Introductory Note

As part of my university degree course ‘Global Environmental Change’, I will be following up on the debate of industrial livestock production and its impact on our environment. Before going into any further scientific and complex details, let’s all take a look at the image below:

Source: http://wayart.com/artists/bernd-wagenfeld/

Now imagine your secondary school teacher asking you to describe this image.

One would describe it as ‘a healthy looking environment in which Daisy and her fellow cows are happily grazing amongst the English countryside’. Although this may not look like it (and by now you should be reminiscing your mum’s ‘never judge a book by its cover’), Daisy represents a major threat to the environment. In truth and in many ways, 18% of all greenhouse gaz emissions are accounted for by animal agriculture (FAO.org, 2006). When asking about causes of climate change, the extensive and ongoing use of oil, coal, natural gazes and other fossil fuels in general are always put at the forefront of the discussion. It is for this specific reason that I would like to tackle this controversial issue that still remains ‘under-cover’ and ‘un-spoken of’ to many people around us.

A primary source of inspiration to write about this particular topic was the 2014 American documentary ‘Cowspiracy; The Sustainability Secret’, (to which I will expand on in future blog posts). Indeed, after watching the documentary, I felt I could not continue eating meat without personally investigating further into the topic. I needed to grasp a broader academic understanding around this ongoing debate in order to unveil a personal opinion on intensive livestock farming.

For the next few weeks, my blog will focus on the range of implications large-scale factory farming has on the environment as an important contributor of climate change. I will also be discussing alternatives that can offer a path to global sustainability for the rising 7 billion people around the world.

Through the reviewing of academic articles, news and general social media posts, I aim to clarify the contentious debate around animal agriculture and the environment by remaining critical of existing knowledge whilst expressing personal thoughts and opinion in my blog posts.

In all, I hope to raise new questions on this topic, thus leading to new discoveries for you as for me.

In this introductory note, I hope to give my readers a greater understanding as to why I chose this topic and hope it will get them thinking about a topic of such critical importance in the 21^st century.