LONDON, July 19 (Xinhua) -- Increasing global meat consumption is likely to have a "devastating environmental impact", a recent research has suggested.
"What's happening is a big concern and if meat consumption goes up further it's going to be massively more so," said Professor Tim Key, an epidemiologist at the University of Oxford and co-author of the research.
"On a broad level you can say that eating substantial amounts of meat is bad for the environment," he added.
The research, published in the latest issue of the journal Science, explained how meat production, especially livestock, affected the environment.
Livestock production currently accounts for 15 percent of all anthropogenic emissions, including carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide.
It is also a factor causing biodiversity loss because forests and wild countryside are often given over to agricultural land to grow animal feed, researchers found.
The paper also pointed out that a meat-heavy diet might have negative consequences on health. For example, nitrates used in many processed meat products could be carcinogenic. However, such impacts are much lighter than those on the environment.
