Global Warming May Be Caused By Unhealthy Dietary Habits!

Author: Wenkai Hu

2020. 04.03

Due to global warming, which has been changing our climate, we are already experiencing dire consequences.

In just the past few decades:

• Rising temperatures have worsened extreme weather events.

• Chunks of ice in the Antarctic have broken apart.

• Wildfire seasons are months longer.

• Coral reefs have been bleached of their colors.

• Mosquitoes are expanding their territory, able to spread disease.

Q: What causes global warming?

A: Global warming occurs when carbon dioxide (CO2) and other air pollutants and greenhouse gases collect in the atmosphere and absorb sunlight and solar radiation that have bounced off the earth’s surface. Normally, this radiation would escape into space—but these pollutants, which can last for years to centuries in the atmosphere, trap the heat and cause the planet to get hotter. That's what's known as the greenhouse effect.

Let's have a look at CO2 emission trend and how emission sources distributed in the world.

It seems that the CO2 emissions are driven by countries' development after Industrial Revolution. Due the rise of the US and China, these two countries became the Top 2 CO2 emission sources in the world.

But more questions are coming, are all of the emissions caused by burning fussel fuels in the industrial sector?

The answer is: NO!

The agriculture sector is contributing more than quater of total CO2 emissions in the world! Food production also costs a large amount of resources!

As we can find from the images above, meat production has the biggest impact on the environment in comparison with other agriculture productions. Combining with dairy production and egg production, the livestock feed industry could be the biggest driving source of global warming in the agriculture sector!

So who is feeding so many animals and producing dairy and meat?

Naturally, the US and China, which makes sense because those are the TOP two CO2 emission sources in the world. But let's wait a minute before starting to blame these two countries. As we all know, supply is motivated by demand so...

Who is demanding this huge amount of animal-based food products, thereby perpetuating such unhealthy dietary habits? If they can change their diet habit, the world maybe able to change.

It's Asia, Europe and United States! Wait, these countries all have common characteristics in that they all have large populations and are relatively developed except parts of Asia. Maybe meat and dairy consumption per capita can tell a better story.

Through these three charts, we may find out who is consuming so much animal-based food in the world. A single person in Finland can consume almost half ton milk every year, and people in United States and people in Australia can consume over 125kg meat and 250kg milk every year on average which means that every person can consume 0.8 pound meat and 700ml milk every day!

Now we may find out the answer for the problem of increasing CO2 emissions caused by agriculture, it's caused by dietary habits of several specific countries and regions.

Below are some research results regarding the impacts this kind of high protein and high fat diet can have on people's health condition:

We have found this delicious and high protein food does not always help our body become stronger and healther-sometimes it hurts us!

Finally, this unhealthy dietary habit can overwhelm our ecosystem. as these charts show above.

Hope all of you can reconsider your tomorrow's recipes, eat more vegetables and fruits. This can make you better instead of over-consuming cheese and burgers.

At the end of the article, special thanks to Giuliana's help with editing work!

Reference:

https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production#

https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food

https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions

Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers BY J. POORE, T. NEMECEK SCIENCE01 JUN 2018 : 987-992

http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/?#data/