| By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website |
Livestock production has a bigger climate impact than transport, the UN believes
People should consider eating less meat as a way of combating global warming, says the UN’s top climate scientist.
Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), will make the call at a speech in London on Monday evening.
Pachuri
UN figures suggest that meat production puts more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than transport.
But a spokeswoman for the UK’s National Farmers’ Union (NFU) said methane emissions from farms were declining.
Dr Pachauri has just been re-appointed for a second six-year term as chairman of the Nobel Prize-winning IPCC, the body that collates and evaluates climate data for the world’s governments.
“The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has estimated that direct emissions from meat production account for about 18% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions,” he told BBC News.
“So I want to highlight the fact that among options for mitigating climate change, changing diets is something one should consider.”
More of the BBC article plus my response follows….
Climate of persuasion
The FAO figure of 18% includes greenhouse gases released in every part of the meat production cycle – clearing forested land, making and transporting fertiliser, burning fossil fuels in farm vehicles, and the front and rear end emissions of cattle and sheep.
The contributions of the three main greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide – are roughly equivalent, the FAO calculates.
Transport, by contrast, accounts for just 13% of humankind’s greenhouse gas footprint, according to the IPCC.
Dr Pachauri will be speaking at a meeting organised by Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), whose main reason for suggesting people lower their consumption of meat is to reduce the number of animals in factory farms.
CIWF’s ambassador Joyce D’Silva said that thinking about climate change could spur people to change their habits.
“The climate change angle could be quite persuasive,” she said.
“Surveys show people are anxious about their personal carbon footprints and cutting back on car journeys and so on; but they may not realise that changing what’s on their plate could have an even bigger effect.”
I’ve become a vegetarian. I try to minimize the use of cars. Where I’ve failed is my impact with regard to air travel. I tell people I was born a Hindu who believes in reincarnation. It will take me the next six lives to neutralize my carbon footprint. There’s no way I can do it in one lifetime.
Many of you may recall this blog entry from Congressman Dana Rohrabacher’s Floor Speech on Global Warming. He touches on the UN claim of livestock and emissions:
A 2006 report entitled “Livestock’s Long Shadow” to the United Nations mentions livestock emissions and grazing, and it places the blame for global warming squarely on the hind parts of cows. Livestock, the report claims, accounts for 18 percent of the gases that supposedly cause the global warming of our climate. Cows are greenhouse-emitting machines. Fuel for fertilizer and meat production and transportation, as well as clearing the fields for grazing, produce 9 percent of the global CO2 emissions, according to the report. And also, cows produce ammonia, causing acid rain, of course.
Now, if that’s not bad enough, all of these numbers are projected in this report to double by the year 2050. Well, not only are we then going to have to cut personal transportation, which will keep us at home, but when we stay at home, we can’t even have a bbq. And heck, they won’t even let us have a hamburger.
One of the most interesting paragraph’s refutes Pachuri’s claims quite well I think:
I would like to point out that before the introduction of cattle, millions upon millions of buffalo dominated the Great Plains of America. They were so thick you could not see where the herd started and where it ended. I can only assume that the anti-meat, manmade global warming crowd must believe that buffalo farts have more socially redeeming value than the same flatulence emitted by cattle. Yes, this is absurd, but the deeper one looks into this global warming juggernaut, the weirder this movement becomes and the more denial is evident.
What next from Pachuri? Stop bathing? Perhaps we should all mail him a bag of this:
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I would recommend we quit the UN and use the money we would give to them to help our own people and the world more effectively than giving it to the world’s most corrupt and useless organization. Pachauri, whoever he is, is merely a straw man, but he ‘s setting a good example of what we can expect in the future, which will be more manipulation of the mass of society by the weapons of TV and corporate newsspeak, which is the drivel we get from the networks.
From Eddie Bernays:
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society,” Bernays argued. “Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. . . . In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons . . . who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”
Anybody want to give up any of their country’s sovereignty to the UN?
Soylent Green for your supper, anyone?
If we are in the mood to start cutting emissions of greenhouse gases, I wonder how the meat industry’s C02 footprint stack up with the needless global beauracrats’ C02 footprint. Surely the UN and all its committees and “military” missions puts out quite a large footprint. Perhaps we could concentrate on getting rid of that first before we do away with a nice New York Strip steak?
Since methane is a more potent GHG than CO2, wouldn’t just fitting cows with catalytic converters help solve the problem?
“The prize for economics is not a Nobel prize” Source, Nobel Prize site. He’s not really a Nobel prize winner and can keep his dietary preference to himself. As for “Fighting climate change”, maybe we could set him in a throne on a big empty beach somewhere. Alone.
If I were one of the political elite who pollute the Nobel prize committees, I would nominate Anthony Watts for “services to Climate Reality”.
According to Wikipedia at one time there were between 60 to 100 million bison in North America
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Bison
I’m going to go cook a steak.
What next simultaneous breath holding?
I must defend a pest by most people’s defintion, but in its natural state serves its purpose well: the termite. Not to downplay land use changes, the so, oft missed impact of this wonderful creature to promoting its own habitat is so often neglected. By IPCC definition, when humans abuse forests, this lowly creature does its best to emit methane and ensure the warming and humidification of the environment such that it can do even more of this. Dryness and cold negatively impact termites. Obviously, we should quit raising cattle and start raising termites (to eat), and enjoy a warmer, more humid world 🙂
Reporter: “What about the giant herds of Wildebeeste roaming the plains of Africa?”
Pachauri: “That’s gnus to me.”
I’ve little doubt, John F. Pittman, that when our ancestors foraged, the discovery of a rotting tree laced with termites was the call for a tribal feast.
========================================
Re: Jerry (10:50:21 and10:57:46)
I, too, grew up on a farm in ME with many cows, horses and sheep. I am also skeptical of the inference that these ruminants created so much mehtane.
According to Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane, of the 600Tg/a CO4 concentration in 1992 [(??) – I think Wikipedia mistakenly cited Houweling, et al, (1999) instead of Lelieveld, et al, (1998)], 270 Tg/a was due to natural emissions and 330Tg/a was due to antropogenic emissions. Of the 330 Tg/a, 115 Tg/a (19%) was due to emissions by ruminants. Wikipedia sates that ruminanting mammals include:
“… cattle, goats, sheep, giraffes, American Bison, European bison, yaks, water buffalo, deer, camels, alpacas, llamas, wildebeest, antelope, and pronghorn.”
In 2006, the cow population in ME was 36,900 but the deer population was estimated to be 218,700. The horse population was about 45,000. I have’t found an estimate of the moose population but know that it is several thousand.
Wikipedia also states:
“However animals “that put their energies into making gas are less efficient at producing milk and meat”. Early research has found a number of medical treatments and dietary adjustments that help limit the production of methane in ruminants.[6] [7] [8]”
So … perhaps medical science can reduce the CO4 emitted by cows and sheep, and possibly horses, but I don’t know how one would go about adjusting the diets of the deer herds short of creating a new form of foliage and salad greens that suit them.
You know a thought occurred to me, why hasn’t Pachuri called for a ban on yeast based products?
After all, yeast makes CO2 is voluminous amounts in bread, wine, beer, cakes, etc. Yeasts have recently been used to generate electricity in microbial fuel cells, and produce ethanol for the biofuel industry.
When yeast consume and metabolize sugar, they produce ethanol and carbon dioxide, CO2. Incidentally, when human beings metabolize sugars, we also produce CO2. The difference is, we exhale it.
Yeast, yeah that’s the culprit. I think we should call for the UN to ban any yeast based consumption at all those catered events they go to. No more finger sandwhiches, beer, or wine.
Beer? I think you just lost Mississippi.
REPLY: No worries, they aren’t part of the UN
To deadwood
The game plan is switching from AGW to BGW (Bovinogenic Global Warming) just as the move is on to Moose Stew. All food grains will be used for ethanol production and our eating habits will be corrected to a Pachauri approved salad of bean sprouts and water-cress, with a dash of lemon juice.
The herds of 10,000 years ago sort of methaned themselves to death, I suppose.
Last I heard was that India is exempt from the Kyoto scam and that their (Hindus) cows (and bulls?) are sacred. A good reason for being vegetarian. Is that all bull?
It is past the time for scientists to cease practicing the science of politics and return to the science of Nature.
A commonality among the control freaks is that they are suffering from various degrees of megalomania. For them, it is painful to know what is best for others and to have the others to not understand or to ignore their good intentions. Government control then becomes the answer to all their, and obviously our, problems.
Ah, not quite, Ed. We could produce 150% of the “Corn” ethanol quota using Only the 34 Million Acres that we’re paying farmers Not to Plant.
How much carbon is in the skeleton of a cow? Is that portion not sequestered either by a landfill or a dog after the bbq? We carnivores may be saving the earth.
I am thinking ribs tonite…and beer.
There was, prior to 1600, 70 Million Bison in the U.S.
There are about 100 Million Cows, and calves, today. Looks like a “wash.”
little known fact: Their range extended all the way to the East Coast.
Oops, linky-poo for the above:
http://www.bisoncentral.com/index.php?s=&c=14&d=105&a=1064&w=2&r=Y
IIRC, I read that India has about 400 Million Cattle.
I figured it out: We’re all living in a giant Monty Python skit.
A Hindu saying we should give up meat? Didn’t exactly take a genius to come up with that one. So where’s the canned laughter?
With CO2 at about 380 ppm, I came up with around 2000GT of total CO2, and with a ten year lifetime, that means we put in roughly 200GT per year. And the Earth takes out about 200GT (slightly less, as CO2 levels slowly rise)
But, according to those who know all, CO2 rose about 1.5 ppm per year from 1979 to 2000 and 2 ppm per year after. Since it has cooled off a wee bit since 2000, more CO2 must cause global cooling.
Fire up the barbie!
The path is clear: renewable energy; universal veganism; population control; and, free euthanasia for the old and/or infirm. IPCC is working on #1; PETA is gearing up for #2; China is already working #3; Oregon is testing #4.
Clarity of vision is not always a comfortable thing! There are already too many of us to return to a hunter-gatherer society, unless we begin actively hunting each other. Watch your backs!
The Indians have almost single handedly wiped out their vulture population by dosing the cattle with diclofenac for every ill and then leaving the dead bodies strewn about for the vultures to consume.
So I don’t think he can lecture me about a damn thing.
counters
This is pretty silly. It’s patent absurdity to suggest that we need to change our diets in order to fight global warming. I think this is one of a couple strong examples which support you skeptics’ argument that some people have hijacked AGW for other irrelevant political agendas.
Now you know how I feel about CO2 drives the climate theory and political agendas.