesis is a completely natural biological process, it becomes an anthropogenic issue when we industrialize animal agriculture. The breeding and farming of immense numbers of livestock drastically amplifies the amount of methane released into the atmosphere. Over the last few decades, food corporations have expanded rapidly in order to meet global demands, exponentially increasing methane emissions as a result. The meat industry is responsible for roughly 30% of greenhouse gas emissions as of November 2020, and this number is expected to continue rising as more individuals from around the world gain more wealth and eat greater amounts of meat and dairy products. 

In order to effectively combat global warming, we need to make immediate changes to the way we consume animals. A recent study reported in Science Magazine used historic connections between per capita food demand and per capita domestic product to determine, through an analysis of different countries around the world, the global relationship between the two as it applies to the current century. The researchers found that eliminating our fossil fuel consumption alone would, at our current rate of carbon emissions from the food industry, make it impossible to limit the planet’s warming to 1.5°C, let alone come close to the 2°C target of the Paris Climate Agreement—a legally binding treaty on mitigating climate change that has been signed by various countries around the world. If we want to lower our carbon emissions and lessen global warming, we must make drastic changes to how we produce and consume meat. That said, how can we create this massive industry shift? 

We need to make adaptations to our food consumption. By making changes to the ways we consume animal products, consumers have the power to create significant shifts in production. This phenomenon is known as the elasticity of supply for meat—decreases in consumer demand in turn decrease meat production, and vice versa. In other words, when large amounts of people purchase fewer hamburgers, fewer cattle are raised for production. 

An article posted by animal activist and writer Brian Tomasik on his site “Essays on Reducing Suffering” discusses the idea of these elasticities in further detail. He uses industry research to show how supply curves for beef, and to a lesser extent dairy products, are relatively elastic, meaning they yield a greater change in production when consumer behavior changes when compared to other products. Thus, although a single person’s purchasing choices are unlikely to make an impact on the industry, a large enough group all making deliberate shifts towards plant-based or other meat products can result in meaningful changes. As cattle production is the greatest methane contributor with the greatest elasticity, simply purchasing other meats such as chicken and pork can prompt notable changes, and purchasing plant-based proteins will push this impact even further. 

These changes are already present in various facets of the food industry. For example, in an effort to encourage more sustainable cooking, popular food site Epicurious has already made the monumental decision to cease the publishing of beef recipes. Fast-food chain KFC is coming out with a novel line of vegan chicken nuggets, and many modern plant-based meat alternatives, such as Beyond Meat and Gardein, are growing in production. Over the coming decade, the situation is likely to develop at a rapid pace, with additional plant-based brands and decreases in meat and dairy manufacturing encouraging more people to make the shift. 

It has been over five years since I stopped eating red meat, and I hope to expand this restriction to all meat products in the future. As drivers of change and the new generation of climate-change mitigators, it is our duty to alter our meat consumption, and with new beef-less products being made available each year, this dietary change has never been easier. Although cutting out all meat and dairy products is a difficult and daunting exercise, merely ceasing your intake of beef can make a significant difference in our greenhouse gas emissions—that is, if enough of us make the switch. We are running out of time to reverse the anthropogenic causes of climate change and save our ailing planet. The time to self-actualize and limit your meat consumption is now.