MANILA, Philippines ? Each human will consume 2,400 farm animals in his or her lifetime (try multiplying 2,400 farm animals by 6.77 billion people on Earth). Some experts noted that this does not bode well for the environment as we increase our carbon footprint every time we eat our burgers, bacon, ham, chicken, and eggs.

Worldwide meat production (beef, chicken, pork) emits more atmospheric greenhouse gases than all forms of global transportation or industrial processes. That?s according to researchers of Scientific American (February 2009 issue). Producing the annual beef diet of the average American emits as much greenhouse gas as a car driven more than 1,800 miles, as cited by editors of that magazine.

Based on the data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research, author Nathan Fiala estimates that current levels of meat production add nearly 6.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gases every year to the atmosphere: some 18 percent of the worldwide annual production of 36 billion tons. Only energy production generates more greenhouse gases than raising livestock for food.

Requirement

This is not to mention what Frances Moore Lappe (?Diet for a Small Planet?) said: a single pound of beef requires 2,500 gallons of water to produce.

The ever-increasing cattle population is wreaking havoc on the earth?s ecosystems, destroying habitats on six continents. Cattle-raising is a primary factor in the destruction of the world?s remaining tropical rainforests. This was cited by Jeremy Rifkin, author of ?Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture.?

In developing nations, millions of peasants are being forced off their ancestral lands to make room for the conversion of farmland from subsistence food grain production to commercial feed grain production.

While millions of human beings go hungry for lack of adequate grain, millions more in the industrial world die from diseases caused by an excess of grain-fed animal flesh, and especially beef, in their diets. Americans, Europeans and increasingly the Japanese are gorging on grain-fed beef and dying from the ?diseases of affluence??heart attacks, strokes and cancer, Rifkin wrote.

?Most people are largely unaware of the wide-ranging effects cattle are having on the ecosystems of the planet and the fortunes of civilization. Yet, cattle production and beef consumption now rank among the gravest threats to the future well-being of the Earth and its human population.?

Convincing arguments

Nowadays, there are plenty of convincing arguments the environmentalists raise against wholesale cattle-raising, all demanding an answer to a very important question: Where?s the social justice to all the profitable killings?

Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since 2002 who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize, said: ?Meat production puts more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than transport ... changing diets is something one should consider.?

According to her, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization has estimated that direct emissions from meat production account for about 18 percent of the world?s total greenhouse gas emissions.

?So I want to highlight the fact that among options for mitigating climate change, changing diets is something one should consider,? Pachauri, a vegetarian, told BBC news.

E-mail the writer at tsalazar@inquirer.com.ph