The Link Between Meat Eating and Climate Change

June 18, 2010 - 5:57 am 25 Comments

Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends, delivers a keynote address on the devastating role factory farms are playing in the climate change crisis at Animal Legal Defense Fund’s “Future of Animal Law” conference at Harvard Law School in March 2007. According to the 2007 report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), livestock generate a whopping 18 percent of human-related greenhouse gas emissions—that’s even more than the gas-guzzling transportation industry. For more information, visit http://aldf.org/article.php?id=434

Duration : 0:9:57


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25 Responses to “The Link Between Meat Eating and Climate Change”

  1. OvoidCranium Says:

    What a load of …
    What a load of rubbish, whether there are herds in the wild or on farms the animals do not put more CO2 into the atmosphere than was taken out of it by the plants they eat.

    They are carbon neutral.

  2. waratahNSW Says:

    Dr. Frank …
    Dr. Frank Mitloehner has documented a major flaw in a 2006 United Nations report about greenhouse gas emissions from livestock production. Today the BBC reports that the U.N. has taken notice. One of the authors of the 2006 Livestocks Long Shadow report now admits that its estimates comparing emissions from livestock farms with those from transportation are FLAWED. A favourite talking point of the vegan anti-meat activists has been shown to be based on Flawed estimates.

  3. mornichen Says:

    Go Green Go Vedg
    Go Green Go Vedg

  4. nwendt06 Says:

    this is a good …
    this is a good video, it just goes to show how powerful capitalism is and how the rich stay rich…….. when the world crashes and burns, i just hope i can laugh at all the people that thought us environmentalist were crazy!! rock on go vegan!

  5. bradbmoney Says:

    ps i just farted
    ps i just farted

  6. bradbmoney Says:

    ps i just farted
    ps i just farted

  7. bradbmoney Says:

    p.s. i just farted
    p.s. i just farted

  8. wdcsucks1 Says:

    climategate!!!
    climategate!!!

  9. luvabl3angel Says:

    [continuation] It’s …
    [continuation] It’s the 21st century, we need to make changes in our way of living. Not only is it healthy, it is sustainable. And for those who used to be veg, and went back to eating meat, they probably didn’t have a strong enough willpower because as you said, most people eat meat. They just go back to their old habits again. Either that, or they didn’t know how to eat properly and got sick. It starts with every individual to make a difference. :)

  10. luvabl3angel Says:

    I’ve been a vegan …
    I’ve been a vegan my entire life, and I’ve never lacked in any sort of nutrition. Matter of fact, I’m very healthy. We’ve just gotten it into our heads that meat is healthy, when it really isn’t good for us. Protein from meat is actually less absorbable than from vegetables. It doesn’t make sense to continue eating meat when it is destroying our environment and wasting valuable resources.

  11. cattlewrangler Says:

    Thats the trouble …
    Thats the trouble people believing everything they hear on tv.

  12. cattlewrangler Says:

    I also eat …
    I also eat vegetables. You need to balance your diet and eat some meat with your vegetables. As for being stubborn are you by any chance a teenage girl that thinks she is going to save the planet by not eating meat? I have seen many like you that eventually come to their senses in their 20’s by eating a normal diet. Only a very small % of the world population are vegan something like 0.2%. So much for saving the planet from demon cows.

  13. luvabl3angel Says:

    I just think the …
    I just think the problem with cattlewrangler is he’s stubborn. Being vegan/vegetarian isn’t so bad you know. Try it.

  14. luvabl3angel Says:

    Chicken are also …
    Chicken are also bred on factory farms as cows are. Fish are over fished and that can harm our ecosystems in the ocean and disrupt balance. There are many dead zones in our oceans now. Any sort of overbreeding animals is not natural. I hope this helped.

  15. luvabl3angel Says:

    Meat eating is not …
    Meat eating is not only healthy for the environment, but it’s healthy for humans individually as well. It has it’s health benefits. The want of the public for meat is why Factory Farms exist, to meet their wants. If the people didn’t want to eat meat, we wouldn’t have this problem. This is why it’s a diet issue as well. So go veg!

  16. houseofisraelmusic Says:

    Excellent …
    Excellent presentation!!

  17. sharinganx12 Says:

    Well according to …
    Well according to your case, all the meat goes to the poor countries (Africa for example) who needs it. How about an exchange for once in awhile? Their crops for our meat…

  18. NorthernDancer1111 Says:

    Good info. I’ve …
    Good info. I’ve been working on reducing meat intake gradually since i’ve been lifelong meat eater/lover. (what a paradox) Those conspiracy folks rarely seem to talk about this strangely enough, even Al Gore is afraid to talk about this???!!! Consumer is powerful and even if we reduced our intake collectively by 10-20 percent yearly, it would have massive impact on the factory farming industry.

  19. VoiceOpinion Says:

    Perfectly said!!!
    Perfectly said!!!

  20. oxymoron616 Says:

    Voodoo “science”.
    Voodoo “science”.

  21. eljagg01 Says:

    Ethically, …
    Ethically, environmentally, and logistically, the adoption of a plant-based diet is inevitable.

    Have a great day. :)

  22. handsandfaces Says:

    keep the animal …
    keep the animal alive untill we eat it yes… jajajaja. no profit=no life

  23. handsandfaces Says:

    pretty crappy …
    pretty crappy answer, but least you tried to stick up for a flawed cause.

  24. eljagg01 Says:

    They wouldn’t be …
    They wouldn’t be bred by the billions for humans to gorge on their flesh, so the short answer is that they wouldn’t exist. :)

  25. popat2000 Says:

    @carringtonblush: …
    @carringtonblush: and if that animal stayed alive it would keep on giving us that organic fertilizer for its entire lifetime. so the KEY is to keep that animal alive
    Cheers mate ;-)

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