“Livestock and Climate Change,” by Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang, was published in WorldWatch in 2009, and stated that 51% of all anthropogenic greenhouse emissions come from livestock. This is one of the most significant articles written on global warming, even though at this point it’s over a decade old. Many people, including me, have found the article a bit dense to understand, even though as vegans we have an obvious interest in its conclusions. Goodland and Anhang make five points in their article, and this video explains points 1 and 2: overlooked respiration by livestock and overlooked land use.
The question for me is how to address this issue without ruffling feathers in science. They don’t like being accused of a “cowspiracy.” I’ve tried; doesn’t go smoothly. Right now Michael E. Mann is actually claiming the oil industry and the Financial Times of London are pushing a false narrative that exploits these numbers to shift the blame to agriculture rather than oil. Actually, I’ve found the Times to be pretty balanced.
When I was on the high school debate team, we were told, when making criticisms in a debating context, to start off by attacking their weakest point. If we did this, we’d start with point 5 and work our way up the list. The misallocated items are the most blatant (for about 3 Gt of CO2e). These are things that the FAO actually DID count, but just put in the wrong category. Fish farming is not counted as “livestock agriculture.” (That’s coming in a future video.)
Looking forward. Good series!