Animals
A World Few Get to See
A new documentary from BAFTA-winning director, Alex Lockwood, explores the pressure on aspiring scientists to experiment on live animals to earn their science degrees. Understated, yet powerful, “Test Subjects”, is a short, non-graphic film based on stories from three graduate students who courageously opposed live animal testing and at what cost. View on https://vimeo.com
Food
Is Chicken a Better Choice Than Beef?
Not for the 200 chickens slaughtered for the meat equivalent of one cow, and it’s not that much better for the planet. GHGs per serving are still 11x those of beans, the water footprint 6x larger than grains e.g., wheat and oats, and chickens consume most of the world’s feed crops, use twice as much antibiotic feed additives as beef and their waste runs off into waterways. https://vox.com/future/perfect
Climate Change
Peak Meat Needs to Become a “Thing”
In The Lancet Planetary Health journal, global scientists called for livestock production to reach its peak before 2030 as a way to tackle the climate emergency. Animal agriculture is not only the second largest emitter of GHGs, its emissions keep growing due to the rising demand for meat globally. Scroll down to The Deeper Dive section for the full story on the recommendations.
speaking words of wisdom
“Once you know what’s going on, doing nothing is not an option. No animal needs to die for me to live.”
— RZA (rapper).
“… the stars are so far away, I think we should not really have any hope, to escape the Earth. So we better spend our time and energy trying to fix it than trying to imagine that we will … destroy it and leave it.”
— Swiss astronomer, Didier Queloz (shared 2019 Nobel Prize for Physics).
on the horizon
Jet Stream Patterns Also Threaten the Global Food Supply
Photo: Melissa Askew/Unsplash
Newly discovered jet stream patterns could produce simultaneous heat waves in bread basket regions responsible for up to 25% of global crop production and lead to drought, significantly reduced yields and higher food prices. A new study published in Nature Climate Change www.nature.org by researchers in Germany, the US and Australia, outlines a potential significant challenge for agricultural producers already battling the impact of global warming and climate change.
The jet stream drives weather around the globe, often drawing tropical heat north to mid-latitudes and arctic cold to more southerly regions. Up until now, drought in one crop growing region has usually been offset by normal harvests in other bread basket regions, ensuring global food production remained relatively stable.
But new evidence shows that, with specific jet stream wave patterns, heat and drought could hit key grain growing regions in western North America, Western Europe and Russia simultaneously. The study says these newly discovered patterns could increase the risk of simultaneous heatwaves 20-fold and therefore increase the risk of widespread crop failures.
This raises an important question. We know we need 60% more food to feed almost 10 billion people by 2050. Yet numerous scientific studies show we need to fight the climate emergency by reducing the carbon footprint of what we eat i.e., by shifting away from meat and dairy to lower environmental impact foods like grains, fruits, vegetables and nuts. And the current agricultural methods of feeding grain to livestock are highly inefficient with very low protein conversion ratios. So, if producing key grains such as wheat, corn and soybeans faces a greater threat than previously thought, there is more reason than ever to stop feeding potentially scarce grain supplies to livestock and shift production to more efficient, lower carbon footprint foods that can be consumed directly by people.
Perspective
There Was a Dangerous Presence Lurking in the Story of Little Red Riding Hood, But it Wasn’t the Big Bad Wolf
“But, Grandmother! What big teeth you have”, exclaimed Little Red Riding Hood, her voice quivering. “The better to eat you with, my dear!”, roared the hungry wolf as he leapt out of bed. Accompanying illustrations typically portray a menacing, salivating wolf baring its teeth at the child. Frilly cap notwithstanding, these words and images drawn from the many versions of the fairy tale, “Little Red Riding Hood”, have sent chills down millions of small spines for centuries, and served to teach us from an early age to fear our lupine friends.
Aside from fear, another rationale we use to dismiss the vast majority of animals as worthy of our consideration is a steadfast belief in our superiority over other species. This leads us to regard most animals as not only less intelligent but some of them as downright stupid. This is used to justify our authority and dominion over them which denies them the power to live their lives as they would choose, and to be free from our abuse and exploitation.
Increasingly, though, research is showing that animals are far more intelligent than we previously thought, and more and more species -- from dolphins to crows, to chickens to elephants – are being recognized as a lot smarter than we’ve previously given them credit for. Famed primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall – who was the first to discover non-human, tool-use (in chimpanzees in East Africa in the 1960s) –- says she’s looking forward to the day when we stop being amazed at how smart animals are! Similarly, the title of a book by Dutch ethologist, Frans de Waal, asks: “Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?” It’s worth reading even if you suspect the answer.
New research from www.faunalytics.org demonstrates, once again, how human behavior is driven by perceptions that certain animals pose a threat or are considered of low status due to a supposed lack of intelligence, which drive prejudices against them. These ingrained attitudes -- many of which are programmed at an early age -- make it easier for us to dismiss that animals have wants and needs worthy of consideration. And this leads to it being socially acceptable to cage, kill, eat, wear, hunt, trap or otherwise destroy them.
The authors of the study suggest parents be more selective about the fairy tales they read to their children – analyze the messages that are being communicated to young, impressionable minds. And, when it comes to exploiting animals, we replace our belief in the superiority of humans with an awareness that humans and animals can coexist peacefully.
researchers defend chimps from poachers
British scientists are being forced to take on the dangerous work of defending chimpanzees in East Africa from poachers with hunting dogs who are killing the mother and baby primates for the bush meat trade. You can read their story at www.theconversation.com But projects in Tanzania and Uganda, supported by the Jane Goodall Institute, are fighting back by employing local people to monitor and protect chimp habitat and record information for scientific research.
Good news
The number of animals suffering in factory farms globally has more than doubled in the last 20 years but people are becoming increasingly concerned about animal welfare. And there have been some “wins”. See below for those identified by Open Philanthropy Farm Animal Welfare:
Cruelty and suffering exposed by undercover investigations into more than 200 factory farms have spawned 97 documentaries and thousands of media stories.
There are new bans in the EU on inhumane slaughter practices, gestation crates for pregnant sows (in which they can never turn around), and battery cages. There were 207 million cage-free hens in the EU in 2018, up from 60 million in 2003. In the US, 70 million hens are cage-free today, up from 10 million in 2009.
Undercover investigations of fish farms have driven mainstream media coverage of fish welfare and won the first corporate fish welfare policies including at the two largest UK retailers, Tesco and Sainsbury’s. They’ve also spurred the development of national fish welfare codes e.g., in Canada and the Netherlands, and prompted the first debate on fish welfare in the European parliament.
Animal welfare concerns, along with environmental and personal health concerns, are driving the shift to plant-based meat. It’s now sold by nine out of 50 US fast food chains and being trialed by two of the largest, McDonald’s and Subway. None of them were selling it 10 years ago. And, 17 of the 20 largest global food and beverage companies are making plant-based meat or milk.
In 2013, the first cultured meat hamburger debuted. Now more than 30 startups are racing to bring “cultivated” meat (as it’s now called) or fish, to market at an affordable price.
data points
With up to three trillion slaughtered each year, fishes are the most numerous vertebrate killed for food. That’s enough fish to stretch end-to-end to the sun and back.
According to an environmental agency report, we’d have to use a cotton tote bag 131 times to reduce its global warming potential to less than that of a plastic bag.
According to the Journal of Food Sciences and Technology, wrapping a cucumber in plastic increases its shelf life by six days. So, what’s more important, avoiding food waste or eliminating plastic? Hmm.
Isha Datar, Executive Director of startup, New Harvest, is quoted as saying she thinks cultivated meat will be on shelves in 10 years. It’ll involve producing food in a bioreactor rather than using animals as bioreactors.
The Good Food Institute www.gfi.org says chicken could be the next big thing in plant-based food. US consumption of chicken has increased significantly over the past few decades due to the belief it is healthier than beef or pork.
the deeper dive
How “Peak Meat” Can Help Solve the Climate Crisis
Photo: Phil Hearing/Unsplash
challenge
Despite increased awareness that animal agriculture is a significant source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and that by eating meat we are helping destroy the planet, global demand for meat continues to rise. Meat consumption increased from 758 million tonnes in 1990 to more than 1,247 million tonnes in 2017, and now over 70 billion farm animals are slaughtered for meat each year. The climate crisis demands we change the economics and environmental impact of the industry but how do we shift our broken food system to one that delivers a healthier diet and a lower carbon footprint?
response
A coalition of global scientists is calling for “peak meat” by 2030 as the best way to transform the agriculture sector to help fight the climate crisis and meet the Paris climate goals. The primary recommendation is that governments in richer nations adopt a timeframe for peak livestock by which livestock production would stop increasing and be reduced.
The 50 prominent scientists outlined their case for change in The Lancet Planetary Health journal along with a four-part strategy to reduce and reverse the contribution of animal agriculture to the climate crisis. According to the UN FAO, animal agriculture is the second largest emitter of global GHGs, producing at least 14.5% of all GHGs such as CO2, methane and nitrous oxide. This is a larger emissions footprint than the entire transportation sector. You can find the recommendations and the signatories at https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(19)30245-1/fulltext
“If the livestock sector were to continue as business as usual, this sector alone would account for 49% of the emissions budget for 1.5°C by 2030, requiring other sectors to reduce emissions beyond a realistic or planned level,” the report says. It is the latest urgent call for action from scientists, and puts further emphasis on the important role that animal agriculture plays in the onset of the climate crisis and offers clear strategies to help solve it.
Secondly, the scientists call for identifying the largest emission sources or land occupiers within the livestock sector and setting “appropriate reduction targets for production.” “We propose that in creating Paris-compliant agriculture sectors, high-income and middle-income countries do not outsource their livestock production to other countries, and instead reduce demand for livestock products.”
Thirdly, they recommend a reconfiguration of the agriculture sector by applying a “best available food strategy to diversify production by replacing livestock with foods that simultaneously minimize environmental burdens and maximize health benefits.” These foods include beans, peas, lentils, grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds.
Fourthly, the strategy calls for converting grazing land freed up by reduced demand for meat to be converted to natural vegetation and forests to maximize its potential as a carbon sink.
While most climate proposals are focused on the reduction of fossil fuels, this chart shows why this latest call for “peak meat” is so compelling. There are two major flaws in how we are using the planet’s land resources. First, too much land is devoted to raising farm animals rather than food that can be consumed directly by people. And secondly, not enough land is devoted to forests that have the largest potential for carbon sequestration.
Apart from the environmental and climate impact of producing and consuming animals, it’s highly inefficient for feeding the world. As the chart shows, 77% of agricultural land is used for livestock including grazing pastures and crop land for animal feed. Yet because of inefficient protein conversion ratios, eating animals produces only 18% of calories and 37% of protein in global diets while plant-based foods use just 23% of the land to produce 83% of the global calorie supply.
Forests play a key role in the equation to slow down global heating by removing significant amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. The scientists say that restoring natural vegetation and forests “is currently the best option at scale to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.” But the livestock sector, “having largely displaced natural carbon sinks, continues to occupy much of the land that must be restored.” So, a return to natural vegetation, reforestation and afforestation (planting trees where none existed before) is a key part of the formula to reduce the environmental impact of our food system.
The scientists chose the target of 2030 for “peak meat” to allow time for people to change what they eat and for farmers, producers and food companies to transition the industry to a new model and diversify the foods they produce.
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