Jack Reid – Natural Resource Conservation/Urban Forestry
Ashley Lees – Sustainable Food and Farming
Anna Marco – Animal Science
Anders Salmonsen – Building Construction Technology
Global warming is one of the biggest problems facing our planet currently, and this issue will only continue to create more negative impacts in the future. Our world wide industries and societies are rapidly creating greenhouse gases that increase the rate at which our atmosphere and environments are changing. Through things such as the burning of fossil fuels to create electricity or the use of gasoline in cars, humans are emitting immense amounts of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane that contribute to this problem (Denchak, 2016). There is a source of these greenhouse gases that is often overlooked. That source is the practice of raising cattle for beef and dairy products. Agriculture activities in the United States are responsible for 7.9% of Total Greenhouse gas emissions and cows are the largest contributor (Stackhouse-Lawson, et. al., 2015). The dairy and beef consumption in the United States directly relates to global warming due to methane emissions that occur as a byproduct of this industry (Hovhannisyan & Grigoryan, 2016). The rate at which global warming is increasing is alarming and something must be done about it. One way to reduce methane emissions is to focus on the demand for beef and dairy products and how we can decrease this demand. Continue Reading