Life-cycle analysis study suggests eating less meat
A recent Austrian and Dutch study shows the production of one kilogram of beef in Brazil produces 335kg of CO2, which corresponds approximately to the emissions of driving an average European car for more than 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles), according to the study by Kurt Schmidinger and Elke Stehfest entitled Including CO2 implications of land in LCAs—method and example for livestock products. Even Dutch beef amounts to 22 kg CO2 or 111 kilometers in a car.
Schmidinger (University of Vienna) and Stehfest (PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency) developed a fundamental enhancement of the commonly used life cycle assessment (LCA) method for foods, which now appears online in the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment.