Meat, Disease and Climate Change?

Humans are not your average mammal. Not only are we the only species that drinks another animal's milk, we also have the ability and tendency to manipulate nature, resources and instincts. In the past hundred years we have made leaps in education and technology but we have also begun to see the repercussions of our out of sight, out of mind life styles in the form of disease and climate change. How does the meat we eat for dinner correlate to disease and climate change? That is what I sought to find out.

Article 1: Global Farm Animal Production and Global Warming: Impacting and Mitigating Climate Change
By: Gowri Koneswaran and Danielle Nierenberg

Abstract:
Background
The farm animal sector is the single largest anthropogenic user of land, contributing to many environmental problems, including global warming and climate change.

Objectives
The aim of this study was to synthesize and expand upon existing data on the contribution of farm animal production to climate change.

Methods
We analyzed the scientific literature on farm animal production and documented greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as well as various mitigation strategies.

Discussions
An analysis of meat, egg, and milk production encompasses not only the direct rearing and slaughtering of animals, but also grain and fertilizer production for animal feed, waste storage and disposal, water use, and energy expenditures on farms and in transporting feed and finished animal products, among other key impacts of the production process as a whole.

Conclusions
Immediate and far-reaching changes in current animal agriculture practices and consumption patterns are both critical and timely if GHGs from the farm animal sector are to be mitigated.

Citation:
Koneswaran, Gowri, and Danielle Nierenberg. "Global Farm Animal Production and Global Warming: Impacting and Mitigating Climate Change." Environ Health Perspectives (2008). Pub Med Centeral. Enviornmental Protection Agency, 31 Jan. 2008. Web. 10 Feb. 2010. .

Connection:
The practice of meat farming directly contributes to global warming because the practices are proven to emit abundant amounts of green house gasses(proven to aid climate change and global warming).

Article 2: Social and environmental risk factors in the emergence of infectious diseases
By: Robin A Weiss & Anthony J McMichael

Abstract:
Fifty years ago, the age-old scourge of infectious disease was receding in the developed world in response to improved public health measures, while the advent of antibiotics, better vaccines, insecticides and improved surveillance held the promise of eradicating residual problems. By the late twentieth century, however, an increase in the emergence and re-emergence of infectious diseases was evident in many parts of the world. This upturn looms as the fourth major transition in human–microbe relationships since the advent of agriculture around 10,000 years ago. About 30 new diseases have been identified, including Legionnaires' disease, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), hepatitis C, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)/variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), Nipah virus, several viral hemorrhagic fevers and, most recently, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and avian influenza. The emergence of these diseases, and resurgence of old ones like tuberculosis and cholera, reflects various changes in human ecology: rural-to-urban migration resulting in high-density peri-urban slums; increasing long-distance mobility and trade; the social disruption of war and conflict; changes in personal behavior; and, increasingly, human-induced global changes, including widespread forest clearance and climate change. Political ignorance, denial and obduracy (as with HIV/AIDS) further compound the risks. The use and misuse of medical technology also pose risks, such as drug-resistant microbes and contaminated equipment or biological medicines. A better understanding of the evolving social dynamics of emerging infectious diseases ought to help us to anticipate and hopefully ameliorate current and future risks.

Citation:
Weiss, Robin A., and Anthony J. McMichael. "Social and environmental risk factors in the emergence of infectious diseases." Nature Medice Magazine (2004). Nature Medicine. Web. 10 Feb. 2010. .

Connection:
The act and process of farming animals for meat is an unnatural process that alters not only the animals and land causing global warming but has lead to the generation of bacterias un-effected by antibiotics leading to currently incurable diseases. Global warming and climate change is its self a new atmospheric combination that is causing a chain reaction of ecosystem alterations that has presented humans with new diseases and viruses that are also currently incurable.

Article 3:
Environmental Systems Analysis of Pig Production
By: Ingrid Strid Eriksson (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences)

Abstract:
The aim of this thesis was to develop the SALSA models (Systems AnaLysis for Sustainable Agriculture), and to apply them to studies for the benefit of more sustainable pig production.
Within the framework of environmental systems analysis, the SALSA models were constructed as substance and energy flow models using life cycle assessment methodology for impact assessment and scope definition. The pig production system studied included rearing of growing-finishing pigs (SALSA-pig model) and production of feed (SALSA-arable and SALSA-soybean models).
For energy use, global warming potential and eutrophication, the feed production sub- system had the largest environmental impact, whereas for acidification the pig sub-system was the dominant source.
Results from simulations using the SALSA-arable model showed that energy use, global warming potential and acidification increased with increasing nitrogen fertiliser rate, whereas eutrophication had a minimum around the current recommended rate.
When the pig production system was optimised regarding diet composition for different environmental targets, different diets were obtained. For acidification and eutrophication, a low protein diet was prioritised, which was achieved by high inclusion of synthetic amino acids. For energy use and global warming potential high levels of peas and rapeseed cake (a by-product from rapeseed oil production) were prioritised. The environmental optimiser almost entirely avoided soybean meal, due to its poor environmental record.
A main conclusion of the work was that feed choice had an impact on the environmental performance of pig meat production, not only via the features of the feed as fed to the pigs, such as the crude protein content, but also via the raw materials used, since the environmental impact from the production of these differed and since feed production generally had a large impact on the system as a whole

Citation:
Eriksson, Ingrid. "Environmental Systems Analysis of Pig Production." Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences 15 Jan. 2004: 1-37. Print.


Connection:
The enviornmental impact of a meat farm can be dramatically reduced by changing the animal's diet. Animals packed full of enriched foods and hormones produce more CO2 and other GHG's than an animal that is given real feed and left to nature for size and strength. Organic meat means less GHG's and no genetically enhanced bacteria.




Reflection:
I thought it was sort of common knowledge that meat farming is a big contributor to global warming and climate change just because of what I already know about carbon cycle emission, however I was extremely surprised that the types of food given to an animal weigh heavily on their individual carbon foot print. Meat farming to me sticks out of the already unnatural practices humans use to make our lives easier, like a sore thumb just because of how morally and environmentally wrong it seems to me. I do know that I do not want to have to go hunt a cow every time I want a hamburger, but having a million cows in small area strung out on hormones and sedatives seems just as if not more inconvenient. I don't really want to focus exactly on the effects of the meat industry on climate change, the bacterial evolution is a tad bit easier to find information on and interesting to me.