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52 CANADA'S FARMPROGRESS SHOWPresented By Viterra June 2019
Debates pitting environmental benefits from
cultured meat against farm-raised livestock may
overlook the higher carbon emissions some
cultured-meat processes generate, a recent study
warns.
General reliance on carbon-based fuels means all
meat production systems produce potentially
harmful greenhouse gases.
But the most energy-intensive of the four
cultured-meat systems in the Oxford University
study are likely to emit higher levels of carbon
dioxide (CO2) than livestock production, physicists
John Lynch and Raymond Pierrehumbert concluded
from their research.
While cattle emissions include CO2, they also
include nitrous oxide and methane. The latter gases,
which are animal digestion byproducts, dissipate
more quickly in the atmosphere than CO2.
“Our current ‘carbon footprints’ don’t do a very
good job of recognizing that CO2 emissions stick
around in the atmosphere for a very long time, while
methane emissions don’t,” Lynch added in an email
statement.
As a result, “cultured meat is not prima facie
climatically superior to cattle,” the scientists con-
cluded in their February journal article.
CULTURED VS. FARM-RAISEDMEATS By JIMALGIE