Animal Agriculture

One documentary I watched recently was called “Cowspriacy”.  This documentary looked at the agriculture and the meat market and all of the negative effects that it has rising the global temperature.  I found out that methane produced by the livestock is more powerful than CO2 but it is out of the atmosphere faster than CO2.  However, water and land consumption were also a big part of the message.  An article said that animal agriculture is responsible for anywhere between 18 and 51% of total greenhouse gas emissions.  I was disappointed to find there little is being talked about in terms of animal agriculture at COP21.  It seems that this is a powerful industry and it appears difficult to make changes here.  There is an expectation of this business growing in terms of production and consumption rather than decreasing which seems to be an environmentally more sustainable option.  An article found that agriculture is responsible for 93% of water depletion worldwide.  It seems to me that this topic needs to at least be talked about at COP21 at the least.  This might be one of the harder tasks to tackle because of the ties of companies but sooner or later this issue must be brought up if we want to really address the climate issues today.  The documentary and some articles have suggested not eating any meat or dairy to pull these businesses out and not let them be a major contributor to global warming.  I think that it is essential that restrictions are made on the animal agriculture industry as soon as possible.