[SustainableTompkins] How big is your foodprint?

[senecajean at aol.com]

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

Consider the following. Suggestion: read The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, PhD and Thomas Campbell.  It's superb! If I wasn't totally convinced before of the preferability of a plant-based diet, I am now.

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 gasses 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.

 

UNITED NATIONS FOOD and AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATION  

http://www.fao.org

Livestock a major threat to environment Remedies urgently Needed      http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/ 1000448/index.html

    

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

Humans' beef with livestock: a warmer planet http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0220/p03s01-ussc.html  

  

 

EARTHSAVE

   

http://earthsave.org/

A New Global Warming Strategy  

   

 

NEW SCIENTIST 

NewScientist.com news service    Meat is murder on the environment        

SYLVESTER JOHNSON, PhD, Applied Physics

Non- profit website: www.climatehealth.net

Email: ContactSJ at mac.com                  

Books by MDs that describe the scientific basis for the health benefits of plant-based foods are listed on www.climatehealth.net/Healthspan.html. Free downloads of audio interviews with leading nutritionist T. Colin Campbell Ph.D. are available from the non-profit website www.climatehealth.net/Interviews.html. The first interview covers research about food’s impact on cancer. 

  

CLIMATE CHANGE ACTION GROUP

To get involved contact the Climate Change Action Group of Central NY. Sigrid Kulkowitz at flyingleaps at verizon.net, 607-262-0185 or Jeanne Fudala at Senecajean at aol.com

 

-----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: [SustainableTompkins] How big is your foodprint?




Diet for small planet may be most efficient if it includes dairy and a little 
eat, Cornell researchers report
y Susan Lang
 low-fat vegetarian diet is very efficient in terms of how much land is needed 
o support it. But adding some dairy products and a limited amount of meat may 
ctually increase this efficiency, Cornell researchers suggest. 
ee the article at:
ttp://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Oct07/diets.ag.footprint.sl.html
Tony Ingraham
wlgorge at earthlink.net
______________________________________________
SS, archives, subscription & listserv information for:
ustainableTompkins at lists.mutualaid.org
ttp://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins
ree hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org


________________________________________________________________________
Email and AIM finally together. You've gotta check out free AOL Mail! - http://mail.aol.com