[SustainableTompkins] FW: Re: [flwater] How big is your foodprint?

[Anthony Ingraham]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: 
To: flwater at yahoogroups.com
Sent: 11/5/2007 3:23:48 PM 
Subject: Re: [flwater] How big is your foodprint?


However land use is only one of the areas. Besides the health risks of eating animal based foods, even free ranging animals generate significant amounts of methane ...much less than concentrated feed lots but still considerable.

Consider the following and also the attached. Suggestion: read The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, PhD and Thomas Campbell. 

Jeanne




THE IMPACT OF LIVESTOCK FARMING ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND HEALTH
    The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported that livestock farming generates more heat-trapping gases than transportation.
     Livestock farming results in 9% of human-related carbon dioxide (CO2), and 37% of all human-induced methane [with 21 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2]. Methane is largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants. It also causes 65% of nitrous oxide emissions [with 310 times the GWP of CO2}
        
 Livestock farming occupies 30% of Earth’s total land surface, mostly for permanent pasture. This also includes the use of 33% of the planet’s fertile land to produce livestock feed.
      
20% of pastures are considered degraded through over- grazing, compaction, and erosion. These plus poor policies in the drylands have resulted in an increase in land that has turned to desert. 
       
70% of the acreage of former rainforests in Amazon has been converted to grazing.
        
Livestock farming causes extensive water pollution from live- stock wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries and fertilizers, and the pesticides used to spray feed crops.
       
 Substantial public health risks have occurred because animal diseases occasionally also infect humans. Example: bird flu
     
 Production of plant-based foods consumes far fewer resources. Consider the health benefits of eating more of those foods, while reducing consumption of animal products to at most a deck of card’s worth a day. Such personal changes could eliminate over a ton of CO2-equivalent emissions per year, saving more energy than switching to a hybrid car. 
  
      2.2 pounds of beef is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution than driving for 3 hours while leaving all the lights on back home.

 -----Original Message-----
From: Anthony Ingraham <owlgorge at earthlink.net>
To: Sustainable Tompkins <sustainabletompkins at lists.mutualaid.org>; flwater <flwater at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 2:48 pm
Subject: [flwater] How big is your foodprint?


Diet for small planet may be most efficient if it includes dairy and a little meat, Cornell researchers report
By Susan Lang
A low-fat vegetarian diet is very efficient in terms of how much land is needed to support it. But adding some dairy products and a limited amount of meat may actually increase this efficiency, Cornell researchers suggest. 
See the article at:
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Oct07/diets.ag.footprint.sl.html

Tony Ingraham
owlgorge at earthlink.net



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