Claim: U.N. flags need to cut meat to curb land use impact on global warming.
Verdict: SUPPORTS

Retrieved passages:
title: Allan Savory
text: in the permanent removal of greenhouse gases out of the Earth's atmosphere to contribute materially in global warming avoidance. Savory advocates using high technology to develop alternative energy sources and to reduce or eliminate future emissions. He supports grass fed beef and vehemently opposes industrial livestock production. He condemns the practice of slash-and-burn cultivation of forests and grasslands, saying that it "leaves the soil bare, releasing carbon, and worse than that, burning one hectare of grassland gives off more, and more damaging, pollutants than 6,000 cars. And we are burning in Africa, every single year, more than one billion hectares

title: Chatham House
text: why reducing global meat consumption will be critical to keeping global warming below the ‘danger level’ of two degrees Celsius, "Heat, Light and Power for Refugees: Saving Lives, Reducing Costs" examined the reasons why energy provision to displaced people undermines the fundamental humanitarian aims of assistance, and "Towards a New Global Business Model for Antibiotics: Delinking Revenues from Sales" argued for revenues for pharmaceutical companies to be delinked from sales of antibiotics to avoid their over-use and avert a public health crisis. Chatham House published the research paper "Livestock – Climate Change’s Forgotten Sector: Global Public Opinion on Meat and

title: Environmental impact of meat production
text: nitrogen fertilizers and adopting suitable manure management practices. Mitigation strategies for reducing carbon dioxide emissions in the livestock sector include adopting more efficient production practices to reduce agricultural pressure for deforestation (notably in Latin America), reducing fossil fuel consumption, and increasing carbon sequestration in soils. Australian scientists discovered that adding the seaweed Asparagopsis taxiformis to the cattle's diet can reduce methane by up to 99%, and reported a 3% seaweed diet resulted in an 80% reduction in methane. In New Zealand, nearly half of [anthropogenic] greenhouse gas emission is associated with agriculture, which plays a major role in the nation's

title: Carnage (2017 film)
text: animals. The UN urges people to cut down on meat, due to climate change. This is ignored, and the UK faces floods. Lindsay Graber, a victim of these, explains climate change due to meat on TV. Veganism is promoted by TV presenters, but it is ignored, and in 2021 the UK faces a Super Swine Flu, killing many. Intensive farming is banned to prevent a re-occurrence, but this hikes up costs of meat, and many people are confused over what to eat. In 2023, this Era of Confusion is broken by a new celebrity chef Freddy Jayashankar, who re-introduces a

title: Individual and political action on climate change
text: effects of meat production, which the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization has established to represent nearly one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. The town of Totnes in Devon through its "Transition Town Totnes" Project has adopted an Energy Descent Plan, as a response in answer to the twin problems of greenhouse gas emissions and peak oil. As a result of a series of large, well attended public gatherings with key experts from around the world, and the organisation of a number of special interest groups, the community has come together with lecturers and trainers shared with Schumacher College, through

title: Environmental impact of meat production
text: Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, states that "the livestock sector is a major stressor on many ecosystems and on the planet as a whole. Globally it is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases (GHG) and one of the leading causal factors in the loss of biodiversity, while in developed and emerging countries it is perhaps the leading source of water pollution." Removing all US agricultural animals would reduce US greenhouse gas emissions by 2.6%. (In this and much other FAO usage, but not always elsewhere, poultry are included as "livestock".) A 2017 study published in the journal

title: Climate change mitigation
text: vegans. The widespread adoption of a vegetarian diet could cut food-related greenhouse gas emissions by 63% by 2050. China introduced new dietary guidelines in 2016 which aim to cut meat consumption by 50% and thereby reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1billion tonnes by 2030. A 2016 study concluded that taxes on meat and milk could simultaneously result in reduced greenhouse gas emissions and healthier diets. The study analyzed surcharges of 40% on beef and 20% on milk and suggests that an optimum plan would reduce emissions by 1billion tonnes per year. Efficient energy use, sometimes simply called "energy efficiency", is

title: Traffic (conservation programme)
text: 2015 (Traffic news story here, resolution here). Drawing global attention to the issue, the resolution tasks the UN secretary general with presenting an annual report on global wildlife crime and countries’ implementation of the resolution, as well as recommendations. Traffic was one of the first organisations to draw attention to the unsustainable use of bushmeat or wildmeat in its 2000 study Food For Thought: the utilization of wild meat in eastern and southern Africa. Its findings, including the fact that the previously taboo species zebra was being increasingly harvested, led to widespread publicity including an IUCN report on the subject.

title: Liberation BC
text: Vancouver's "Greenest City Action Team" acknowledge the impact that meat consumption has upon the environment, and asked that they recommend that citizens reduce their consumption of animal products. The letter was also signed by the Vancouver Humane Society, Humane Society International Canada, Earthsave Canada, and the Lifeforce Foundation. In 2009, the group shifted its focus to public outreach and to building a stronger animal rights community in Vancouver. It began the annual Cow Ribbon Campaign for Mother's Day. The public is encouraged to purchase Holstein-patterned ribbons from the website and wear them to start conversations about the conditions of mother

title: Phil Radford
text: most flagrant emitters of CO2, to begin providing clean energy to win their business." In 2014, deforestation in Indonesia, which accounts for .1% of the world's surface, caused 4% of global warming pollution. One of the major drivers of deforestation was clearing the forest to grow palm oil plantations. Under Radford, the Greenpeace USA team persuaded Procter & Gamble, Colgate Palmolive, Mondelez, and other major companies to demand sustainably grown palm oil. Under Radford, Greenpeace ran a campaign targeting supermarket chains – which sell 50% of all seafood in the U.S. – to convince them to stop selling threatened fish,

title: 2013 United Nations Climate Change Conference
text: insistence of the United States delegates on China and India conforming to binding reduction commitments - whereas Chinese and Indian delegates argue that funding from industrialised countries is needed before such emissions cuts can be executed without impacting GDP growth rates. India and Saudi Arabia blocked an agreement which could prevent the release of up to 100 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by 2050. A key paragraph in a draft resolution that would have accelerated international cooperation under the Montreal Protocol was reportedly deleted at the last minute. The deaths, injuries and destruction caused by Typhoon Haiyan

title: Planetary boundaries
text: U.S. animals are fed crops grown hundreds of miles away, making it “uneconomical” to return the manure. The solution? Require CAFO owners to treat their wastes, just as municipalities must do with human wastes. Further, if we ate less meat, less waste would be generated and less synthetic fertilizer would be needed to grow animal feed. Eating meat from animals that are range-fed on perennial grasses would be ideal. The explosive growth in the production of ethanol as a biofuel is greatly aggravating nitrogen pollution. Several studies have suggested that if mandated U.S. ethanol targets are met, the amount of

title: Ethics of eating meat
text: best thing we can do to slow climate change is a global shift towards a vegetarian or vegan diet. A 2017 study published in the journal "Carbon Balance and Management" found animal agriculture's global methane emissions are 11% higher than previously estimated. In November 2017, 15,364 world scientists signed a warning to humanity calling for, among other things, "promoting dietary shifts towards mostly plant-based foods." Animals that feed on grain or rely on grazing require more water than grain crops. Producing 1 kg of meat requires up to 15,000 liters of water. According to the United States Department of Agriculture

title: Local food
text: sustainably grown foods actually release more greenhouse gases than food made in factory farms. The "Land Degradation" section of the United Nations report "Livestock's Long Shadow" concludes that "Intensification - in terms of increased productivity both in livestock production and in feed crop agriculture - can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation". Nathan Pelletier of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia found that cattle raised on open pastures release 50% more greenhouse gas emissions than cattle raised in factory farms. Adrian Williams of Cranfield University in England found that free range and organic raised chickens have a 20% greater impact

title: Friends of the Earth (US)
text: for an international climate agreement. Its goals include a reduction in carbon emissions, prevention of deforestation and assisting other countries to cope with the impacts of climate change and support renewable energy initiatives. This project oversees campaigns related to agriculture and food processing techniques. One campaign is concerned with enacting stricter regulation over the emerging field of synthetic biology. Synthetic vanillin is a product that Friends of the Earth is concerned with, as its production has been associated with the destruction of endangered rainforests. Related efforts advocate for labeling and stricter regulation of genetically engineered food, or GMOs. Friends of

title: Veganism
text: data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. A June 2018 study published in "Science" asserted that the adoption of plant-based diets in the United States alone could cut greenhouse gas emissions by 61% to 73%, and the global adoption of a vegan diet would reduce the use of agricultural land by 75%. A 2010 UN report, "Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Consumption and Production", argued that animal products "in general require more resources and cause higher emissions than plant-based alternatives". It proposed a move away from animal products to reduce environmental damage. A 2007 Cornell University study concluded that

title: Friends of the Earth (US)
text: The shipping industry specifically is said to produce a greater amount of air pollution due to its widespread use of bunker fuel. This campaign has worked to pressure the International Maritime Organization to tighten and enforce international ship emissions standards including the Polar Code. There is also a campaign to support and protect National Marine Sanctuaries and a campaign to stop the proposed increase in the export of fossil fuels from the Pacific Northwest. This project works to change the United States and international economic policy to be more environmentally friendly and supportive of human rights. The Earth Budget campaign

title: Meat
text: Environment Programme's (UNEP) international panel for sustainable resource management, a worldwide transition in the direction of a meat and dairy free diet is indispensable if adverse global climate change were to be prevented. Meat consumption is considered one of the primary contributors of the sixth mass extinction. A 2017 study by the World Wildlife Fund found that 60% of global biodiversity loss is attributable to meat-based diets, in particular from the vast scale of feed crop cultivation needed to rear tens of billions of farm animals for human consumption puts an enormous strain on natural resources resulting in a wide-scale

title: Joel Salatin
text: enough land to support free-range meat at current consumption levels. Commenting on a "New York Times" op-ed contribution about sustainable farming and bovine methane production, Salatin wrote "Wetlands emit some 95 percent of all methane in the world; herbivores are insignificant enough to not even merit consideration. Anyone who really wants to stop methane needs to start draining wetlands. Quick, or we'll all perish." Wetland methane emissions make up 20 to 39% of global methane emissions, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He also said that most livestock producers use "Neanderthal management" that exaggerates the amount of land

title: Environmental impact of meat production
text: °C will result in drastic effects in climate change such as a loss of biodiversity and more intense and unpredictable weather patterns. Coastal erosion is also another effect of climate change which leads to loss of fertile land as the sea levels rise. The sporadic weather patterns and change in seasons will also lead to unpredictable farming patterns. Pests and vector borne diseases will become more common and available as the global temperature rises. Growing seasons will become longer in cooler areas. Americans are one of the largest contributing groups to the excessive amounts of beef consumption worldwide. The United