Climate damage
Livestock farming has a considerable influence on climate change. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 14.5% of greenhouse gases emitted worldwide are attributed to agriculture. This value has not changed since 2013 and is considered the official value. Animal husbandry takes the largest part of the emitted greenhouse gases. The emission caused by animal husbandry arises directly through the digestive process of animals, and indirectly through the deforestation of forests. In addition to carbon dioxide, the main climate-damaging gases emitted are methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). The greenhouse gas methane is released in animal husbandry, especially that of ruminants such as cows, sheep and goats. It is created during the digestion of meadow feed. In order to utilize the indigestible grass, cows are assisted by bacteria and microbes. The cows have four stomachs. In the rumen, which is the first of four stomachs, the bacteria break up the cell walls of the grass and convert it into energy, producing methane gas. In other words, they break down indigestible carbohydrates (cellulose, etc.), making them digestible. The methane that is produced in this process is released into the air through burping and faeces, which is used as fertiliser for the soil, thus contributing to environmental pollution, or more precisely to air pollution. The second biggest gas produced by animal husbandry is nitrous oxide, which is also released from the organic manure of the animals. The following happens in this process: The fertilizer releases ammonia, which gets partially changed to nitrous oxide in the air by combining with oxygen. Furthermore, laughing gas and methane are produced when the excrements of the farm animals are stored for later use as fertilizer. During the long storage period, bacteria accumulate, which decompose the food components of the excrements, resulting in the formation of the gases. The more food an animal ingests, the more excrements and therefore the more emissions it produces. Cows, especially dairy cows, have a disadvantage due to their size. They need the feed not only for growth but also for the production of milk. To do this, they require more energy in the form of feed than animals which are just slaughtered. As a result, dairy cows produce more emission than other animals.
Land use
Many vegans decide to switch to a plant-based diet for various environmental reasons. Based on a publication of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the agricultural animal husbandry, with an ejection of about 18% of all greenhouse gases, has more emissions than global traffic.
In order to create pasture land for livestock farming and arable land for the cultivation of feed such as cereals, maize and soya, species-rich rainforests have to be cleared. Since 2011, 800,000 hectares of rainforest have been cleared in the Bolivian Amazon basin and the Brazilian savannah alone. There, mainly soya is cultivated. More than 50% of all harvests and over 90% of the soy grown worldwide are used as animal feed for livestock. Over 83% of agricultural land is used as animal feed for livestock, contributing to climate change, environmental degradation and world hunger.
Damage to soils
It is not only the affected animals that suffer from factory farming, but also the soil, air, climate and water, which are concerned by the amount of liquid manure. The soil gets over-fertilized due to livestock farming. This has serious consequences for plants and the atmosphere. Over-fertilisation of the soil leads to the spread of methane and nitrous oxide, which gets released into the atmosphere and causes air pollution.
Furthermore, also plants suffer from it. To grow, plants need a balanced nutrient ratio consisting of: nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus with a proportion of 1 to 0.44 to 1.25. This results in a nitrogen content of 37%. Nitrogen in its pure form, cannot be absorbed and is therefore converted into nitrate by bacteria, which helps to produce strong, green leaves. Phosphorus is important for the formation of the flowers and their fruit, and potassium is necessary for cell division in the roots. Depending on climatic conditions and soil type, these nutrients are often insufficiently available in the soil. Hereby, fertilization provides the plants with the necessary nutrients. Overfertilization, however, leads to an excess of nutrients, which can damage the plants. This is because an excess of potassium, for example, leads to growth inhibition and root burns and thus to the death of plants. An excess of nitrogen, on the other hand, becomes noticeable through particularly dark green plants, thin and weak shoots and spongy plant tissue. Therefore, these plants are slightly more susceptible to pest infestation and diseases. Excessive amounts of phosphorus, on the other hand, lead to growth disturbances. In addition, the excess nutrients, especially nitrogen, which cannot be absorbed by the plants in these amounts, reach the soil and influence its fertility. Excess nitrate and phosphorus pass through the soil into water bodies, where they cause eutrophication. The high nutrient supply then leads to strong algae growth. When these die, they get decomposed by bacteria. During the decomposition process, a lot of oxygen is consumed, which causes the oxygen content of the waters to decrease and leads to the death of fish.
In addition, the excess nutrients get into the groundwater. The nitrate which we consume through our drinking water can be transformed into a substance which can endanger our health, but this is only threatening for babies and children. Through metabolic processes, nitrate is converted to nitric oxide (No) in the body. As soon as nitrite enters the blood, it changes the red blood pigment, haemoglobin. Haemoglobin ensures the transportation of oxygen from the lungs through the blood to the tissues. If there is too much nitrite in the body, the transportation process does not work properly. Therefore, the tissues do not receive enough oxygen. This becomes noticeable by blue skin and mucous membranes. In the worst case, suffocation threatens. However, this only occurs to infants and children. It is not the case for adults because they have an enzyme that can reverse the conversion of haemoglobin through nitrite. This enzyme is not sufficiently produced in children. Therefore, a high amount of nitrite can endanger their health.
There is another risk factor: Children younger than half a year do not have a fully developed stomach. To be more precise, it does not contain as much acid. In their stomach exist other type of bacteria than in older children or adults. These bacteria are able to convert nitrate into the dangerous nitrogen nitrite.There also is a likelihood of the bacteria converting nitrate to nitrite when suffering under gastrointestinal infections. Children who suffer from bacterial gastrointestinal diseases should therefore not eat vegetables that are particularly contaminated with nitrate, such as leafy greens (lettuce, lamb's lettuce, spinach, rocket), cabbage (chinese cabbage, savoy cabbage, kale) and root crop (radishes, red beets).
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 3.7 milligrams of nitrate per kilogram of body weight are allowed. Infants should not ingest more than 50 milligrams of nitrate per day and children over the age of three should not exceed 93 milligrams. If this limit is exceeded, health problems do not necessarily develop immediately. The problem arises if increased nitrate levels are regularly ingested through water and food consumption.
Nitrous oxide also contributes to major climate damage. Air quality can be impaired by ammonia emissions and nitrous oxide emissions released from fertilised soils. The tons of liquid manure produced by livestock farming and distributed over the fields are much more than needed. So much that the soil and plants can no longer absorb it. As a result, nitrous oxide is produced in large quantities, which rises into the atmosphere and affects the climate. The nitrous oxide has an effect on the atmosphere that is 300 times stronger than that of CO2. It remains in the atmosphere for around 150 years. This greenhouse gas is the most dangerous substance for the ozone layer. It destroys the ozone layer more than any other substance. As it filters out nitrous oxide more than the sun's short-wave UV radiation, which is harmful in the stratosphere. The nitrous oxide can be converted into NOx nitrogen oxides (a collective term for various gaseous compounds composed of the atoms nitrogen (N) and oxygen (O)) in the atmosphere, which reduce the ozone content of the stratosphere. However, nitrous oxide not only damages the ozone layer, but also contributes to climate change as a greenhouse gas. Nitrous oxide molecules absorb infrared light (thermal radiation) and thus reduce the Earth's radiation into space more than the incidence of solar radiation, thereby contributing to global warming.
Due to the global increase in meat and milk consumption, greenhouse gases will rise by 50%-80% by the year 2050. The change to a vegan lifestyle can protect the climate. The choice between animal and plant-based products has a great importance because the emission of the greenhouse gases nitrous oxide and methane can be reduced by more than 80% with the help of a vegan diet.
Reduced Biodiversity
The clearing of rainforests for use as pasture and animal feed destroys the habitats of many, often undiscovered, species. In addition, the cultivation of animal feed in industrial agriculture, which is characterized by monocultures, does not allow room for biodiversity.
Waste of Water
The production of animal feed uses up a lot of water. Hereby we talk about the total amount of water needed during the production process. For example, the production of one kilogram beef requires up to 15,500 litres of water. This amount is made up of the animals' need for drinking water and the irrigation of the feed. In global terms, 30% of the water consumed worldwide is used in the animal industry. In addition, water is used for cleaning the stables and for "processing", some of which ends up in the ground water untreated. Compared to plant products, more water is used for manufacturing animal products.
Water Pollution
Water pollution is caused by fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and medicines used in animal husbandry and also in the production of animal feed. The water cannot be properly filtered by sewage treatment plants and directly goes into the groundwater, which influences the water quality negatively.
The Greenpeace test, in which samples were taken from 29 water bodies in ten EU regions with intensive livestock farming, came to the following conclusion: all contained pesticides and 70% of the cases revealed the presence of antibiotics.
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