Meat is one of the main food items consumed worldwide. The meat consumption of developed countries is relatively high than that of the developing countries.
New studies have shown that meat consumption must be reduced in order to reduce their related greenhouse gas emissions. The most recent publications show that we must cut the meat consumption per person in half by 2050 in order to have a significant contribution.
Nitrous oxide (N2O) is one of the most effective greenhouse gasses. In fact, N2O is the third highest contributing gas to climate change, trailing behind CO2 and CH4(methane).
It is hence vital to keep the amount of N2O in equilibrium inside the atmosphere in order to control climate change.
Dr Eric A Davidson of the Woods Hole Research Center, Massachusetts studied this issue in depth and published his results on April 13 in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
In his study, he states that not only the meat consumption but also the industrial N2O emissions has to be reduced to 50 percent.
Farm animal manure and synthetic fertilizers are two of the top sources of N2O. When such compounds containing nitrogen are exposed to microbes living in soil, they are broken down and converted into N2O.
This is a very common process with fertilizers and animal manure. The amount of nitrogen released in the atmosphere by such causes can be controlled by proper usage of fertilizers and reducing the amount of livestock manure.
