Environmental impact assessments | TableDebates

Agricultural Systems Paper on beef

Pelletier N, Pirog R, Rasmussen R (2010). "Comparative life cycle environmental impacts of three beef production strategies in the Upper Midwestern United States", Agricultural Systems 103 (2010) 380–389 This paper compares three US beef rearing systems. Cattle are finished either in: feedlot systems (having received hormone implants); backgrounding systems (also with hormone implants); or on pasture (no implants).

Life cycle measures in feed production for salmon aquaculture

In "Life cycle measures of biophysical sustainability in feed production for conventional and organic salmon aquaculture in the northeast pacific" it was found that the cumulative impacts of industrial society's high material/energy throughput compromise the stability of planetary biogeochemical cycles.

Public health benefits

Meat and dairy production & consumption: Exploring the livestock sector's contribution to the UK's greenhouse gas emissions

This paper explores the contribution that our consumption of livestock products in the UK makes to greenhouse gases, the complexities associated with attempts at quantifying these impacts, the options for mitigation and the environmental and welfare challenges these options may present.

Aviation and the Global Atmosphere

For a definitive analysis of the impact of aviation on climate change see the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report Aviation and the Global Atmosphere. The report is attached below.

Stern Review

The Stern Review examines the financial, human and other costs of failing to tackle climate change and concludes that this could amount to trillions of pounds, equivalent to shrinking the global economy by a fifth by 2050.