Headlines
Replace beef with chicken to save the climate
London, April 2
Even though vegan diet is the
most climate-friendly, we can continue eating animal protein and still
make a major contribution to the climate if we replace beef with poultry
and eggs, and cut down on our consumption of milk and cheese, says new
research.
The study by David Bryngelsson from Chalmers University
of Technology in Sweden examined various future scenarios to determine
how the climate would be impacted if humans were to change their diet.
"Cattle
ranching is already responsible for 15 per cent of the greenhouse gas
emissions that humans cause," observed Bryngelsson, who recently
presented his doctoral thesis on land use, food related greenhouse gas
emissions, and climate change.
He noted that increased
consumption of beef runs counter to the goal of limiting the temperature
increase to two degrees Celsius.
There might be ethical
objections to the current chicken industry, but Bryngelsson believes
that climate gains will prevail even with more animal-friendly
production methods.
Technical improvements in the production
chain can to a certain extent also reduce the food industry's climate
impact, but cattle are still the biggest problem, he noted.
It is
difficult to change the fact that they need a lot of feed and that they
release methane as they ruminate. Furthermore, forests are being
encroached upon to make room for the increasing number of cattle, which
also impacts the climate, the study pointed out.
"Since around 70
per cent of all agricultural land is currently used to raise cattle,
converting to a more energy-efficient diet of poultry would free up land
for cultivation of for example bioenergy," Bryngelsson explained.
"You
could say that chicken is like an electrical car -- it is a better
alternative, yet still very similar to what we are accustomed to," he
said.
How large a space domesticated poultry has to move around
in does not impact greenhouse gas emissions to any great extent --
rather, the issue pertains more to cost.
For example, if chickens
are given a space that is five times larger, the space is still small
in relation to the space required for feed production and will probably
not noticeably affect the chickens' impact on the environment.
The difference between chicken and beef as regards area requirements and
greenhouse gas emissions is so great that there is no doubt that the
chicken leaves a smaller carbon footprint regardless of production
method, the study noted.