Pulse Brain · Growing Health Evidence Index
Peer-reviewed

Challenges for the balanced attribution of livestock’s environmental impacts: the art of conveying simple messages around complex realities

Pablo Manzano, Jason E. Rowntree, Logan R Thompson, Agustín Del Prado, Peer Ederer, W. Windisch, Michael R. F. Lee

Animal Frontiers · 2023

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Summary

Meat production is often listed among the largest contributors to climate change, and is usually associated with biodiversity damage, feed-food competition, and water scarcity. This assumption is largely based on the biogenic methane (CH4) emissions of the global herd of ruminants and its occupation of land. Environmental assessments of the livestock sector are all too frequently stated in simplistic terms, making use of a myopic selection of metrics, and overlooking underlying heterogeneity and complexities.
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\nOne example of such oversimplification is the comparison of the warming effect of different greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4, and N2O), which are associated with a series of challenges due to their own heterogeneous atmospheric ‘behavior’. Whilst useful for certain research que

Source type
Peer-reviewed study
DOI
10.1093/af/vfac096
Catalogue ID
SNmohktxoo-0ysiwa
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