SciAm reports:
- Pound for pound, beef production generates greenhouse gases that contribute more than 13 times as much to global warming as do the gases emitted from producing chicken. For potatoes, the multiplier is 57.
- Beef consumption is rising rapidly, both as population increases and as people eat more meat.
- Producing the annual beef diet of the average American emits as much greenhouse gas as a car driven more than 1,800 miles.
I primarily focus on technology-based solutions since they can be the basis of government policy and since many websites are devoted to personal behavior choices, like No Impact Man.
Behavior-based strategies really only work on a large scale when societal values change (and/or prices jump) sharply, which is certainly inevitable in the coming years as more and more people come to grips with the increasingly painful reality of human-caused global warming (see "What are the near-term climate Pearl Harbors?") and realize just how immoral it is to maintain current levels of GHG emissions per capita at the expense of the next 50 generations to walk the earth (NOAA stunner: Climate change "largely irreversible for 1000 years," with permanent Dust Bowls in Southwest and around the globe).
For a good article on how one meat-loving environmentalist has changed his behavior, see Mike Tidwell's "The Low-Carbon Diet."
This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
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Comments
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:37 pm
28 Jan 2009
In other words, beef produced in America and most other first world countries is several times less GHG intensive than the world average. That's because we no longer destroy carbon sinks to feed cattle whereas many poorer parts of the world still do. Eating less beef is a good idea but most of the damage is from land use change for grazing and feeding cattle for and by poor people who can now afford to eat more of it.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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amazingdrx Posted 11:18 pm
28 Jan 2009
Furthermore, organically fertilized crop land also sequesters carbon. By recycling manure, crop waste, sewage, and the other waste stream components of meat production, the whole food system would end up sequestering carbon.
If dead wood at risk of massive GHG release from forest fires due to drought were added along with weed and algae overgrowth from fertlizer, manure, and sewage run off polluted rivers and lakes, the sequestration levels of cropland could even exceed natural sequestration levels.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Biodiversivist Posted 12:23 am
29 Jan 2009
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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amazingdrx Posted 12:53 am
29 Jan 2009
I need to reiterate it with a question incorporating the whole soil as carbon sink organic waste stream recycling concept. Maybe I'll write it out and give his aid a copy at the next meeting, after I ask about it.
Anyone out there in activist mode, if your senators and congresspersons don't do these listening sessions in local communities, ask them why not.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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BernardBrown Posted 4:25 am
29 Jan 2009
In addition, whatever the carbon sequestration, raising beef to slaughter on pasture alone is slower than a feedlot CAFO, so even in a world of all perfect pasture management, we'd never be able to replace the current levels of production, and certainly not the levels forecasted to be demanded by the the Thirld World in the future.
In the end we're all going to have to cut back, and while what we do end up buying should probably be pastured in a sustainable way (I know I do my best at the farmer's market), we're still going to have to eat beef, etc. as smaller portions of our diet, similar to how we're all working on getting electricity from a more sustainable mix just as we're working to cut down on our overall usage.
Change the world one lunch at a time. Find out how at www.pbjcampaign.org
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Delay And Deny Posted 12:24 pm
29 Jan 2009
At Khan's Mongolian Grill today I ordered the large bowl with two portions of chicken and one portion of lamb. I should have gotten the all you can eat, because it cost the same, plus I get a free drink.
But if I should do that (get the all you can eat) I will be sure to order only chicken and fish because of what you say.
Although, I do like lamb and pork.
You know you're not a liberal when...
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CyberBrook Posted 9:59 am
30 Jan 2009
Eco-Eating: Eating as if the Earth Matters at
http://www.brook.com/veg
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