Facts

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• Total emissions from global livestock was 7.1 Gigatonnes of CO2-eq per year, which represented 14.5 percent of all global anthropogenic GHG emissions in 2005.

  Source: Gerber et al (2013, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization)

• "GHG emissions from cattle represent about 65 percent of the livestock sector emissions (4.6 gigatonnes CO₂-eq), making cattle the largest contributor to total sector emissions."

  Source: Gerber et al (2013, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization)

• "Grazing land for ruminants covers more than 25% of the global land surface, and about 70% of global agricultural land." Meaning, if everyone switched to a vegan diet, 100% of this land could be recovered. Cropland area could also decrease because the additional land needed to grow plant protein might be less than the land that would have been needed to grow livestock feed.

  Source: Poore & Nemecek (2018, Science) https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987

• "Today's agricultural system is also incredibly resource intensive, covering ~43% of the world's ice- and desert-free land. Of this land, ~87% is for food and 13% is for biofuels and textile crops or is allocated to nonfood uses such as wool and leather..."

  Source: Poore & Nemecek (2018, Science) https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987

• One study found the water footprint of a 150 gram (1/3 pound) beef burger (2350 Liters621 gallons) to be almost 15 times that of a 150 gram soy burger (158 Liters42 gallons). That's a difference equivalent to 19 fifteen minute showers (7.6Lpm2gpm) for a single burger! Shocking, right? Additionally, this same study found the water footprint of 1 Liter (0.26 gallons) of cow’s milk (1050 Liters277 gallons) to be about 3.5 times that of 1 Liter of soy milk (297 Liters78.5 gallons).

  Source: Ercin et al (2011)

• 4% of American adults are vegan or vegetarian (10 million adults).

  Source: Vegetarian Resource Group (2019)

• "...meat, aquaculture, eggs, and dairy use ~83% of the world's farmland and contribute 56 to 58% of food's different emissions, despite providing only 37% of our protein and 18% of our calories."

  Source: Poore & Nemecek (2018, Science) https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987

• If all humans went herbivorous, "land no longer required for food production could remove ~8.1 billion metric tons of CO₂ from the atmosphere each year over 100 years as natural vegetation reestablishes and soil carbon re-accumulates, based on simulations conducted in the IMAGE integrated assessment model". This would represent 16.5% of annual global GHG emissions (2004 reference year).

  Sources:
  Poore & Nemecek (2018, Science) https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987
  Gerber et al (2013, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization)

• Per capita meat consumption in the United States is three times the global average.

  Source: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987