Local Climate Actions

The climate crisis often appears so daunting that it’s hard to imagine how one person can make a difference. In fact, if meat eaters cut back on beef consumption, they would significantly decrease greenhouse gas emissions.

The details of why beef is so much worse for the climate than other foods are summarized in a thorough and well-referenced article called Greenwashing and denial won’t solve beef’s enormous climate problem. The author is Jonathan Foley, executive director of Project Drawdown, a nonprofit which analyzes climate solutions.

This chart from the Drawdown article shows the factors that contribute to the CO₂equivalent emissions per kilogram of different kinds of foods. The most significant climate factors for beef are land use change (usually deforestation) and emissions from farm operations, which include the methane emitted from cows’ digestive systems. This analysis shows that producing 1 pound of beef creates 50 times the emissions of burning 1 pound of coal.

The Drawdown article and others document the misinformation promoted by the international livestock industry through lobbying, greenwashing, culture wars politicization and use of social media influencers, all of which have added confusion and anger to the public debate over beef.

False solutions are a particular problem.

Research has found feed additives that reduce the methane emitted by cows. The best of these can achieve methane reduction of 10-30%, but their use would require the development of another huge industry to produce and supply the additives to farmers and does nothing to solve the excessive use of land to raise cattle. Additives can generally only be used in confined animal feeding operations rather than in grazing systems and most have side effects.

Regenerative grazing, where pastures are managed so that the soil takes up (sequesters) carbon to offset the methane produced by the grazing cows, is dismissed in Foley’s article as another false hope. It’s been found that degraded soil will take up carbon at first with regenerative management, but eventually reaches an equilibrium point where it won’t take up any more and ceases to be a carbon sink. Grass-fed cattle take longer to mature than feedlot animals, emit more methane over their longer life, and take more land to raise.

In 2022, Americans consumed an average of 83 lbs of beef a year per person, the third highest average in the world.

There are a number of compelling reasons that people include beef in their diet. In “food desert” neighborhoods where residents have limited access to affordable and healthy food, the most nutritious option available for non-cooks might be a fast food hamburger. Other people follow a low carbohydrate, high-protein diet to lose weight and improve their health.

Beef is a way of life for some eaters, especially those who listen to “meatfluencers” like Joe Rogan. A recent study by Tulane University researchers found that around half of all beef eaten in the United States was consumed by 12% of the population.

Here are just a few ways to reduce beef-eating and its impact:

• Ground beef wastes less of the cow; it includes meat scraps left after more expensive cuts have been removed, and is the product made from about half the meat from a cow. Ground beef is often used in small amounts in recipes such as spaghetti sauce or chili. A hamburger is a relatively low-impact meal, since an 8-oz steak takes twice as much beef as a quarter-pound hamburger.
• Replace beef with other animal foods. A low-carb or muscle-building diet requires protein, but not specifically beef. Fish, chicken and pork have similar protein by weight as beef, mostly varying in how much fat the meat contains. A Tulane University study found that swapping one serving of beef a day for the same amount of ground turkey reduced a diet’s greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 48%.
• Finally, the number one rule of climate-friendly eating – don’t waste food.