Climate Change and Ecosystems

An incredible 60% of all non-human mammals on earth are ‘livestock’ animals in our food system (with humans making up 36% and ‘wild’ animals 4%); for birdlife, 70% are those within the food system such as chickens, and 30% are free living. We have known about the climate impact of ‘livestock’ since at least 2006 and it is now widely recognised that, globally: 

While there are many additional environmental challenges in the production of food, plant-based food system has been shown to have significantly less environmental impact than ne based heavily on farming animals. And the UK is part of that global food system, with its own footprint: 

Footnotes

  1. Bar-On, Y., Philips, R., Milo, R. The BiomassDistribution on Earth, PNAS, 115 (25), pp. 6506-6511, 2018 https://www.pnas.org/content/115/25/6506 back to text
  2. FAO, Livestock’s Long Shadow – EnvironmentalIssues and Options, 2006. back to text
  3. Poore. J., Nemecek, T. Reducing Food’sEnvironmental Impacts Through Producers and Consumers. Science 360(6392), 987-992, 2018, https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987 back to text
  4. FAO, Livestock’s Long Shadow. back to text
  5. Poore. J., Nemecek, T. Reducing Food’sEnvironmental Impacts Through Producers and Consumers. back to text
  6. Poore. J., Nemecek, T. Reducing Food’sEnvironmental Impacts Through Producers and Consumers. back to text
  7. Committee on Climate Change, Land Use:Policies for a Net Zero UK. back to text
  8. NFU, Achieving Net Zero: Farming’s 2040 Goal. back to text
  9. Environment Agency, The State of theEnvironment: Soil, 2019, Rotherham: Environment Agency https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/805926/State_of_the_environment_soil_report.pdf back to text
  10. RSPB, State of Nature Report, 2019 https://www.rspb.org.uk/our-work/state-of-nature-report/ back to text
  11. Carrington. D. Quarter of Native UK Mammals atImminent Risk of Extinction, The Guardian, 30 July 2020 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/30/quarter-of-native-uk-mammals-at-imminent-risk-of-extinction back to text