Researchers warn to eat less meat in order to save planet from global warming

In a recent study over the global warming, the researchers have found that extensive use of meat, particularly beef, can cause trouble and can add to global warming so we must lessen using the meat in our daily diet.

The solution to this problem is recycling more waste and devoting more farmland to crops which can generate bio fuels that are essential if the world do not want the climate change. If we fail to solve the problem, we will be unable to feed the growing world population and potentially lead to an ecological disaster.

Tom Powell, who led the project, said, “Our global agricultural system is so inefficient that we harvest about a quarter of everything that grows on the land, but only about seven to eight per cent of what we harvest ends up as food, so there are huge losses there.”

He added, “By focusing on making agriculture more efficient and encouraging people to reduce the amount of meat they eat, we could keep global temperatures within the two degrees threshold.”

Meanwhile, the Co-author Professor Tim Lenton spoke, “With livestock production accounting for 78 per cent of agricultural land use today, this is the area where change could have a significant impact.”

The researchers’ team from Exeter University extracted that a high-meat, low-efficiency situation would increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 55 parts in a million.

On the other hand, if a low-meat, high-efficiency scenario is developed, it would lower carbon dioxide levels by 25 ppm which is enough to keep the rise in global temperature below the two-degree threshold. It means that the consumption of the meat must be reduced from 16.6 per cent to 15 per cent of our daily intake of calories.

Acting upon that, less farmland would be required for livestock and more could be used for the growth of bio-energy crops. Despite the fact that they are not as efficient energy sources as fossil fuels, plants absorb carbon from the atmosphere meaning they would have an overall benefit in tackling global warming.

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Posted by Zeeshan Gohar on Jun 29 2012. Filed under Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.