Greenwashing and denial won’t solve beef’s enormous climate problems

At the same time, the livestock industry has downplayed the role of meat and dairy production in climate change and other environmental problems. They have tried to obfuscate the sizeable climate impact of cattle’s methane emissions and have spread claims that cattle’s emissions are “natural” and mimic those of natural herbivores. However, science continually refutes and disproves these falsehoods.

Along the way, social media platforms – especially X/Twitter – have become overrun with disinformation. Some foreign governments have also jumped in, spreading false claims about beef’s impact as a way of fueling online “culture wars.” The Department of Justice recently revealed how Russia spent US$10 million to spread misinformation in the United States – including denying beef’s role in fueling climate change.

All the while, the agricultural industry has kept a solid grip on policymakers, outspending fossil fuel producers and the defense industry on lobbying. These efforts result in billions of dollars in subsidies each year (even on advertising) and favorable regulations. In the international arena, the livestock industry has been accused of pressuring the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization to downplay the importance of reducing excessive beef consumption to curb emissions. The livestock industry has even celebrated its “success” in dissuading world leaders from taking more direct action at the last international climate summit.

Without a doubt, the livestock industry is winning the PR battle. Their greenwashing and denial efforts, powerful lobbying, and media campaigns are working. Still, sensible actions can eventually win out if we face the challenges of beef overconsumption, waste, and climate change head-on and address them with sound science, evidence-based solutions, and clear-eyed, fearless speech that stands up to misinformation.

The Environmental “Beef” with Beef 

To face the environmental challenges caused by beef, we first need to understand how it is produced. That means exploring grazing and feedlot operations – and the interplay between them.

Looking at the United States, we find most cattle spend the bulk of their lives on grazing lands and are then rapidly fattened (or “finished”) for a few months in feedlots before slaughter. This combination of grazing and feedlots has been optimized to maximize beef production at the lowest cost. There are roughly 70–80 million beef cattle in the United States, with around three-quarters on grazing lands and the rest in feedlots. There are another ~20 million cattle in dairy operations. We slaughter 30–35 million cattle annually for meat, mainly from feedlots and by culling dairy herds. That amounts to one half-ton animal slaughtered each year for every ten Americans, fueling our incredible levels of beef consumption and waste.

In feedlots, cattle are kept in cramped spaces, fed grain (mainly corn) and forage (mostly alfalfa and corn silage) while pumped full of antibiotics and growth hormones. This helps bring cattle to their slaughter weight as quickly as possible and gives their meat the marbled texture that Americans have grown accustomed to.

Communities near feedlots often have to contend with manure spills, water pollution, air pollution, and noxious odors. Manure production, alone, from feedlots is staggering. Feedlots in America – for cattle, hogs, chickens, and other animals – produce 2 billion tons of manure annually. (That’s 130 times the human feces produced in the country.)

However, the environmental impacts extend far beyond feedlots and adjacent communities. Vast areas of productive cropland are dedicated to growing animal feed instead of crops that could directly nourish humans. In the United States, corn (mainly used for animal feed and ethanol) occupies nearly 100 million acres of prime farmland – about the size of California. Alfalfa, hay, and sorghum grown for animal feed and forage also cover enormous amounts of productive farmland. Globally, many of the best croplands no longer produce human food directly, raising concerns about food security – and this trend is accelerating.

Devoting highly productive cropland to animal feed is an incredible waste of land and resources. To produce one calorie of edible feedlot beef requires about 30 calories of grain. (The beef industry claims ratios like 5:1 or 7:1, but they measure the animal’s weight, including bones, organs, and hides, not the edible meat it produces.) If we used this cropland for human food instead of animal feed, we could grow enough to nourish almost 4 billion people. 

Beyond its rabid consumption of productive cropland, animal feed is also responsible for massive amounts of water consumption, fertilizer use, pesticide application, soil erosion, and water pollution across the globe. One staggering example: Irrigating alfalfa and other feed crops consumes roughly half of the water withdrawn from the Colorado River. Much of the water in the American West is devoted to irrigating animal feed and forage crops. We’re not alone; there are plans to drain Senegal’s only notable lake to irrigate alfalfa that will be shipped to feed animals in Saudi Arabia. This wasteful story repeats itself all over the world.

Beef’s Big Climate Impact

Pound-for-pound beef might be the most climate-polluting substance people regularly use. In a Science article from 2018, researchers found that beef emits – on average – roughly 100 kilograms of greenhouse gases per kilogram consumed. That’s a staggering amount. By comparison, burning one kilogram of coal – the dirtiest fossil fuel – releases about two kilograms of greenhouse gases. This means that kilogram-for-kilogram beef produces 50 times the emissions of coal.

That’s why our high levels of beef production, consumption, and waste present a severe climate problem. Estimates vary, but it is clear that livestock production systems are responsible for a significant fraction of greenhouse gases, likely contributing roughly 14–15% of global emissions. For reference, the entire United States emits 10–11% of the world’s greenhouse gases.

These greenhouse gases are emitted in several ways but primarily stem from land use and methane emissions from livestock and manure. Other sources include growing animal feed and the emissions from processing, transporting, packaging, and refrigerating beef. Moreover, a large fraction (about 38% in the United States) of beef is lost or wasted in the supply chain, contributing to additional emissions we must address.

Globally, land use – mainly clearing forests, savannas, and grasslands for new grazing land or producing animal feed – is the largest driver of beef-related emissions. Tropical deforestation, particularly in the Brazilian Amazon, for grazing is a prime example. (Of note, the Amazon is also being cleared to produce soybeans for animal feed, particularly for pork production in Asia.) In other regions, degrading natural savannas, woodlands, and grasslands for beef releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Not only does clearing and degrading land for beef release CO₂ into the atmosphere, but there is also an “opportunity cost” for absorbing carbon. As long as large tracts of land remain devoted to cattle grazing or feed production, we cannot return it to nature, where increasing vegetation cover and soil carbon levels could effectively remove CO₂ from the atmosphere.

Beyond the emissions from land use, the world’s 1.5 billion cattle also burp enormous quantities of methane. This potent greenhouse gas traps heat over 80 times more effectively than carbon dioxide in the near term. Manure piles are also a significant methane source.

Livestock advocates often spread disinformation that these methane emissions are “natural” and benign. However, methane molecules emitted by cattle warm the atmosphere just as much as those emitted by fossil fuel production, even if the former results from biological processes.

Another falsehood that gets bandied about is that today’s livestock only emit as much methane as wild animals did in the past. But, in reality, today’s livestock emit more methane than wild animals ever have – and we can see it accumulating in the atmosphere every year. First, there are more large livestock – 1.5 billion cattle, 1.2 billion sheep, 1 billion goats – today than there were wild ruminants in the past. Plus, today’s livestock emit more methane per animal than wild ruminants. Modern livestock are bred, fed, and raised for rapid growth and slaughter, which drives increased metabolism, digestion, and methane emissions.

No, Grass-fed “Regenerative” Beef isn’t a “Quick Fix”

One of the proposed “quick fixes” to beef’s climate problem – often touted through greenwashing campaigns – is regenerative grazing.

On the surface, the idea is compelling. Regenerative grazing aims to raise “grass-fed” cattle, without feedlots, while building up organic matter in the soil – essentially locking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – to “offset” emissions. It sounds like an elegant solution that works with nature, avoiding messy feedlots and appealing to many people’s sensibilities of how farming should work.

But after carefully reviewing the evidence, it’s clear that regenerative grazing doesn’t live up to the hype. Why? In a nutshell, it doesn’t meet expectations because grass-fed cattle operations require more time, more animals, and more land to match the meat production of their conventional counterparts, leading to increased greenhouse gas emissions. And while grassland soils can absorb some carbon under the right circumstances, they can’t keep up with these higher emissions for long.

Regenerative grazing advocates are fond of saying, “It’s not the cow, it’s the how.” Unfortunately, it is the how but also the cow. Let’s look at several reasons why.

It is well known that grass-fed cattle take more time to mature to their slaughter weight than feedlot-finished animals. As a result, they emit more methane per pound of meat or milk produced over their longer lifetimes.

Moreover, to maintain current beef production levels but with longer-lived animals, grass-fed systems would require more heads of cattle overall. It’s simple math. And that also increases methane emissions.

Finally, grass-fed beef also takes more land than conventional production – around two to three times more in some cases – which means emitting more carbon, too. If grass-fed beef were done at scale, the footprint of animal agriculture would increase substantially, resulting in increased land clearing, increased emissions, and a higher carbon “opportunity cost.” If all American beef were raised with grass-fed methods, it would take more land than we have in the entire country.

Of course, many in the regenerative grazing community suggest that building soil carbon can “offset” these emissions and be a powerful climate solution. But this is very unlikely to be true across the board. While some studies have found soils might temporarily offset these emissions, the effect isn’t permanent. Soils naturally come into equilibrium, whereby increased carbon inputs are matched by increased microbial respiration and soil carbon decay. As soil carbon sequestration rates decline, grazing lands become a net source of greenhouse gases, making the carbon benefits temporary and relatively small.

In short, grass-fed, regenerative beef is unlikely to provide all of its hoped-for climate benefits due to its higher methane emissions, increased land footprint, carbon opportunity cost, and limited ability to “offset” these emissions with soil carbon. While it might have other benefits – for soil health, biodiversity, and topsoil retention – regenerative grazing is overhyped as a climate solution.

How About Feed Additives?

Another “quick fix” to beef’s climate problems you might hear about is so-called feed additives.

Again, the idea is appealing. Dietary supplements could be fed to cattle to reduce their methane emissions. There has been some excitement about the potential benefits of compounds found in seaweed, essential oils, and phytochemicals. Some early media coverage suggested that feed additives derived from seaweed could virtually eliminate methane burps from cattle.

Unfortunately, after careful study, scientists have found that such additives don’t do very much. So far, the best feed additives reduce methane emissions by only 10–30 percent. And there are still enormous logistical and economic challenges to providing feed additives – twice daily, in most cases – to the world’s 3–4 billion ruminant livestock, often raised in small herds in remote grazing lands. 

Even if this were possible, any methane reductions would still do nothing to reduce the emissions associated with land use, manure, feed production, and other drivers of livestock’s climate footprint.

In short, feed additives are only marginally helpful in reducing emissions. And they may only be economically viable in limited circumstances, such as feedlot dairy production. They certainly fall short of being a “quick fix” to beef’s larger climate problem.

Less is Best When It Comes to Beef Consumption, Waste, and Greenwashing

Hopefully, it’s clear by now that regenerative grazing, feed additives, or simply denying the problem aren’t going to make beef better for the planet automatically. Fortunately, the science is clear on what will: cutting rampant beef overconsumption and waste, especially in affluent regions.

Let me clearly state that we should not cut livestock production in places where malnutrition and hunger are widespread. Instead, we should focus on areas where beef consumption is astronomically high, causing numerous health and environmental problems.

To do this, people in rich countries should eat a little less – maybe taking smaller portions, less frequently. We can also substitute beef with lower-emitting poultry, pork, and fish where appropriate. And we could eat tasty, plant-rich meals when possible.

The U.S. population is already eating less beef than it used to, which can help reduce its environmental impacts. Nonetheless, Americans still eat much more beef than most people – around four times the global average – and far more than is recommended for our health.

And some Americans are super consumers of beef. A recent analysis suggests that half of the beef consumed in America is eaten by only 12% of the population, a staggering statistic. 

Needless to say, many Americans could stand to cut their beef consumption and eat more balanced meals with sensible portions of animal protein. It would be healthier for us and the planet.

Besides moderating the excesses of our diet, another place to focus is curbing the enormous levels of waste in beef supply chains. We lose about 38% of meat consumed in the United States, split between retail and consumer losses. Cutting back on beef waste would automatically reduce the land, water, natural resources, and greenhouse gases it took to grow beef that is never eaten. Surely, we can all agree that this is an excellent place to focus.

Curbing food waste and excessive beef consumption are the big solutions we need. The “quick fixes” proposed by the livestock industry do little to address the problem and primarily serve to maintain the status quo and their profits. Simple, common-sense efforts to reduce beef waste and shift American diets would have a dramatic impact, reducing emissions while improving human and environmental well-being. 

These are not extreme actions. No serious person is calling for us all to become vegans overnight. I certainly am not, and I still eat some meat – but less than I used to. We can take a sensible view of our current food system, make a few modest changes to curb waste and dietary excess, and dramatically improve our health, our farming systems, our environment, and our future.

Jonathan Foley, PhD, is a climate scientist and the Executive Director of Project Drawdown, the world’s leading resource for climate solutions. These views are his own.

This work was published under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. You are welcome to republish it following the license terms.