IPCC’s Dr. Pachauri must be having a conniption fit about now, since he’s been an advocate of meat free global warming salvation.
From the American Chemical Society:
Eating less meat and dairy products won’t have major impact on global warming
SAN FRANCISCO, March 22, 2010 — Cutting back on consumption of meat and dairy products will not have a major impact in combating global warming — despite repeated claims that link diets rich in animal products to production of greenhouse gases. That’s the conclusion of a report presented here today at the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society.
Air quality expert Frank Mitloehner, Ph.D., who made the presentation, said that giving cows and pigs a bum rap is not only scientifically inaccurate, but also distracts society from embracing effective solutions to global climate change. He noted that the notion is becoming deeply rooted in efforts to curb global warming, citing campaigns for “meatless Mondays” and a European campaign, called “Less Meat = Less Heat,” launched late last year.
Reducing consumption of meat and dairy
products might not have a major impact in
combating global warming despite claims
that link diets rich in animal products to
production of greenhouse gases.
Credit: Wikimedia
“We certainly can reduce our greenhouse-gas production, but not by consuming less meat and milk,” said Mitloehner, who is with the University of California-Davis. “Producing less meat and milk will only mean more hunger in poor countries.”
The focus of confronting climate change, he said, should be on smarter farming, not less farming. “The developed world should focus on increasing efficient meat production in developing countries where growing populations need more nutritious food. In developing countries, we should adopt more efficient, Western-style farming practices to make more food with less greenhouse gas production,” Mitloehner said.
Developed countries should reduce use of oil and coal for electricity, heating and vehicle fuels. Transportation creates an estimated 26 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., whereas raising cattle and pigs for food accounts for about 3 percent, he said.
Mitloehner says confusion over meat and milk’s role in climate change stems from a small section printed in the executive summary of a 2006 United Nations report, “Livestock’s Long Shadow.” It read: “The livestock sector is a major player, responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalents). This is a higher share than transport.”
Mitloehner says there is no doubt that livestock are major producers of methane, one of the greenhouse gases. But he faults the methodology of “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” contending that numbers for the livestock sector were calculated differently from transportation. In the report, the livestock emissions included gases produced by growing animal feed; animals’ digestive emissions; and processing meat and milk into foods. But the transportation analysis factored in only emissions from fossil fuels burned while driving and not all other transport lifecycle related factors.
“This lopsided analysis is a classical apples-and-oranges analogy that truly confused the issue,” he said.
###
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
It needed to be researched? Animal (and plant) life cycles generally don’t add more carbon to the environment than they take out in the first place. In fact if a proper accounting is done I’m sure we’ll find that corals and cocolithophores (among others?) have been taking it out more or less permanently since they appeared on the earth and sequestered it as chalk and limestone.
If we all ate more beans, wouldn’t that produce a whole bunch of methane? I think that could be measured.
Also would we not need to turn all that grassland for cattle into edible crops, to compensate for the loss of protein?
That is tough, some of the range land that farm animals graze, is not fit for food crops. In my mind, that would mean we would have to cut into the ethanol production. That would mean more use of gasoline…
In the end we would not achive more than a hill of beans. These scientist seem to be grasping for straws. They should watch out, they might get bitten by a cow.
Plus a good NY Strip tastes really good. The day I eat no meat is the day I wilt away and die.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
I keep hoping for some warming, but yet another six inches of snow is forecast for tomorrow – the second big storm this week. Good day for a nice juicy steak.
I have always had my suspicions about the methane emissions due to bean and lentil consumption.
I am sure a study has been done already
Good point Jan, how does a cow produce Carbond Dioxide without first eating some Carbon and breathing some Oxygen. I’ve heard of something called a carbon cycle.
Going veggie sounds great if you live in an area like California or Florida where things grow year-round. The problem is that it takes enormous infrastructure in order to provide people in the rest of the country with a year-round supply of fresh fruits and veggies. In most of the country, have a look at your produce section and see where that stuff is coming from and think about how much energy it took to get it to you.
That infrastructure is also fragile. The loss of a major port someplace or political instability in some country could cut off shipment of this produce from outside the US.
Look at how human beings evolved. Humans had a very limited supply of produce. We had access only what was growing very close to us and only when it was “in season”. In winter we had no fresh veggies at all. Entire civilizations existed on little more than a meat-only diet.
What these people don’t take into account is that I can place a lamp or a goat out to graze on stuff I can not eat, and it converts the protein to a form I CAN eat. Eating meat IS being veggie. It is conversion of inedible veggies into edible meat. Eating a cow or a sheep is eating grass. Eating a goat is eating darned near anything.
Laplanders existed for thousands of years on nothing but meat and the occasional onion. When they began trading with other cultures, they traded hides for tallow candles … which they ate.
I say it takes much LESS energy to live off meat than off veggies. I can go to a sale, buy a spring lamb, have the lamb graze on my yard until fall, slaughter the lamb and eat my summer grass that winter. I have not paid for fuel to mow the lawn, I have not had to import that protein from anywhere. The greatest energy consumption is in keeping it frozen and if I wanted to in most parts of the country, I could simply hang it in a shed from December to February.
These people approach things from an urban mindset. They have no idea what they are really talking about. They have never lived on more than 10 acres of ground 100 miles from the nearest airport.
“Developed countries should reduce use of oil and coal for electricity, heating and vehicle fuels. Transportation creates an estimated 26 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., whereas raising cattle and pigs for food accounts for about 3 percent, he said.”
So he’s OK with developing countries eating meat like we do in first world countries but they should be discouraged from using the most abundant and cheapest resources to produce electricity and provide transportation?
How does he suppose they are going to get the feed to those animals, transport them to slaughter and market, process and refrigerate the meat, bring it home and cooked it if not by ready access to cheap and abundant fuels for transportation and electricity?
Does he imagine that people in Addis Ababa are going to install expensive and inefficient technologies like photo-voltaics and wind turbines on top of their tin roofed, dirt floor shacks to cook their meat?
Sometimes the shear idiocy of even people that see one part of the picture is maddening. This guy understands that meat isn’t evil but still buys into the rest of the scam. I guess he doesn’t make his living from electrical generation or transportation so he is OK with those things being sacrificed.
This is a complex issue and needs creative thought. In general, habitat destruction meant to provide feed for animals or ethanol production ought to be carefully examined. Conversely, animals can convert to food vegetative matter that cannot be used as food for humans and from places that will not be farmed for food crops. Some will argue against providing food in these ways. They should donate their time and money to organizations such as The Nature Conservancy.
““““““““““`
Global warming?
Cutting back on consumption of meat and dairy products will not have a major impact in combating global warming
Nor global cooling, either.
Mixed messages… That we have something to worry about, and that not doing some thing is doing nothing.
And I don’t see that anyone needs to curb their use of oil and coal, especially poor countries. What they need is a truly free market to drive efficiency and prosperity so that they can some day afford to build things like hydro dams and nuclear power plants to service a larger base-load demand.
Anyway, I’m surprised someone like Pachauri can even get his name right!
Steve Goddard (22:36:01) : “I keep hoping for some warming, but yet another six inches of snow is forecast for tomorrow – the second big storm this week.”
No way! That’s ridiculous, but… what can ya do? No snow, here, except a dusting over the weekend after a two week long drought. Heat is still on, most nights, but the day time is pretty spring-like.
“Good day for a nice juicy steak.”
A-1 (Amen)! 🙂
“I have always had my suspicions about the methane emissions due to bean and lentil consumption.
I am sure a study has been done already”
It’s a myth! go to a diabetes management class and you’ll soon learn it’s high GI foods (white bread is a killer) that do it the legumes just lend it some flavour;-)
oops “lend it some flavour;-)” meant aroma.
Well, we might be okay as vegetarians if we avoid rice completely!
From the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change website:
“Rice cultivation also releases methane . . . “Wetland” or “paddy” rice farming produces roughly one-fifth to one-quarter of global methane emissions from human activities. Accounting for over 90 percent of all rice production, wetland rice is grown in fields that are flooded or irrigated for much of the growing season. Bacteria and other micro-organisms in the soil of the flooded rice paddy decompose organic matter and produce methane.”
http://unfccc.int/essential_background/background_publications_htmlpdf/climate_change_information_kit/items/293.php
ONE-FIFTH TO ONE-QUARTER of global methane emissions??
So somehow the rain that waters much of the grass and corn used to produce animal feed from sunlight and CO2 in the air is lost when it is used to grow things. And the compounds containing carbon produced by growing vegetable matter and feeding it directly or indirectly to animals are not returned to water and carbon dioxide after the cycle is complete? Nature has been doing this for a long time, and if the components were being consumed it appears that doing so would violate the laws of physics.
Thx for the hig-res version of a cow.
So the UN produced a report (Livestock’s Long Shadow) that made a false comparison between transport and farming.
I really should be very angry that public bodies seem to be incapable of doing anything at all with rigour(*), honesty and integrity.
But now I have just come to expect obfuscation, spin and sloppiness. How can you tell when a climate scientist is lying? His lips move.
Sad innit?
(*)Yes, it is spelt with a ‘u’ in my country. Not a typo.
Cows are vegetarians. It’s so sad when one group of vegetarians attack another group of vegetarians.
Steve Goddard (22:36:01)
You just reminded me Steve! I took a nice tenderloin out of the freezer this morning.
Couple of beers on the way home, then cut up some big chips (English style not those piddly French, thin, things!), some fresh garden peas and the end of another perfect day as I lounge back watching a DVD, thinking of the the damage I have just done to the planet!
1 more hour at work and MMMMmmmmmmmmm!
OT, but if you type “scientists” into the google toolbar or google itself, very near or even at the top, you get “scientists against global warming” as an option.
😉
If all humans turn veggie, there will be a huge IQ decline.
Because a veggie allways has lower IQ than a carnivore.
Why?
Because it doesnt take much IQ to sneak up behind a grass straw.
and the first link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming
it tells use the following:
Global warming is not occurring
Accuracy of IPCC climate projections is questionable
Global warming is primarily caused by natural processes
Cause of global warming is unknown
Global warming will not be significantly negative
has someone hijacked this and it will return to ‘the truth’ immediately?
Perhaps all the greenies and do-gooders should get rid of their carbon dioxide belching pets … after all the average dog is supposed to has the carbon footprint of a Landrover.
I think the point behind the veggie beliefs are that it takes 10 kg of feed to produce 1 kg of meat. This is not disputed. This is a real problem where they farm fish and use 10 kg of wild fish to get 1 kg of farmed salmon.
When it comes to comparing meat and produce for human consumption its a little different. The most importand foods produced are grains, corn and rice. I dont know the waste/food ratio for these produces but I would’nt be suprised if it was close to 10:1 as well. Then its an even toss if you produce veggie food or feed for livestock.
Someone else mentioned meat fed on grass that we cant eat. That is where the real savings come in. In norway lots of livestock graze in forrest areas and mountains where producing human food is simply not possible. It does not help anyone to eat veggie then.
Going veggie is just daft. You have to eat tremendous volume of food just to meat daily requirements. And if you’re physically very active it gets worse.
Some eco idiot at work was trying to sound like a nutritional expert the other day and said he ate lots of spinach for it’s protein, calcium and iron content. I had to shoot that one down. You would have to eat kilos worth of spinach just to meet your protein requirements and even then you would not receive all the essential amino acids. And then if you ate that much of it you would have so much oxalic acid that your body would become depleted of iron and calcium as it bonds to both and there inhibits absorption of these essential minerals.