Deforestation (livestock farming and the production of animal feed account for approximately 41% of this)

Biodiversity loss (60% of biodiversity loss can be attributed to the vast scale of feed crop cultivation required for animal agriculture)

Marine debris (fishing activities are responsible for 80% of this)

Water depletion (between 30% to 40% of the total freshwater use is in animal agriculture)

Water pollution (70 to 90% of freshwater pollution in countries, particularly the U.S. and China, can be traced back to animal agriculture)

Ocean dead zones (animal agriculture [not fishing] is responsible for 78% of ocean dead zones due to runoff from chemical fertilizers and animal manure used in feed crop production)

Pandemics (75% of all emerging infectious diseases that threaten human health are zoonotic, meaning they originate in animals, and the majority of these diseases are linked to animal agriculture and the use of animals for food)

Healthcare crisis (the World Health Organization (WHO) has classified processed meats—such as bacon, sausages, and deli meats—as carcinogenic and linked to cancers and heart disease)

Land grabs (80% of deforested land in the Amazon is used for cattle ranching, displacing the indigenous people who live there)

Antibiotic resistance (animal agriculture is a major contributor to global rising antibiotic resistance)

Environmental racism:

In the U.S., Black, Indigenous, and Latino communities are more likely to live near concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), which emit harmful air and water pollutants. A 2018 study found that 72% of people living within 1.5 miles of North Carolina’s hog farms were people of color, illustrating systemic racial disparities. These communities face higher rates of asthma, cardiovascular disease, and infant mortality due to exposure to manure lagoons and air pollution.

Global hunger (82% of starving children live in countries where food is diverted to animal feed for export. It takes up to 20 pounds of plant protein to produce 1 pound of beef, making meat production a protein factory in reverse.)

Ecological collapse:

Livestock is responsible for 75% of global deforestation, with 91% of Amazon destruction linked to cattle and feed crops. Animal agriculture contributes 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, with some estimates rising to 51% when including supply chains. It causes 70–90% of freshwater pollution in industrialized nations due to runoff from manure and fertilizers. Livestock uses 77% of agricultural land while providing only 18% of global calories, driving habitat loss and biodiversity decline. Fishing has led to 90% of global fish stocks being overexploited or fully depleted, with bycatch discarding 5 pounds of marine life for every pound of target fish. Aquaculture contributes to eutrophication, mangrove destruction, and antibiotic pollution, further degrading ecosystems. In total, the omnivore diet is responsible for 87% of the current climate crisis.

Animal cruelty (this one's a given. Male chicks are tossed live into blenders, animals get tails chopped off, debeaked and dehorned with no anesthesia [dehorning causes significant pain since it involves removing horn tissue, which damages nerve-rich tissue. Pain can last hours to days, and without pain relief, it may become chronic. Dehorning adult cattle is especially traumatic, as horns are attached to the skull, making removal more invasive], pigs are kept in cages too small to turn around for years, mother cows are separated from their babies so humans can drink their milk, then all animals get slaughtered, and their lives are like a horror movie but worse.)

Animal testing (96% of drugs deemed safe and effective in animal tests fail in human trials because they either do not work or are dangerous. Testing on human skin cultures is way more effective and less expensive than animal testing, with studies indicating that animal tests can be 1.5 to over 30 times more expensive than in vitro alternatives.)

From the Heated Substack:

During his Senate confirmation hearing last month, Chris Wright put on a moderate face. To support his bid to lead the Department of Energy, Wright—the CEO of fracking company Liberty Energy—assured senators that he understands fossil fuels are the primary cause of climate change. He also said he takes the problem seriously. “Climate change is a global challenge that we need to solve,” he said.

The statements were apparently enough to earn Wright the votes of seven Democrats who campaigned on climate action: Maggie Hassan, Jeanne Shaheen, John Hickenlooper, Michael Bennett, Ben Ray Luján, Martin Heinrich, and Ruben Gallego. “He believes in science,” Hickenlooper said in a statement explaining his vote. But now that Wright’s secured the job, the mask is quickly slipping off.

In an interview on Fox Business on Wednesday, the new Energy Secretary said there are upsides to raising the Earth’s temperature to levels not witnessed since before the last ice age. “Everything in life has trade-offs,” he began:

A warmer planet with more CO2 is better for growing plants. The world has been getting greener for decades—[there’s] 14 percent more greenery around the planet today than there was 40 years ago. And we have far more people die of the cold than die of the heat. So everything has a trade-off, but yeah. There’s pluses to global warming as well as negatives.

But in addition to being morally repugnant, Wright’s statements were just wrong. Let’s take each point one by one.

“A warmer planet with more CO2 is better for growing plants.” Setting aside the complex dynamics of plant growth, in general, higher concentrations of CO2 are only better for plants if you maintain all other environmental factors, like soil nutrients, weather stability, and water availability. And guess what climate change is screwing up? Soil nutrients, weather stability, and water availability. (Read more here and here)

“The world has been getting greener for decades—[there’s] 14 percent more greenery around the planet today than there was 40 years ago.” Yes, but “greener” in this definition does not mean “more biodiverse” or “more healthy” or even necessarily “better.” It literally just means the world has more of the color green, both on land and in the ocean. This can be good, but it can also be bad, depending on where the green is and why it’s there. Scientists think some greening might be because of CO2, but they’re not sure how much. They do know at least a third is because of intense tree-planting and agricultural policy in China and India. (Read more here).

“We have far more people die of the cold than die of the heat.” That’s currently true, but climate change doesn’t just cause death by heat. It causes death by wildfire, floods, tropical storms, vector-borne disease, infectious disease, water-related illness, rising sea levels, malnutrition, and conflict. Also, peer-reviewed research published last month showed that without extreme mitigation and adaptation efforts, the rise in heat deaths will substantially outweigh the decrease in cold deaths over time. (Read more here)

Climate scientists I spoke to also agreed that Wright’s statements were misleading. “This is just a regurgitation of disinformative talking points,” said Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s total antiscientific nonsense in service of a fossil fuel industry-driven administrative agenda.”

But for Wright, these three made-up “plus sides” were enough to dismiss the threat of climate change completely. “The bottom line is, it’s just nowhere near the world’s biggest problem today,” Wright said. “Not even close.”

Perhaps he’s right. Sure, there are downsides to the climate track we’re currently on: Nearly all the world’s coral reefs dying; widespread population displacement from extreme weather and rising seas; worldwide food production dropping by as much as half; and hundreds of thousands of animal and plant species facing extinction, to name just a few.

Drought is pushing tens of millions of people to the edge of starvation around the world, in a foretaste of a global crisis that is rapidly deepening with climate breakdown.

More than 90 million people in eastern and southern Africa are facing extreme hunger after record-breaking drought across many areas, ensuing widespread crop failures and the death of livestock. In Somalia, a quarter of the population is now edging towards starvation, and at least a million people have been displaced.

The situation has been years in the making. One-sixth of the population of southern Africa needed food aid last August. In Zimbabwe, last year’s corn crop was down 70% year on year, and 9,000 cattle died.

These examples are just the beginning of a worldwide catastrophe that is gathering pace, according to a report on drought published on Wednesday. In regions across the world, drought and water mismanagement are leading to shortages that are hitting food supplies, energy and public health.

Mark Svoboda, the founding director of the US National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC), and co-author of the report, said: “This is not a dry spell. This is a slow-moving global catastrophe, the worst I’ve ever seen.”

In Latin America, drought led to a severe drop in water levels in the Panama canal, grounding shipping and drastically reducing trade, and increasing costs. Traffic dropped by more than a third between October 2023 and January 2024.

By early 2024, Morocco had experienced six consecutive years of drought, leading to a 57% water deficit. In Spain, a 50% fall in olive production, driven by a lack of rainfall, has caused olive oil prices to double, while in Turkey land degradation has left 88% of the country at risk of desertification, and demands from agriculture have emptied aquifers. Dangerous sinkholes have opened up as a result of overextraction.

Svoboda said: “The Mediterranean countries represent canaries in the coalmine for all modern economies. The struggles experienced by Spain, Morocco and Turkey to secure water, food and energy under persistent drought offer a preview of water futures under unchecked global warming. No country, regardless of wealth or capacity, can afford to be complacent.”

The impacts of drought stretch far beyond the borders of stricken countries. The report warned that drought had disrupted the production and supply chains of key crops such as rice, coffee and sugar. In 2023-2024, dry conditions in Thailand and India led to shortages that increased the price of sugar by 9% in the US.

Wednesday’s report follows a series of recent warnings on the world’s water crisis. Fresh water is in sharper demand than ever, but a combination of global heating, which is changing rainfall patterns to make dry areas drier and in others replacing steady rain with more extreme cloudbursts, and the widespread mismanagement and pollution of water resources have left the world on the brink.

Demand for fresh water will outstrip supply by 40% by the end of this decade, and more than half of the world’s food production will be at risk of failure in the next 25 years, according to the biggest report yet on the state of the world’s water resources, published last autumn.

Today marks World Environment Day, a symbolic annual observance intended to raise awareness about ecological crises and inspire action to preserve the Earth. Image taken from Internet Yet in an era defined by accelerating climate collapse, biospheric degradation, and the enclosure of commons into commodified data points, mere awareness is no longer sufficient—nor is celebration. What is needed…