Sustainability and Social Justice

Environmental Injustice in the Spatial Distribution of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations: A Case Study from Ohio, USA

Document Type

Book Chapter

Abstract

This chapter examines some tentative steps taken to mitigate greenhouse gases (GHGs) from livestock production and the potential implications of these actions on the social and environmental systems within which livestock production occurs. It is our contention that, given New Zealand's attempt to include agricultural emissions in its national GHG mitigation program, the county's meat and dairy sectors provide an exemplary case study for investigating the political ecology of livestock production in context of climate change. The chapter reviews the emergence and historical context of livestock production in New Zealand. Then it examines the attempt to regulate GHG emissions through the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and argue that both technical challenges inherent to GHG accounting in livestock production and political opposition impeded implementation of the ETS's coverage of livestock emissions. The political ecology of livestock production in GHG emissions must account for a broader set of actors than multi-national corporations and small-scale pastoralists, or states, economic elites and family farmers.

Publication Title

Political Ecologies of Meat

Publication Date

5-15-2015

First Page

127

Last Page

136

ISBN

9781315818283

DOI

10.4324/9781315818283

Keywords

Ohio, USA, environmental injustice, animal feeding, quality of life, water pollution, poor communities

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