Avoiding meat and other animal products is good for the environment. Today we ask ourselves: HOW good is that? ATTENTION! I made a mistake at 9:26: Climate emissions in the USA do not correspond to 7 million tons, but a full 7 billion tons of CO2. SOURCES & MORE INFORMATION Increase in world population: https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/... FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN) report: 14.5% of global human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to agricultural livestock farming http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item... FAO scientists compare the greenhouse gas emissions from livestock farming and transport http://news.trust.org/item/2018091808... LCAs for individual foods: The footprint of a food can vary greatly depending on the cultivation methods chosen, how it was transported, in which region it is consumed, etc. When calculating LCAs, certain assumptions must be made, which is why the values ​​can differ significantly depending on the source. Here are LCAs for some foods and categories calculated for Germany. We took the values ​​for meat and dairy products from here. T. Meier, O. Christen, 2012, “Gender as a factor in an environmental assessment of the consumption of animal and plant-based foods in Germany”, The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 17 (5): 550-564 https://link.springer.com/article/10.... Further LCAs for many foods, including individual fruits and vegetables, calculated for the USA. We have taken the values ​​for avocado, banana and apple here (table in supplements). MC Heller, GA Keoleian, 2014, “Greenhouse Gas Emission Estimates of US Dietary Choices and Food Loss”, Journal of Industrial Ecology, 19(3) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/a... Two thirds of the world's pastureland is not suitable for growing food. A. Mottet, C. Haan, A. Falcucci, G. Tempio, C. Opio, P. Gerber, 2017, “Livestock: On our plates or eating at our table? A new analysis of the feed/food debate”, Global Food Security, 14: 1-8 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science... 9% of greenhouse gas emissions in the USA are attributable to agriculture, about half of which are caused by animal husbandry. If you were to remove all animals, you would not save this entire half, but only about a third. RR White and MB Hall, 2017,”Nutritional and greenhouse gas impacts of removing animals from US agriculture”, PNAS, 114(48): E10301-E10301 https://www.pnas.org/content/114/48/E... If all US Americans followed their country's official dietary recommendations, this would increase greenhouse gas emissions - despite fewer calories AND less meat on the plate. However, the official dietary recommendations in Germany are more climate-friendly, especially because of the higher amounts of (whole grain) cereals. MS Tom, p. S. Fischbeck, CR Hendrickson, 2016, “Energy use, blue water footprint, and greenhouse gas emissions for current food consumption patterns and dietary recommendations in the US”, Environ Syst Decis, 36(1): 92-103 https://link.springer.com/article/10.... Greenhouse gas emissions from cucumbers with and without heated greenhouses, from asparagus locally vs imported, calculated for Switzerland. F. Stoessel, R. Juraske, S. Pfister, S. Hellweg, 2012, Environ Sci Technol, 46(6): 3253–3262. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti... Greenhouse gas emissions from the eating habits of real people in Great Britain. Switching from over 100 g of meat per day to under 50 g saves about the emissions of a flight to New York per year. P. Scarborough, PN Appleby, A. Mizdrak, ADM Briggs, RC Travis, KE Bradbury, TJ Key, 2014, “Dietary greenhouse gas emissions of meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians and vegans in the UK”, Climatic Change, 125(2): 179-192 https://link.springer.com/article/10.... If Swedes nationwide replaced half of their meat consumption with pulses, they could save 20% of diet-related greenhouse gas emissions and 23% of arable land. E. Röös, G. Carlsson, F. Ferawati, M. Hefni, A. Stephan, P. Tidåker, C. Witthöft, 2018, “Less meat, more legumes: prospects and challenges in the transition toward sustainable diets in Sweden”, Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems https://www.cambridge.org/core/journa...