Thesis Statement
While milk products may be delicious, reducing the dairy industry’s support is an important step to reduce pollution due to its amount of greenhouse gas emissions.
Introduction
Our job as occupants of this earth is to reduce our footprint as much as we can. This planet is our home and we only have one Earth. It is no surprise that pollution is an issue with irreversible, devasting effects. There are many, many contributions to the pollution and it’s overwhelming to battle each enemy. The emissions of greenhouse gas contribute to pollution. This includes carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gases. Factories and vehicles produce these gases amongst many other things.
Greenhouse gases are harmful to us and our environment for a number of reasons. They contribute to air pollution and smog so in turn, they can cause respiratory issues. It affects climate change by trapping heat from the sun. This can lead to things such as extreme weather, throwing off the Earth’s natural balance. Therefore it’s vital for us to reduce our production of greenhouse gases. There are many options to do this but I will be focusing on the dairy industry. Taking a small step to switch to almond milk may save the Earth from experience the worst outcome of pollution. If everyone took a small step towards saving the Earth, that is a lot of greenhouse gas humanity would be eliminating.
This article gives a large overview of the dairy industry. Such as how most milk doesn’t come from a farm of grass-fed cows, but rather “massive megadairies housing thousands of cows in miserable conditions”. In these conditions, their manure is stored in huge pits where they could potentially contaminate nearby water.
There are solutions to fix the complex industry from the treatment of the cows and the environmental harm. Production could be at a lower density and away from water and local environments. Growth hormones should be eliminated from the cows’ diet as should the unhealthy production push, both are detrimental to the cows’ health. This gives a view on the efforts that can be taken to fix the dairy industry without destroying it. It offers food for thought on an alternate reality where industry and nature are in harmony.
This article discusses the effect of dairy cows in particular, not necessarily the dairy process. The manure of the cows is one of the largest sources of California’s methane emissions. This introduces the idea that milk production has a lot of layers. The demand for milk equates to the demand for cows. This directly translates to the breeding of cows and in turn, methane production as well.
