[SustainableTompkins] livestock production creates more greenhouse gases than transportation

[Tony Del Plato]

Thanks for this Gay. Frances Moore Lappe's book, Diet for a Small Planet is
even more relevant now than when it was written more than 30 years ago.
Tony Del Plato

On 3/16/07, GayNicholson at aol.com <GayNicholson at aol.com> wrote:
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> from the February 20, 2007 edition -
> http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0220/p03s01-ussc.html
> Humans' beef with livestock: a warmer planet
> American meat eaters are responsible for 1.5 more tons  of carbon dioxide
> per
> person than vegetarians every year.
> By _Brad  Knickerbocker_
> (
> http://www.csmonitor.com/cgi-bin/encryptmail.pl?ID=C2F2E1E4A0CBEEE9E3EBE5F2E2EFE3EBE5F2&url=/2007/0220/p03s01-ussc.html)  |
> Staff
> writer of The  Christian Science Monitor
>
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> 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."
> • Staff writer Peter Spotts contributed to this  report.
>
> _Full HTML  version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and
> related  links_ (http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0220/p03s01-ussc.html)
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> ----------------------------------------------------
> Gay  Nicholson, Ph.D.
>
> 607-533-7312 (home office)
> 607-279-6618  (cell)
>
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> gaynicholson at aol.com
>
> Sustainable Tompkins
> Program  Coordinator
> w_ww.sustainabletompkins.org_ (http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/)
>
> Southern Tier Energy$mart Communities
> Regional  Coordinator
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> 615 Willow  Ave., Ithaca, NY 14850
> agn1 at cornell.edu
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-- 
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