Environmental hazards to animal farming

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Introduction

Apart from the fact, that we as human beings, are creating an utmost level of cruelty to animals and other earthlings we share the planet with, we must also understand this as a matter of fact. We are creating more havoc on the planet we are living in. We are allowing the milch animals to graze by the billions. And this is the direct impact of excessive emission of greenhouse gases. Say, for instance, you have methane, nitrous oxides and CO2 these animals let out during their sustenance. In this particular blog, I am going to highlight the environmental downsides of animal farming. Let us get started on the same:


What does animal agriculture mean and how do you farmers carry out the process?


We have discussed this via quite a lot of blogging snippets, as a matter of fact. However, let me explain what is being done. This is for those of you who have missed out on my previous blogs. 


Raising animals just to satisfy the needs and individual requirements of human beings is what animal agriculture is broadly classified as. We raise animals mainly for their meat, milk, and eggs. When you raise milch animals like cows, buffaloes, and sheep, they require green pastures to graze. Again, sheep are reared for the wool industry. Subsequently, the discarded sheep, are sent to slaughterhouses for their meat. Lambs are also used in the industry. Hence, in tightly packed conditions, the animals stay in sheds or houses. Animal farmers artificially breed these animals. In other words, we multiply the population of milch and poultry animals to satiate our demands for meat, milk, and eggs. 


Take the dairy industry for example. When hundreds or thousands of cows stay at the same Godown shed, they can fart bloatedly. This is how these animals let out nitrous oxides or methane gases. Methane is the single main contributor to excessive greenhouse emissions. The methane emissions pollute the layers of the atmosphere, which is a direct contributor to the discovery of a hole across the ozone layers. The greenhouse gases let out by the animal agriculture industry supersede the vehicular emissions let out by all vehicles of the world put together.


Again, at the same industry, these animals stay amid their own feces and urine. The evaporated feces can again contribute to greenhouse emissions. The same thing happens in the pig, poultry, and other animal farming industries around the globe. 


What can this do to our environment?

  • Firstly, methane gases, CO2, NO2, and other poisonous gases, can pollute your atmospheric layers beyond dangerous levels. At city centers, we breathe such polluted levels of air. Look at the smug situation in Delhi. We barely have sustainable levels of breathable oxygen for living beings. This is the plight we are standing at. Animal agriculture super accelerates the same. 70 billion land animals, trillions of fish, 8 billion human beings, and 6 billion birds thrive on the planet. Thanks to the breeding of animals by these farmers.
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  • Secondly, the emission of greenhouses can raise the temperatures of the planet by at least 2-3 degree Celsius. The sea levels can increase due to a rise in temperatures. This is what is known as ‘global warming or the ‘El Nino effect’. If the sea levels increase, they can drown cities or townships developed near the shores of the ocean or riverbeds. Remember, even Singapore is a country that is developed across an island, as a matter of fact. Thus, you can lose out on prosperous cities, countries, or townships because of the global warming impact.
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  • Thirdly, the polar ice caps are melting at an accelerated pace. When this happens, the overall climate control of ‘planet earth, can be disrupted on the whole. We get severe thunderstorms, floods, hurricanes, droughts, and erratic climate changes leading to loss of life and property across parts of the globe. This is the direct impact of the climate change crisis we are experiencing in today’s world. We can take a classic example of the sudden rise of the ‘Australian Bush fires in 2020-2021 leading to the death of about 1 billion animals including the favored koalas.
  • Fourthly, the climate change crisis is also disrupting marine ecosystems beyond a reversible damage situation. Overfishing is responsible for endangered sea species and the collapse of marine ecosystems. This way, the oceanic beds or sea-beds can dry up. When this happens, the earth will never receive rainfall. The Earth can become a dry desert land similar to that of Mercury. And no life can habitat on our planet. 

Conclusion


We have seen different forms of environmental hazards as a result of animal agriculture. Veganism is the only way to create a sustainable life on Planet Earth. We can revive the imbalance we have created on account of going against the forces of Mother Nature. 


Source Credit: Environmental Impact of Animal Production (animalsmart.org)

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