[SustainableTompkins] livestock production creates more greenhouse gases than transportation

[E. Frenay]

Hi folks,

I think it's important that we don't oversimplify issues too much. While I don't particularly disagree with anything in this article, especially since it focuses on the "average American diet," I think it distorts the picture a bit by lumping together all livestock production. The differences in energy usage, carbon emission, and landscape destruction between a conventional industrial-scale feedlot operation and a local pasture-based livestock producer places them on opposite ends of the spectrum. In fact, well-managed pasture actually sequesters an enormous volume of carbon, and in many cases helps build soil and regenerate land that was previously wasted by erosion (see any of Joel Salatin's writings for one of the best-known examples). 

When I think about the dual issues of peak oil and climate change, I can't help but wonder where our food will come from. Much of the land here in upstate NY is not appropriate for vegetable cropping, either because of soil type or slope. But it's ideal for growing grass. And livestock, depending on whether you're talking cattle, pigs, sheep, or poultry, can get from 30%-100% of their diet from grass, with no synthetic fertilizers and very few additional energy inputs. When we eat meat from local producers, not only are we supporting local economy, but often soil regeneration and carbon sequestration too. I think it's a win-win-win situation. Can we really say that a more vegetarian diet is always better, when many people's veggies come from California throughout the winter, and their primary protein source (beans) are grown in huge monocultures and rely on massive equipment and destructive soil tillage to cultivate? Can this really be better for the climate than local
 meat? My point is just that it's all shades of gray, but we always try to make it into black and white. 

I still eat a mostly vegetarian diet and grow most of my household's vegetables. But when I do choose to eat meat, I buy it from local growers who raised it on pasture. That's what works for me. Everyone makes the choices that feel right for them, but I just think it's always important to at least touch on the nuances of an issue, and be very careful about blanket statements like "a dietary change toward vegetarianism is better for the planet than trading in your sedan for a hybrid." 

Cheers,
Erica

Message: 2
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2007 10:11:42 -0400
From: "Tony Del Plato" 
Subject: Re: [SustainableTompkins] livestock production creates more
 greenhouse gases than transportation
To: "Sustainable Tompkins County listserv"
 
Message-ID:
 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=WINDOWS-1252; format=flowed

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  wrote:

> (http://www.csmonitor.com/)
>
> 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
>
>
> 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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