Last week we had a people in New Zealand saying we need edible pets. This week we have England’s “premier climatologist” saying we need to give up meat. You first, me Lord. However, this sort of tactic risks marginalization of his cause. Poll numbers are already falling. What’s really needed here is “steak watch”. Since as we’ve seen with many prominent people who give worldly advice, they often don’t follow it, we need some British paparazzi at restaurants and public banquets to see if Lord Stern follows his own advice. When in Japan, maybe someone can offer him the new Windows 7 Whopper to try. Why no “OSX Snow Leopard” Burger? – Anthony
From the London Times: Climate chief Lord Stern: give up meat to save the planet
by Robin Pagnamenta, Energy Editor
People will need to turn vegetarian if the world is to conquer climate change, according to a leading authority on global warming.
In an
interview with The Times, Lord Stern of Brentford said: “Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”
Direct emissions of methane from cows and pigs is a significant source of greenhouse gases. Methane is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a global warming gas.
Lord Stern, the author of the influential 2006 Stern Review on the cost of tackling global warming, said that a successful deal at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December would lead to soaring costs for meat and other foods that generate large quantities of greenhouse gases.
He predicted that people’s attitudes would evolve until meat eating became unacceptable. “I think it’s important that people think about what they are doing and that includes what they are eating,” he said. “I am 61 now and attitudes towards drinking and driving have changed radically since I was a student. People change their notion of what is responsible. They will increasingly ask about the carbon content of their food.”
Lord Stern, a former chief economist of the World Bank and now I. G. Patel Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, warned that British taxpayers would need to contribute about £3 billion a year by 2015 to help poor countries to cope with the inevitable impact of climate change.
He also issued a clear message to President Obama that he must attend the meeting in Copenhagen in person in order for an effective deal to be reached. US leadership, he said, was “desperately needed” to secure a deal.
Read the rest of the article at the London Times: Climate chief Lord Stern: give up meat to save the planet
The problem with everyone going towards a vegetarian or vegan diet is that a great deal of land is not suitable for crops, but can produce enough grass etc to support animals. Indeed, there are many parts of the world where the only way to live off the land is to send a goat out to feed off whatever it can, and then eat the goat.
Sorry DaveE ! All the money has gone running the two cars and feeding the three dogs !! Thanks for the reply though
Stefan (10:49:17) :
what if meat is our natural diet? Besides, according to some schools of thought, even agriculture itself is unsustainable due to the heavy burden it places on the soil.
I don’t know the schools you are referring to, but (pardon the pun) this is a load of tripe. Ever heard of the RUSLE equation?
michel (11:31:03) :
There is however a lot of truth in Stern’s view. It is true that if we really do want to reduce carbon emissions to around 20% of their present levels, one of the things we will have to do is totally reform the way we eat. We will have to go to more or less organic agriculture, which means that fertiliser will come from compost, we will use green manure, animals will be grass fed and graze not corn and soy fed in stalls. We will do a lot more hand weeding and hoeing. We may even go back to horse drawn transport. Chemical agriculture will have to stop totally. It will be back to 1870 or so in food production. Use of tractors will be limited, cars and planes will be abolished.
And agriculture production will be reduced 90%. How long will our 30 day world reserves last then?
Phillip Bratby (11:59:53) :
Science museum count has reverted. It is now:
* 5430 counted in so far
* 6527 counted out so far
Ah well. I did get an e-mail that asked me to confirm my vote sent it in, and submitted another comment.
I do not want to vote again, will somebody post if they vote and if they get a confirmation message?
“desperately needed” is the closing message from Lord Stern to President Obama regarding the Copenhagen summit.
eating pets but not lamb cutlets seems quite desperate indeed.
Global warming has joined religion as an excuse for hair-shirted lunatics to impose their puritanical beliefs on the rest of us.
Religious prosylitizers I can stand, I tell them politely I’m not interested in their ideas and they go somewhere else while the warming zealots are roaring for laws that curb just about everything that I find fun, useful, or civilizing.
Anthony, I know you are interested in this stuff just like I am. Enjoy the blurb!
Flexible solar power modules unveiled
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/44438/178/
Stefan. Our ‘natural’ diet is a mix. It would therefore be ‘unnatural’ to be either a carnivore or a herbivore. I don’t need to “try it sometime” as I was a omnivore. However, I’ve been veggie for 26 years now and enjoy perfect health. I’m not saying it would give you that too, as I believe health is primarily genetic, I’m just saying it works for me. I don’t care if someone eats meat as I’m not a veggie campaigner – I just do what I want, and hope you do too. I was merely pointing out that in the future pretty much everyone WILL be veggie because of land use/space. It will happen, it’s just a matter of time:
http://www.worldometers.info/
We’re all wasting our time. I’m currently watching that idiot Ed Miliband on the (UK) Channel 4 news, there is no shifting his (or others, for that matter) headlong dash to Copenhagen, and he is saying that even without agreement they will stick to the UK government plans to reduce emissions. The would-be future prime minister David Cameron looks as if he may be of a similar mindset.
No news programme seems willing to entertain any commentators or scientists who believe that the carbon and climate change rubbish is just that. The alternative science just doesn’t stand a chance, and no amount of popular public opinion is going to make the slightest bit of difference as governmental minds have been made up, and the leaders have brainwashed themselves into this sad, depressing situation – they appear to spout this stuff like robots.
How can you possibly fight a “religion” such as this? They don’t listen to reason, they ignore the public.
We seem to be on a hiding to nothing, and once this spiral has started, there’ll be no stopping it, until we are all compliant, vegetarian, immobile, living in caves or mud huts with smokey fires, and fighting each other (and fighting off disease and malnutrition as well).
Surely SOMEONE with leadership qualities and charisma can stand up for the truth. Can’t they?
The misanthropes
Steve: “I’m hungry. Kill the cat and put him in the microwave”
Thelma: “Are you sure? WE’ve got chicken wings tonight.”
Steve: “Absolutely not lamb! Lord Stern Says it causes global warming, whilst eating pets makes it better again. I should really put you in the microwave, as the LSE said the way to stop global warming is to cut the population so there are fewer emitters”
Thelma: Steve! How could you say that?”
Steve : “Don’t take it personally. I’ll fry myself later”
anna v (12:16:47) :
I voted & got the email to confirm but that was before they reverted the count to a higher level again.
The new level of votes is probably because the OUT vote was running at 10:1 against before they reverted. LOL
DaveE.
Bring on the methane, Hitler had uncontrollable flatulence according to Toland from his vegetarian diet.
I voted again; with a real email address, again. This time I got a confirmation mail. Their numbers were running about 6 to 1, literally.
The recent history of consensuses is pretty bad .. global cooling in 1975, high-fat foods will kill you in 1988, WMD in Iraq in 2003, and today, AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming). Everyone knew they were true, but no one could actually prove it conclusively. There was, and still is, no hard science to back up these claims, but everyone knows, or at least knew, them to be true.
I wrote a paper when I was in university in the 70’s about using plant proteins in combination to make a complete protein. This was because then we were told that the planet was to small to house all of us and raise animals for food. The diet is possible but the amount of food needed would be double what we eat now. This was based on “Diet for a Small Planet” , if anyone remembers that book. Now 40 years later and double the amount of people on the planet we have the room to still use animals for food but we cannot because it causes global warming? Ideas just get recycled.
How can you possibly fight a “religion” such as this? expat in France
Pray for cold weather is my suggestion and keep fighting.
“The horse is prepared for the day of battle,
But victory belongs to the LORD.” Proverbs 21:31
“Religious prosylitizers I can stand, I tell them politely I’m not interested in their ideas and they go somewhere else while the warming zealots are roaring for laws that curb just about everything that I find fun, useful, or civilizing.” Cholered Person
Bingo! Some people have no faith in the power of truth and logic so they resort to force instead.
Quote: “Meat is a wasteful use of water”
Sure enough. All that water used in “growing meat” just disappears from existence. Sure enough.
Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice said. Whatever drugs are these people taking, I do wonder?
Barry Foster (10:33:36) :
People DO need to give up meat, but not because of any climate nonsense, but because of the land and resources required to provide for animals. If everyone went veggie then there would be MUCH more land available and much less use of resources like water and energy. In the future everyone WILL be almost vegetarian. Meat will be an expensive luxury. Admittedly that time is quite a way off, but it WILL come.
The earliest vegetarian I have come across was Pythagoras (6th century BC). It seems to be taking a long time for it to catch on! Incidentally, his reasons (sic) for being so were just the same nonsense we get today. If you are ‘kind’ to nature, what you get back will not change.
Where I live, one side of the hills (Malverns) is crops, the other side almost all livestock. The poorer land is not suitable for crops.
(insert tongue in cheek)
I sometimes wonder if there is a case for compulsory euthanasia for vegetarians; they won’t face life as it is, so there is the alternative.
(remove tongue from cheek)
I am trying to give up romantic idealism, though.
“Tom in Florida (10:47:37) : Just wondering how many world class atheletes are true vegetarians.”
And the lumberjacks? How many of those are vegetarians.
I’m a lumberjack and I’m okay
I sleep all night and I work all day
I cut down trees, I eat my lunch
I go to the lavat’ry
On Wednesdays I go shopping
And have buttered scones for tea
I cut down trees, I skip and jump
I love to press wild flow’rs
I put on women’s clothing
And hang around in bars
I cut down trees, I wear high heels
Suspendies and a bra
I wish I’d been a girlie
Just like my dear papa
**OK, I’ll go to my room now . . .**
Barry, some would say our natural diet is 85% carnivore (something to do with our brains being larger and our guts being smaller than comparable apes), but that’s a relatively minor quibble. The bit I’d really question is the prediction that the future will necessarily constrain us to being “vegetarians”. The future can surprise us. Perhaps it will be “in vitro meat” ?
For an alternative view from the UK try The Daily Mash:
“Meanwhile a group of environmental charities has already commissioned a series of television adverts designed to educate the public about how meat-eating kills polar bears, especially if you then intend to eat them like some kind of Eskimo.”
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/environment/meat%11eaters-to-finally-be-treated-like-smokers-200910272171/
P.S. The Science Museum still thinks I have an invalid e-mail address and refuses to register my vote for the new count.
@John Lish, In the modern Cockney rhyming slang the correct term for someone like this twerp Stern is “a Merchant”. This is short for Merchant Banker; the latter word is the one which rhymes with the correct epithet.
Apples and pears – stairs
Ruby Murray – curry
Frankie Vaughn – porn
Jodrell Bank – an act of onanism.
Person of Choler (12:23:50) :
Global warming has joined religion as an excuse for hair-shirted lunatics to impose their puritanical beliefs on the rest of us.
Religious prosylitizers I can stand, I tell them politely I’m not interested in their ideas and they go somewhere else while the warming zealots are roaring for laws that curb just about everything that I find fun, useful, or civilizing.
I reckon the zealots adopt a lifestyle which they see as superior, but which they begin to realise, puts them at a serious disadvantage. Because they are never wrong, and need to prove their superioroty to themselves, their only solution is to compel everyone else to live as they do.
Perhaps we will have to tell the greenie zealots we’re not interested either.
“Yes (but they are not necessarily all that well meaning).” Evan
Evan, I was impressed and humbled by your article. Good show! When one’s logic leads to mass murder or suffering it is time to reconsider.
Yes, I was wrong to say “well meaning.” I sinned. I apologize. Some are cold blooded killers by proxie.
I believe that it takes other people’s money to do significant damage to the world which is why I advocate ethical banking and money creation.