Livestock's Long Shadow

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Livestock's Long Shadow
LC Class
SF140.E25 S744 2006

Livestock's Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options is a United Nations report, released by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations on 29 November 2006,[1] that "aims to assess the full impact of the livestock sector on environmental problems, along with potential technical and policy approaches to mitigation".[1] It stated that livestock accounts for 18% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, a figure which FAO changed to 14.5% in its 2013 study Tackling climate change through livestock.

Report

Livestock's Long Shadow is an assessment of research, taking into account direct impacts of livestock production, along with the impacts of feed crop cultivation. The report states that the

water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity
.

Senior author Henning Steinfeld stated that livestock are "one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems" and that "urgent action is required to remedy the situation."[2]

Following a

carbon dioxide emissions,[4] but 37% of methane and 65% of nitrous oxide emissions[citation needed
]. The main sources of emissions were found to be:

Controversy

A 2009 article in the Worldwatch Institute magazine by authors Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang, then employed at the World Bank, claimed that the FAO report was too conservative and that livestock sector accounts for much more of global GHG emissions, at least 51%, taking into account animal respiration and photosynthetic capacity of the land used for feeding and housing livestock.[5][6] A 2011 response to this was published by FAO and an international coalition of scientists, discrediting the magazine article and upholding the 2006 assessment.[7][8] But this response was fully answered back in the journal Animal Feed Science and Technology (AFST), and they reiterated their estimate while FAO scientists declined to continue the debate despite AFST's Editor's invitation.[9] In 2013 FAO publicly partnered with International Meat Secretariat and the International Dairy Federation[10] and many of the same authors of the first report published a subsequent (2013) study for the FAO, revising their estimate of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions due to livestock downward to 14.5%[11][12] without addressing any of the alleged errors pointed out in Goodland and Anhang's report or in the ensuing peer-reviewed debate.

The results of Livestock's Long Shadow had an error in methodology as the authors only evaluated the tailpipe emissions of cars, while for meat production a comprehensive life-cycle assessment was used to calculate livestock's green house gas effect[citation needed]. This underestimated transportation therefore inflating meat productions contribution. This issue was raised by Dr. Frank Mitloehner from the University of California, Davis. In an interview with BBC Pierre Gerber, one of the authors of Livestock's Long Shadow, accepted Mitloehner's criticism. "I must say honestly that he has a point - we factored in everything for meat emissions, and we didn't do the same thing with transport, we just used the figure from the IPCC..." he said.[13] However, this information was the inspiration behind movements such as "Meatless Monday"[14]

Mitloehner is the author of a 2009 study on the topic of livestock and climate change.

EAT Lancet report. Later they led the campaign #yes2meat on social media.[20]

References to the report

The report was the main scientific source[citation needed] for the documentary Meat The Truth, narrated by Marianne Thieme (2007).[21]

It was frequently cited in the documentary Cowspiracy (2014).[22]

See also

  • Environmental issues with agriculture
  • Stock-free agriculture
  • Veganism

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 978-92-5-105571-7
    . Retrieved 27 September 2019.
  2. ^ "Livestock a major threat to environment". Fao.org. Archived from the original on 28 March 2008. Retrieved 16 August 2018.
  3. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 2017-08-12. Retrieved October 25, 2016.
  4. OCLC 77563364.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link
    )
  5. ^ MacKay, Fiona (2009-11-16). "Looking for a Solution to Cows' Climate Problem". The New York Times. Retrieved 16 August 2018.
  6. S2CID 27218645. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 2019-10-01. Retrieved 1 October 2019.
  7. ^ "Livestock and climate change: Towards credible figures". Ilri.org. Archived from the original on 17 August 2018. Retrieved 16 August 2018.
  8. hdl:10568/3910
    . Retrieved 3 October 2019.
  9. hdl:10568/3910
    .
  10. New York Times
    . Retrieved 2021-02-28.
  11. ^ "Tackling climate change through livestock // FAO's Animal Production and Health Division". Fao.org. Retrieved 16 August 2018.
  12. ISBN 978-92-5-107921-8
    . Retrieved 3 October 2019.
  13. ^ "UN body to look at meat and climate link". 2010-03-24.
  14. ^ "Meat Free Monday Celebrates Its 10th Anniversary with #MFMCountMeIn Campaign". The Monday Campaigns. 2019-04-20. Retrieved 2021-10-26.
  15. doi:10.1016/S0065-2113(09)03001-6
    , retrieved 2020-06-19
  16. ISSN 0261-3077
    . Retrieved 2020-06-19.
  17. ^ "Don't Blame Cows for Climate Change". UC Davis. 2009-12-07. Retrieved 2020-06-19.
  18. ^ "Members of Steering Committee| Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance (LEAP) Partnership| Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations". www.fao.org. Retrieved 2020-06-19.
  19. ^ "International Feed Industry Federation – IFIF Vision & Mission". ifif.org. Retrieved 2020-06-19.
  20. ^ Carlile, Clare (2024-03-01). "Meat Industry Using 'Misinformation' to Block Dietary Change, Report Finds". DeSmog. Retrieved 2024-03-06.
  21. ^ Global Warming: Meat The Truth. GlobeTransformer.org.
  22. ^ "Cowspiracy: The Facts"

External links

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