It is common knowledge that eating meat is bad for the environment. But there is no meat that produces as high carbon emissions as beef. Why? Beef is the main reason for deforestation and mostly destroys tropical rainforests around the world. Tropical rainforests maintain the global water cycle, absorb huge amounts of carbon dioxide and an important habitat for half of all animals and plants in the world. It underpins our world ecological system which produces food for us and environment to live in. So, avoid beef as much as possible, and it will have an immediate impact on reducing your carbon footprint. So much so, that cutting out beef and being just a chicken eater reduces carbon footprint more than going from a chicken eater to a vegetarian. This why beef causes so much deforestation:

To raise cattle

About 41% of deforestation occurs just clear land to raise cattle. Cattle need a lot of land to graze compared to other animals. The main countries these occur are in Latin America, particularly in Brazil. Between 2005 and 2013, 2 million hectares of rainforest were cleared each year. The Amazon rainforest stores 150-200 billion tons of carbon

To make food for cattle

On top of this an extra 18% of deforestation comes from growing soybeans to feed farm animals as well as palm oil. Cattle are fed on soybeans and nearly a million hectares of land per year is cleared to feed them and other animals. This happens most in countries such as Indonesia, Latin America and Africa, which are home to the largest tropical rainforests in the world. Below, research by Our World in Data shows the main drivers of deforestation between 2005-2013:

Beef compared to other meat

As can be seen from the diagram from research by Our World in Data, beef produces far more greenhouse gases than other meat.

The reason why is that cattle (and lamb) produce much more greenhouse emission than other animals is because they produce methane when digesting food, which they burp and release into the atmosphere. Methane is the second largest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide. This is why eating chicken, pigs and farmed fish as a substitute for beef can reduce your carbon footprint from your diet by 21% alone!

To put it simply, we are destroying the earth to eat beef! If we all gave up eating beef (or just had it occasionally), it would halve deforestation each year. This would radically change the world in its fight against climate change, protect crucial rainforests and our future. If you are going to do just one thing for the environment, this would be best to habit to adopt. It is the easiest and fastest thing to do as we move towards a net zero lifestyle.