Meat production spews more greenhouse gases than a three-hour joyride

Too, Too Sullied Flesh

The next time you chomp a hamburger, think of this: the process of getting that beef to your bun may have spewed more greenhouse-gas emissions than leaving all your house lights blazing while taking a three-hour joyride in your car. Researchers looked at beef production in Japan and its impact on climate, water, and energy, and came up with sobering statistics. Wanna hear more? Not including transportation of meat from farm to store, production of 2.2 pounds of beef (OK, yes, that's a big burger) also spews the same amount of CO2 as an average European car driven 155 miles, and uses enough energy to keep a 100-watt light bulb bright for nearly 20 days. Methane-heavy cow burps and farts comprise most of the greenhouse-gas emissions; two-thirds of the energy used by the industry goes to producing and transporting feed. What could be done? Improve waste management, the study authors say, or shorten the interval between calving. Or, if we may suggest something totally crazy: Stop eating so much meat.

straight to the source: New Scientist, Daniele Fanelli, 18 Jul 2007

see also, in Grist List: Scientists seek digestive aids for cows

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Comments: (3 comments)

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is it fossil carbon?

I have brought this up before in several other discussions on this site. I contend that the methane produced by the bovine digestive tract is not inherently deserving of the designation greenhouse gas, because it does not necessarily represent carbon that originates from a fossil source. Just like forest fires, the carbon emitted represents C's that are simply being cycled in the global terrestrial carbon cycle. They represent C's that were already present in the pool, and they do not represent C's that are being added to the system. At least not neccesarily.

To the extent that cattle feed has a fossil carbon footprint, then yes, it IS contributing to the problem. There are many ways in which fossil carbon is added throughout this process, from tractor diesel and petro-based fertilizer to processing and marketing feed. But, I would contend, a locally-oriented, pasture based beef operation has a far smaller fossil fuel footprint than feedlot beef in the mainstream food system.

Don't articles like the one above oversimplify the situation? Isn't blaming the cow, per se, inaccurate?

by gmunger at 12:04 PM on 20 Jul 2007

grass vs. grain

While not knowledgeable about the science of methane, every time I hear this statistic I have to wonder whether the science is being done on grain fed cattle or grass fed cattle. A cow has four stomachs for a reason; to digest the almost indigestible. When you feed it grain, which it does not in nature eat, it entirely inverts the good cholesterol and the bad cholesterol in the meat. (And that, by the way, can happen in the short 6 week "finishing" period) If grain does that to the meat of the animal, it surely affects the digestion as well. I neither advocate eating meat or avoiding it. I just know when we screw with mother nature, i.e. feeding grain to a ruminant, mother natures returns the favor. For more on this check out eatwild.com

by Elizabeth Olsen Rowell at 12:32 PM on 20 Jul 2007

Ruminating on rumination

I think all ruminants produce methane as a byproduct of their digestion, which relies on fermentation to break down hydrocarbons. So, while there may be good reasons to avoid grain-fed beef, I'm not sure GG impact is one of them. Gmunger is right that we should differentiate between cycling carbon and fossil carbon, although I think the case could be made that carbon cycling between CO2 and plants has a lower impact than carbon cycling between plants and methane does. Methane is a really major GG.

I don't eat a lot of meat but I do like wool (produced by ruminating sheep) and other natural animal-based fibers. I also like the idea of restoring bison to the Great Plains, having moose in my yard, and protecting herds of ungulates elsewhere. If we can't have beef because of methane, does that mean we should also discourage large populations fo these other animals?

by rivergal at 12:45 PM on 23 Jul 2007

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