“Animal products cause more damage than [producing] construction minerals such as sand or cement, plastics or metals. Biomass and crops for animals are as damaging as [burning] fossil fuels.”
- Professor Edgar Hertwich, lead report author

UN urges global move to meat and dairy-free diet – guardian.co.uk

The fact that the UN would conclude that a meat-free diet would help curb our effects on the environment should not come as a surprise to many of you, but I do suggest looking into the research further. The UN reported similar findings previously in regards to greenhouse gas emissions from cattle, and their methods were disputed. So, if you have the chance, it never hurts to check the source to form your own opinion.

Although the link referenced in the Guardian piece appears to be broken currently, I believe these articles are connected:

Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Consumption and Production (report, PDF) – UNEP

Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Consumption and Production (flyer, PDF) – UNEP

Whether or not the report ends up being disputed, it is great to see more coverage on the harmful effects our food choices (as well as other areas of consumption) are causing on the world around us.

Breath.

This is not me saying we should all go back to eating meat and dairy. I’m merely suggesting, once again, that understanding more than one angle of the story is always a good idea. In this case, a lot of that story focuses on the report by the UN about livestock and their production of greenhouse gases. In his interview with Time magazine, Fairlie suggests that some of the data may be misleading. He also presents a few interesting points about the difference between mass production of meat and dairy and small-scale operations that are more considerate of the overall impact they have.

So, for the sake of discussion, I thought it might be interesting to highlight this. My academic years are interested because of the possible flaws in the research, and the devil’s advocate in me is interested just because.

=-)