News
Coverage of livestock, emissions hypes controversy
March 30, 2010 by Columbia Journalism Review
March 30, 2010 – For the
last four years, media outlets have repeatedly cited a United Nations study
which found that livestock production is responsible for about 18 percent of
global greenhouse-gas emissions – a larger share than comes from all planes,
trains, and automobiles combined.
March 30, 2010 – For the
last four years, media outlets have repeatedly cited a United Nations study
which found that livestock production is responsible for about 18 percent of
global greenhouse-gas emissions – a larger share than comes from all planes,
trains, and automobiles combined.
Last week, news outlets
revisited those claims, following a talk delivered by Dr. Frank Mitloehner, an
animal scientist based at University of California, Davis, at an American
Chemical Society meeting. Mitloehner criticized the conclusions of a 2006
report from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, “Livestock’s Long
Shadow.” The study’s assertion that meat (including eggs, dairy, and other
animal protein) production is responsible for more greenhouse-gas emissions
globally than the transportation industry is certainly untenable, and likely
false, he said.
