(Washington Post illustration; iStockphoto)
It
may be delicious, but the evidence is accumulating that meat,
particularly red meat, is just a disaster for the environment — and not
so great for human beings, too.
By 2050,
scientists forecast that emissions
from agriculture alone will account for how much carbon dioxide the
world can use to avoid catastrophic global warming. It already accounts
for
one-third of emissions today — and half of that comes from
livestock.
That’s
a driving reason why members of a United Nations panel last month urged
its environmental assembly to consider recommending a tax on meat
producers and sellers. By raising the cost of buying meat, it would
ultimately aim to reduce production and demand for it.
This graph shows agriculture alone would eat up the world’s carbon dioxide budget in 2050, unless we make changes.
Maarten
Hajer, professor at the Netherlands's Utrecht University, led the
environment and food report that recommended the meat tax.
“All
of the harmful effects on the environment and on health needs to be
priced into food products,” said Hajer, who is a member of U.N.’s
International Resource Panel, which comprises 34 top scientists and 30
governments. “I think it is extremely urgent.”
But, he added, “Food is very political.”
In
countries where meat is a cultural mainstay and income inequality
already breeds a lack of food access, it could be a difficult argument.
Taxing sugary drinks this month
in Philadelphia caused an uproar among lobbyists, some groups
representing the poor and even Bernie Sanders, who argued that the tax
was regressive. The response to limiting meat, which is certainly more beneficial to a diet than soda pop, could be mutinous.
But, governments must soon move to limit major carbon producers, Hajer said. Food companies will naturally be part of that.
The
idea of a meat tax has developed over the past 25 years as a
“completely obvious” measure to economists and environmentalists, Hajer
said, as knowledge of the environmental toll of meat emerged.
Agriculture
consumes 80 percent of water in the United States. These two charts
show that meat is particularly thirsty. For a kilogram of red meat, you
need considerably more water than for plant products.
Can a burger made from pea protein replace meat?
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The beyond burger from Beyond Meat aims to replicate the texture, color and taste of a beef burger.
(Jayne Orenstein, Joe Yonan/The Washington Post)
Governments
are starting to take notice. China, which consumes half of the world’s
pork and more than a quarter of its overall meat, announced new dietary
guidelines last week
that advises the average citizen to reduce their meat consumption by
one-half. That country’s meat consumption has increased by nearly
five-fold since 1982, even though their population has only increased by
30 percent during that time.
Denmark went a little further in May.
The Danish government is considering a recommendation from its ethics
council that all red meats should be taxed. Red meat accounts for 10
percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, and the council argued that
Danes were “ethically obliged” to reduce their consumption.
“For
a response to climate-damaging food to be effective, while also
contributing to raise awareness of the challenge of climate change, it
must be shared,” council spokesman Mickey Gjerris said last month.
This
graph shows that phasing out meat and simply eating less would knock
down agricultural carbon dioxide emissions considerably — particularly
in developed, meat-loving countries.
Laura
Wellesley, a research associate at international policy institute
Chatham House, said she thinks a global tax could be achieved in the
next 20 years. She has studied attitudes about meat consumption among
the four most carnivorous countries: China; the United States;
Britain and Brazil.
Countries
such as the Czech Republic and Poland have dramatically reduced their
agricultural carbon output, as much as a half. But countries that are
expanding their meat-lovers' impulses are doing so at much larger jumps.
Brazil’s carbon output from food production has increased by 47 percent
from 2000 to 2012 — that’s an increase of 150 million tons of carbon
dioxide. In China, a 35-percent jump from 1994 to 2005 means 220 million
more tons of carbon dioxide. So, Estonia’s 58-percent cut from 2000 to
2012, while commendable, is less than 2,000 tons.
This
chart shows how agricultural carbon dioxide output has, on the whole,
hardly decreased since 1990. Despite growing awareness of the need to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions, food and meat production is typically
not targeted by civilians and governments as a way to whittle global
warming.
Much
of that is meat production, which contributes an estimated 14.5 percent
to annual greenhouse gas emissions. That's more than emissions from
every car, train, ship and airplane combined. Of that, 65 percent is
enteric fermentation (or, cow, sheep and goat farting) and manure,
according to a 2014 Chatham House analysis. Feed constitutes one-fifth
of that, followed by land-use change, energy use and post-farm
activities.
The
methane produced by cattle digestion alone is what leads many
researchers to call for their reduction, rather than poultry or
pigs. Following carbon dioxide, methane is the second most prevalent
greenhouse gas in the United States. A third of that overall is from
cattle digestive processes.
On the whole, pigs and poultry
contribute 10 percent of total livestock emissions. The rest is cattle,
buffalo, sheep and goats — but mostly cows.
There
are loads of countries with malnutrition, as opposed to America’s
obesity problem. But Wellesley said reducing meat consumption was
equally important to boosting meat access to the world’s poorest in
ensuring Earth is sustainable for human habitation.
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Further,
a meat tax could help establish healthy, flexitarian diets that could
be consumed by everyone. In the United States and Britian, people eat
three to four times the healthy level for meat. Americans ate 120 pounds of meat in 2009,
compared with four pounds in Bangladesh. We could be in trouble if
those in populous, economic centers, such as China and Brazil, act like
the West. China is a "grave concern" to experts, Hajer said.
Along
with a tax, a meat cutback could be achieved by making plant-based
diets more appealing and less expensive. People in the West often think
that vegetarianism is a diet for wealthier folks, Wellesley said.
This
chart shows the considerable health benefits that could be reaped from
reducing meat consumption as part of a more nutritious diet. The United
States could slash its health-care spending the most by phasing out meat
for vegetables.
But
until tariffs are levied, experts worry about how to make people
realize that meat is harmful for the environment. Wellesley said people
globally are more apt to wring their hands over cranking the air
conditioner. That cheeseburger is largely seen as disastrous to heart
health or their thighs, not global warming.
“Government is
wary of introducing taxes on food products,” Wellesley said. “Civil
society and industry may say the tax would would harm or limit the
poorer members of society. Those concerns were raised in the focus
group.”
Extreme Eating Awards went
to nine "winning" chain restaurant meals especially high in calories,
fat, sugar and salt. The Cheesecake Factory got three of them.
