skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Friday, March 29, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Climate Impact of Meat and Dairy Bigger than Fossil Companies

play audio
Play

Tuesday, November 21, 2017   

DENVER – If the meat and dairy industries continue as usual, the Paris Climate Accord will be moot and a climate catastrophe inevitable. So says a new report that - for the first time - quantifies greenhouse-gas emissions from the five biggest global meat and dairy companies.

The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy is one of the authors of the report.

IATP's Climate Change director Ben Lilliston says the problem is systemic - the way animals are raised, processed and distributed.

"We're not blaming farmers," he stresses. "Farmers and producers are caught in a much larger system. It really is the companies' responsibility to shift the way that they raise animals and the way they work with farmers and raising animals."

The industry says production is designed to keep food affordable. But Lilliston says policymakers need to figure out how to reward food producers who keep climate change in mind. Consumers also can help by buying food from sustainable sources.

Lilliston says dairy especially has undergone massive change in recent decades.

"It's a shift from sort of a pasture-based way of raising dairy cows or having sort of a mix to really having them confined, whether it's a feedlot in the California model or a more indoor, confined operation," he explains.

The report names the companies behind the emissions: They are Brazil-based JBS Meat, U.S.-based Cargill, Dairy Farmers of America, Tyson Foods and New Zealand-based Fonterra Group.


get more stories like this via email

more stories
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week about the popular abortion pill Mifepristone and will weigh in on whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was correct in how it can be dosed and prescribed. (Ascannio/Adobe Stock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

Missouri residents are worried about future access to birth control. The latest survey from The Right Time, an initiative based in Missouri…


Social Issues

play sound

Wisconsin children from low-income families are now on track to get nutritious foods over the summer. Federal officials have approved the Badger …

Social Issues

play sound

Almost 2,900 people are unsheltered on any given night in the Beehive State. Gov. Spencer Cox is celebrating signing nine bills he says are geared …


The U.S. teaching workforce remains primarily white while the percentage of Black teachers has declined. However, the percentage of Asian and Latinx teachers is rising.(WavebreakMediaMicro/Adobestock)

Social Issues

play sound

Education advocates are calling on lawmakers to increase funding for programs to combat the teacher shortage. Around 37% of schools nationwide …

Environment

play sound

New York's Legislature is considering a bill to get clean-energy projects connected to the grid faster. It's called the RAPID Act, for "Renewable …

Social Issues

play sound

Earlier this month, a new Arizona Public Service rate hike went into effect and one senior advocacy group said those on a fixed income may struggle …

Social Issues

play sound

Michigan recently implemented a significant juvenile justice reform package following recommendations from a task force made up of prosecutors…

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021