How to be an environmentally friendly meat-eater
I would not consider myself an environmental activist, but I certainly care about our planet’s future.
A few months ago, I stumbled across David Attenborough’s: A life on our planet on Netflix, and It was fascinating, beautiful but at the same time terrifying. The message of the film was clear: The easiest way to save our dying planet was for us to reduce our consumption and reliance on meat in our everyday diet. (The UN estimates that 18% of global greenhouse gases come from the meat industry.) In fact, I was so horrified by the facts presented in the film, that I decided to become a vegetarian, which lasted for about a month before I inevitably caved into the irresistible appeal of a juicy beef burger. I knew then that this was not sustainable for me, and I must find another way to help save the planet.
With the power of data analytics, I hope to be able to minimize my greenhouse gas emission, while still being able to have (delicious) meats in my everyday diet. I decided to use R to perform data analysis on greenhouse gas emission and meat production data in the US, to determine which types of meat produced the least amount of greenhouse gases, with the objective of becoming an environmentally friendly meat-eater.
Data sources:
Meat production data by USDA (US Department of Agriculture) (millions of pounds)
Greenhouse gas emission by livestock USEPA (Environmental protection agency) (millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent)
Method:
Using R, I cleaned the greenhouse gas emission dataset based on what data was relevant and could be used in conjunction with the meat production dataset, filtering out all nonrelevant data, and keeping only the emission-related to livestock.
This is a visualization of the output of different types of meat between 2001 and 2018 in millions of pounds. Through this table, we can see that meat consumption in all categories but Veal and “Lamb & Mutton” have been increasing steadily between 2001–2018.
Below is a visualization of greenhouse gas emissions by livestock between 2001–2008, in millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent). The increase in greenhouse gas emissions over the same period seems to be somewhat uneven, with declines between 2008–2014.
Using R, I then combined the data sets and produced a visualization of the correlation between the variables:
Analysis
There seems to be a positive correlation between most meats and greenhouse gas emissions, with red meats seeming to contribute more than poultry. To further investigate the relationship, I then used a linear regression model to see if there was a significant relationship between the production of a specific type of meat and greenhouse gas emissions by livestock.
- “Other chicken” was omitted in the regression because it contained “Ready to cook” chicken which does not directly correlate to livestock in the period.
The results suggest a statistically significant relationship between the production of Beef (0.003) and Lamb & Mutton (0.180) with greenhouse gas emissions over the same period.
Below are visualizations for the production of each type of meat in millions of pounds against livestock greenhouse gas emissions in millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent:
Total livestock emissions vs total red meat production (Beef, Pork, Lamb & Mutton, and Veal)
Total livestock emissions vs total poultry production(Broilers, Other chicken, Turkey)
Total livestock emissions vs Beef production (statistically significant positive relationship)
Total livestock emissions vs Pork production
Total livestock emission vs Veal production
Total livestock emission vs Lamb and Mutton production (statistically significant positive relationship)
Total livestock emission vs Broiler production
Total livestock emission vs Turkey production
In conclusion, the results indicate that beef and “Lamb & Mutton” have a statistically significant positive relationship with greenhouse gas emissions, with “Lamb & Mutton” being a significantly larger emitter (0.18 vs 0.003 for beef) Both of these meats are classified as “red meats”, hence supporting the hypothesis that red meats are larger producers of greenhouse gases.
This could be explained by the fact that the average life span of animals considered to be red meats far outlast those considered poultry. The average life span of cows (18–22 years) and sheep (10–12 years) are significantly longer than life spans for chicken (5–10 years) and Turkey (3–5 years), hence contributing to more greenhouse gas emissions per kg produced.
To further confirm this hypothesis, I re-ran a regression between just the variables “Total red meat” and “Total Poultry”
The linear regression shows that red meat production had a statistically significant positive relationship to total emissions (to the 0.001 level), whereas poultry did not have a significant relationship, confirming the hypothesis that red meats as a category are larger polluters than white meat.
Conclusion
Overall the findings seem to suggest that to be an environmentally conscious meat-eater, one must stay away from red meats, notably Beef and “Lamb & Mutton”, and primarily eat poultry or “white meats”.
The environmental crisis is one that may seem too large to tackle, too difficult to solve, and too many changes needing to be made. But it would be a mistake to think about the solution as a binary one — all vegetarian and electric vehicles or global catastrophe.
People need time and effort to change their lifestyles, no matter how much they want and try to. Yes, time is running out, and our planet is dying. But I’d like to believe that we are heading in the right direction. With increasing awareness and efforts from corporations, governments, millennials, my hope is that we will soon be able to overcome this crisis.
“The fact remains that man has unprecedented control over the world and everything in it. And so, whether he likes it or not, what happens next is very largely up to him.”
