Australia burns: meat consumption has to do with it

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The activity of industrial livestock farming is one of the main causes of the destruction of our planet. The conditions under which the devastating forest fires in Australia have occurred, which began in September and have caused the death of millions of animals, are unprecedented. And all of them have as their origin a typical climate pattern intensified by climate change, of which meat consumption is one of the main factors. WHAT IS HAPPENING?: More than 200 fires have devastated 10.7 million hectares in the last 4 months, causing the death of 26 people and the evacuation of thousands. Fire danger is expected to worsen in the future according to CBS News meteorologist and climate specialist Jeff Berardelli.  It is estimated that 1,000 million animals have died due to forest fires.

The figure was compiled by Professor Chris Dickman, an Ca Cell Numbers Australian biodiversity expert at the University of Sydney, who also indicated that “this figure only refers to the state of New South Wales. “Many of the affected animals are likely to have been killed directly by the fires, while others succumbed later due to depletion of food and shelter resources and predation by introduced feral cats and red foxes.” WHAT CAUSED THE FIRES?: Bushfires are common during the summer in Australia, but climate change is making them worse. 2019 was the hottest and driest year on record in Australia and the December heatwaves set new temperature records across the country, creating the conditions that caused the devastating fires that are taking place. The activity of the livestock industry is one of the main causes of climate change.



It has a profound impact on the environment since it emits 15% of the greenhouse gases produced in the world, consumes 30% of drinking water and is the main cause of deforestation , extinction of species, destruction of habitats and water contamination. A study by the University of Oxford revealed that while meat and dairy only provide 18% of calories and 37% of protein, their production uses the most land, that is, 83%. INDIFFERENCE AND INACTION IN THE FACE OF THREATS: Despite the fact that the Bureau of Meteorology warned in a 2018 report that climate change has caused an increase in temperatures and aggravated natural disasters such as drought and that 23 former fire chiefs and leaders of Emergencies sent a letter to the Australian government to warn about “increasingly catastrophic extreme weather events”, the government rejected this meeting and did not do enough to help stop the rise in global temperatures.