ANIMAL AGRICULTURE AND CLIMATE CHANGE: A QUALITATIVE HOLISTIC NOTE

Abstract

We are living in an era of rapid planetary change, often referred to as the Anthropocene. Environmental problems are so grim that there is currently a warning to humanity, subscribed by circa 11,000 scientists, calling on political, nongovernmental and business leaders to take action before life on Earth reaches a tipping point. Extinction rate appears as one of the gravest issues. There has been a shift from a world dominated by wild animals to one mainly composed of humans and their livestock. Severe implications of this deleterious shift including alterations in biogeochemical cyclesas carbon sequestration-which influences climatic stability, are at stake. Aiming at attending the growing demand for meat and other animal derived products, animal agriculture is at the core of this ecological catastrophe: land use change has been strongly related to the expansion of soybean plantations and pastures, which are associated with alarming rates of deforestation and episodes of wildfires that cause habitat and biodiversity loss and highly impact local and regional hydric balance. These hurdles impair the performance of innumerable environmental services that depend on the intertwined biotic and abiotic components of the web of life. Robust evidence shows that a shift to more plant-based diets could stabilize greenhouse gas levels for three decades and offset nearly 70% of CO2 emissions this century