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View Full Version : Humans' beef with livestock: a warmer planet



stephanie
02-20-2007, 12:21 AM
This article is about how cows cause global warming..The one I read earlier, was about the overpopulation of humans...It didn't suggest we start killing off people in it, but I expect that will come soon...:no:

American meat eaters are responsible for 1.5 more tons of carbon dioxide per person than vegetarians every year.
By Brad Knickerbocker | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
As Congress begins to tackle the causes and cures of global warming, the action focuses on gas-guzzling vehicles and coal-fired power plants, not on lowly bovines.

Yet livestock are a major emitter of greenhouse gases that cause climate change. And as meat becomes a growing mainstay of human diet around the world, changing what we eat may prove as hard as changing what we drive.

It's not just the well-known and frequently joked-about flatulence and manure of grass-chewing cattle that's the problem, according to a recent report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Land-use changes, especially deforestation to expand pastures and to create arable land for feed crops, is a big part. So is the use of energy to produce fertilizers, to run the slaughterhouses and meat-processing plants, and to pump water.

"Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems," Henning Steinfeld, senior author of the report, said when the FAO findings were released in November.

Livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions as measured in carbon dioxide equivalent, reports the FAO. This includes 9 percent of all CO2 emissions, 37 percent of methane, and 65 percent of nitrous oxide. Altogether, that's more than the emissions caused by transportation.

The latter two gases are particularly troubling – even though they represent far smaller concentrations in atmosphere than CO2, which remains the main global warming culprit. But methane has 23 times the global warming potential (GWP) of CO2 and nitrous oxide has 296 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide.

Methane could become a greater problem if the permafrost in northern latitudes thaws with increasing temperatures, releasing the gas now trapped below decaying vegetation. What's more certain is that emissions of these gases can spike as humans consume more livestock products.

As prosperity increased around the world in recent decades, the number of people eating meat (and the amount one eats every year) has risen steadily. Between 1970 and 2002, annual per capita meat consumption in developing countries rose from 11 kilograms (24 lbs.) to 29 kilograms (64 lbs.), according to the FAO. (In developed countries, the comparable figures were 65 kilos and 80 kilos.) As population increased, total meat consumption in the developing world grew nearly five-fold over that period.

Beyond that, annual global meat production is projected to more than double from 229 million tons at the beginning of the decade to 465 million tons in 2050. This makes livestock the fastest growing sector of global agriculture.

Animal-rights activists and those advocating vegetarianism have been quick to pick up on the implications of the FAO report.

"Arguably the best way to reduce global warming in our lifetimes is to reduce or eliminate our consumption of animal products," writes Noam Mohr in a report for EarthSave International.

Changing one's diet can lower greenhouse gas emissions quicker than shifts away from fossil fuel burning technologies, Mr. Mohr writes, because the turnover rate for farm animals is shorter than that for cars and power plants.

"Even if cheap, zero-emission fuel sources were available today, they would take many years to build and slowly replace the massive infrastructure our economy depends upon today," he writes. "Similarly, unlike carbon dioxide which can remain in the air for more than a century, methane cycles out of the atmosphere in just eight years, so that lower methane emissions quickly translate to cooling of the earth."

Researchers at the University of Chicago compared the global warming impact of meat eaters with that of vegetarians and found that the average American diet – including all food processing steps – results in the annual production of an extra 1.5 tons of CO2-equivalent (in the form of all greenhouse gases) compared to a no-meat diet. Researchers Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin concluded that dietary changes could make more difference than trading in a standard sedan for a more efficient hybrid car, which reduces annual CO2 emissions by roughly one ton a year.

"It doesn't have to be all the way to the extreme end of vegan," says Dr. Eshel, whose family raised beef cattle in Israel. "If you simply cut down from two burgers a week to one, you've already made a substantial difference."

manu1959
02-20-2007, 12:25 AM
what a load of shit...........

MtnBiker
02-20-2007, 12:27 AM
Down with SUV's and SteakHouses!!!








:blowup:

avatar4321
02-20-2007, 12:42 AM
Im so tired of this global warming crap. I bet environmentalist who saw Ghost Rider thought the reason Nicholas Cage's head was on fire was because of Global warming.

stephanie
02-20-2007, 01:24 AM
These global warming alarmist have an agenda..

And it damn sure isn't saving the planet..

Dilloduck
02-20-2007, 07:08 AM
These global warming alarmist have an agenda..

And it damn sure isn't saving the planet..

It must have been hot as hell for the Indians living amongst the millions of bison roaming the great praries and grasslands.

Nuc
02-20-2007, 07:47 AM
Beef is very inefficient. A lot of problems (both ecological and culinary) would be solved by diversifying the food supply.

Birdzeye
02-20-2007, 09:07 AM
Beef is very inefficient. A lot of problems (both ecological and culinary) would be solved by diversifying the food supply.

I have to agree. IMO most of us would be better off if we ate less (not necessarily NO) meat and more grains and veggies.

I like nothing better than a meal of eggplant parmesan (well, I didn't say I wanted to be a vegan!).

Nuc
02-20-2007, 09:10 AM
I have to agree. IMO most of us would be better off if we ate less (not necessarily NO) meat and more grains and veggies.

I like nothing better than a meal of eggplant parmesan (well, I didn't say I wanted to be a vegan!).

I love meat, but if we ate more good quality meat and less crap we'd be much better off. Better an ounce of high grade proscuitto than a pound of MacDonald's crap.

Birdzeye
02-20-2007, 09:16 AM
I love meat, but if we ate more good quality meat and less crap we'd be much better off. Better an ounce of high grade proscuitto than a pound of MacDonald's crap.


Yeah, McD's is crap. The only fast food place that is half way decent, IMO, is Chicken Out.

Now that Lent is almost upon us, some of us will be having meatless Fridays. It's no big deal, pasta.

darin
02-20-2007, 11:24 AM
Last night I drove my 4x4, 15mpg 4-Door Truck to -Cp's house, and had an 8 oz freshly-ground HAMBURGER. Holy CRAP this burger was HUGE! At least 2" thick in the center, and about a palms' width in diameter. We ate it on french-bread slices...a little Gorgonzola and balsamic on the bun...wow. HELLUVA good burger (burp). Course, eating so much helped ME contribute to Global warming, much to the chagrin of my wife, who had to lay there beside me holding her nose.

avatar4321
02-20-2007, 01:07 PM
You know if beef causes such global warming problems then we should eat more meat.

darin
02-20-2007, 01:22 PM
You know if beef causes such global warming problems then we should eat more meat.

Excellent! We'll teach those f'ing cows to warm up OUR Planet!

Gaffer
02-20-2007, 07:34 PM
It's only American beef that causes the global warming. The billions of other bison and cattle relatives that live throughout the world don't count to these squareheads.

There is an answer to global warming. Get rid of the global warming nuts and it will go away. I promise.

MtnBiker
02-20-2007, 09:19 PM
Let's ban termites also;

A global database describing the geographical distribution of the biomass of termites and their emissions of methane and carbon dioxide has been constructed. Termite biomasses were assigned to various ecosystems using published measurements and a recent high-resolution (10' x 10') database of vegetation categories. The assigned biomasses were then combined with literature measurements of fluxes of methane and carbon dioxide from termites and extrapolated to give global emission estimates for each gas. The global emissions of methane and carbon dioxide are 19.7 ± 1.5 and 3500 ± 700 Mt yr[-1], respectively (1 Mt = 10[12] g). These emissions contribute approximately 4% and 2%, respectively, to the total global fluxes of these gases. This database gives an accurate distribution of the biomasses and gaseous emissions by termites and may be incorporated into global models of the atmosphere.

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=2510126

Yurt
02-20-2007, 10:18 PM
what a load of shit...........

Do you have a beef with the article?

Yurt
02-20-2007, 10:19 PM
I admit it, I am a global warming contributor. Taco Bell did me in and today... well, nuff said...