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What if the key actors in climate change are...cows, pigs, and chickens?

The environmental impact of the life cycle and supply chain of animals raised for food has been vastly underestimated, and in fact accounts for at least half of all human-caused greenhouse gases (GHGs), according to Jeff Anhang and Robert Goodland, co-authors of "Livestock and Climate Change".

A popular report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization done in 2006, Livestock's Long Shadow, estimated that 18% of annual worldwide GHG emissions are attributable to buffalo, sheep, cattle, goats, poultry, pigs and camels. But recent analysis by Goodland and Anhang finds that livestock and their byproducts actually account for at least 32.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide GHG emissions.

Read "Livestock and Climate Change," World Watch Magazine