From the University of Edinburgh via Eurekalert, just scratching the surface of this press release suggests something’s gone sour, the numbers they cite don’t make for much concern in the larger context of things. See below.
Milk poured down Britain’s kitchen sinks each year creates a carbon footprint equivalent to thousands of car exhaust emissions, research shows
Scientists say the 360,000 tonnes of milk wasted in the UK each year creates greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 100,000 tonnes of CO2. The study by the University of Edinburgh says this is the same as is emitted by about 20,000 cars annually.
The research identifies ways that consumers could also help curb greenhouse gas emissions – by reducing the amount of food they buy, serve and waste. They also suggest the food industry could reduce emissions by seeking more efficient ways to use fertilisers.
Researchers also say halving the amount of chicken consumed in the UK and other developed countries to levels eaten in Japan could cut greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to taking 10 million cars off the road.
Figures show that if average chicken consumption in developed countries fell from the current level of 26kg each per year to the Japanese average of about 12kg each by 2020, global emissions from poultry would fall below current levels, despite increased output from the developing world. This would cut the predicted global output of nitrous oxide, a key greenhouse gas, from this source by almost 20 per cent, based on current growth rates.
Demand for food, particularly meat, is expected to increase over the next few decades as the world’s population continues to grow and emerging countries consume more.
Agriculture is the biggest source of nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas that is emitted by soil and fertilisers. Producing meat produces more emissions than growing crops, as large amounts of cereals are grown to feed livestock.
Researchers arrived at their findings by examining data for global agricultural production of greenhouse gases together with consumption of food in various regions of the world. The study, carried out in collaboration with the University of Aberdeen and partners in Europe and the US, was published in Nature Climate Change.
Dr David Reay of the University of Edinburgh’s School of GeoSciences, who led the study, said: “Eating less meat and wasting less food can play a big part in helping to keep a lid on greenhouse gas emissions as the world’s population increases.”
Well, wasting food is never a good thing, I agree with that, but is this a big problem or not? I decided to have a look at the numbers.
From DairyCo Datum in the UK, here’s a table of worldwide milk production based on FAO data, highlight mine:
The 360,000 tonnes of milk said to be wasted in the press release seems like a huge number, but when compared to 13.96 million tonnes of milk produced in the UK in 2010, it is literally a drop in the milk bucket. It works out to about 2.6%, which given such a perishable product, isn’t a bad number at all. I expected it to be much higher, like 25% the way the article was written.
And since they are concerned about global warming, the comparison globally:
Even if the UK stopped wasting all milk, the impact against the global milk carbon footprint is nil.
And while they bemoan the waste in the press release, they offer no solution. What are citizens supposed to do with spoiled milk? Drink it? I’ll bet this will go over well in UK schools like this program: Climate Craziness of the Week – let the kids freeze, all I want for Christmas is a zero carbon footprint
A headmaster at a British school decided a great lesson in sustainability would be to turn off the heat for a day. In December:
Pupils at Ansford Academy in Castle Cary, Somerset, were forced to grip their pens through thick gloves and wear their coats and hats in class as temperatures dropped to 1C. The school’s headmaster, Rob Benzie, shut down the radiators as an experiment to show students how the school could cut its carbon footprint.
The milk waste researchers also seem clueless about how the carbon cycle works, as if somehow that milk if consumed magically loses all of its carbon content via the other route that eventually ends up down the sewer.
Idiots.
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whilst enjoying my milk laden cornflakes this morning and reading this – I found myself spluttering over the very point that Anthony makes in his last paragraph. Idiots indeed.. …. And I totally agree with the point Latimer Alder makes re the state of UK academia …but would add that it is not true of all academia – it has reached the point now where oher specialities cringe at yet another barmy headline from the climate numpties.
I would suggest that this study is a carry over from the days when to get a grant it was best to add “and its effects on Climate Change” to whatever the study title.
“johanna says:
May 13, 2012 at 10:37 pm
Apart from the whole carbon footprint thing being baloney, what they claim is economic and logical nonsense as well. Unused milk cannot be converted to or from motor cars by any physical or economic process. According to their logic, if everyone used every drop of milk purchased, the world would be a better place because there would be less CO2 emissions. If they can explain how that works, several Nobel Prizes await them.”
There’s a battle of sorts going on over here in NZ between the dairy industry, the Greens and the NZ Govt. The Greens want the dairy industry and agriculture in general to pay their way re the ETS.
Sarc:
Well one way to reduce CO2 emissions re the dairy industry would be to get rid of the modern powered milking machines and go back to handmilking. It should please the Green Loons. I don’t think it would work all that well. Bugger milking between 400-800 cows by hand. twice a day. CO2 AGW is mainly BS anyway. 🙂
Zealots milking the gullible for all its worth – AGAIN.
I don’t waste milk because I don’t buy it in unnecessarily large quantities. What I’d like to know is how the University of Edinburgh obtained its figures. I don’t recall seeing any academic types out canvassing people’s milk disposal habits. It seems to me that the figures may well have been pulled from between a “researcher’s” nether cheeks.
I thought the paper was total bull until I remembered that milk comes from cows.
We still have daily deliveries from our milkman Les. From time to time it mounts up in the fridge, so my Missus makes milk puddings and rice puddings which go into the freezer, until my grandchildren visit. We grew up in wartime Britain – Waste milk? You have got to be kiddin or lyin!
Twits, who funds this rubbish? Oh wait a minute, I think I do………………
I just hate how they make everything a greenhouse gas problem, it really distracts from the real issues (in this case, waste of food).
Given the fact that total atmospheric CO2 is approximately 3000 gigatonnes (3.16×10^15 kg) it is truly impossible to comprehend the disparity in this value compared with the amount of CO2 created by the spilled milk (100,000 kg). If my recollection of indices serves me correctly this translates to an amount of utterly meaningless insignificance: namely an additional fraction = 1/1×10^10.
This is nothing more than intellectual positioning for grant cash. It is of absolutely no scientific merit whatsoever.
Looks to me like this paper supports the proponents of ‘extreme breast feeding’ – it is a crime against nature to waste all that nasty CO2 producing mothers milk…
http://www.hollywoodlife.com/2012/05/10/time-cover-mombreastfeed-son/
Perhaps one day the climate debate will get back to sanity?
Hmmm. The article suggests the UK should cut poultry per capita consumption to Japanese levels, however, what they fail to understand is that in lieu of poultry, Japan eats a HUGE amount of fish; about 70kg per capita compared to about 20kg in the UK (the US is also about the 20kg).
So, crying over spilled milk and moving to Japan’s gastronomical food culture of fish, would simply move from an imaginary “udder” disaster… to a very real problem of depleting the ocean’s fish stocks.
I guess we could always eat raw tofu, but then you’ve got the whole agricultural petrochemical footprint problem… Oh, dear, those dirty polluting soybean farmers….
To-fu or not to-fu, that is the question.
For is it nobler in the minds of men to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous BS….
I think the enviro-wakos just want to remove human footprints from the entire face of the planet and be done with it….
Methinks the lads doth protest too much…..
So when we grow crops that are processed into food, and some of the food spoils, returning the carbon to the atmosphere, it contributes to our carbon footprint. But when we grow crops that are processed into fuel and burn it in our cars, returning the carbon to the atmosphere, it is carbon neutral.
New math, meet new chemistry.
WHAT waste of food? They’re making it up. Yes, spoilage happens, but coming up with an absolute figure of this waste is very much plucking it out of the air.
They want vegetarians. You know, placid people who are easy to manipulate. Later, because of flatulence, they won’t want vegetarians either (but they’ll save that bit of news until later when it’s time to cull human beings. Don’t worry, vegetarians out there, meat eaters will be culled first, right after sceptics).
I’m sure for every person who reads such an idiotic report and accepts it, there must be thousands turned right off. A lot of those might be on the fence, so I guess we should hope for a continuation because more and more readers will be throwing the whole carbon footprint nonsense in the bin where it belongs.
It’s carbon it’s carbon it’s carbon. Is there ANYTHING – raw, cooked, eaten, stored or wasted – that isn’t carbon-based? What do they want??? Yeah, yeah, I know, global domination followed by systematic destruction of civilization and anything left that might just set us above or separate from other animals. Including thought.
These greenies make me want to puke – except of course that would be a carbon emission, no doubt soon to be made illegal, along with life itself.
Waste milk? Never! If there’s more than needed, we cook something with it. Even the half cup of coffee with the dash of milk gets reheated in the microwave, so not wasted. This can only be commercial milk where exactly matching supply to demand is near impossible. Anyway, it gets recycled even when poured down the drain, as it goes back into the ecosystem.
All this article proves is how stupid many of our current generation of ‘scientists’ are, to trump up such useless research all in the name of ‘climate change’, which is just a bogus excuse to get additional funding. I bet if they hadn’t of used the words ‘climate change’ in their research, no one would have funded it, and quite rightly. If the point was to highlight food waste, they needn’t have bothered, the recession will naturally cause people to waste less, and companies are very concious of wastage anyway as it affects their profitability.
If the nitrous oxide is such a major threat to Gaia, why are whipped cream dispensers still legal? N20 + a milk product can’t be good!
This is just a sideshow. Why not start an attack on the evil brewing-industry-funded Marmite deniers?. (yeast=Co2=we’re all going to die)
I know the CO2 cultists believe the world would be a better place if we were all vegetarians but Willis (I think) has already adequately explained elsewhere that animals CONVERTplant matter that humans cannot digest into valuable protein stuff that they can. Cows convert grass into meat and milk, chickens convert grass and worms and bugs into eggs and meat. Goats! Well, goats can convert just about anything into milk and meat. Pigs are pretty omnivorous, too and can easily hoover up all food waste including milk! Any people dependent upon subsistence agriculture know that their nutrition is enhanced at a stroke by raising chickens and goats etc.
Humans did not grow their big brain eating vegetables!
The only genuine concern about waste milk is that it shouldn’t get into rivers and other water sources without being properly treated like other sewage.
There seems to be a lot of willy waving these days whereby scientists are competing to produce as many papers as possible that mention global warming regardless of the credibility of their research.
This paper is another example of why there is a need for a new untarnished journal for scientific papers with a new kind of review process.
The insanity never ends! We drink Soy milk as it is better for us. This sort of nonsense is enough to send us bck to Cows’ milk and to set us off pouring a fair percentage down the drain just to see if we can warm the winter up a bit!
Gail Combs says:
May 13, 2012 at 8:39 pm
Hold the phone. First CO2 was a key greenhouse gas, then water vapor was a key greenhouse gas, then methane was a key greenhouse gas, now nitrous oxide is a key greenhouse gas. What’s the next key greenhouse gas going to be — argon, maybe?
All gasses in the atmosphere are greenhouse gasses. They all absorb heat and that heat takes time to dissipate.
Willis said;
“I fear I don’t understand what’s happening. Why are the Brits pouring their milk down the sink? My working hypothesis is that it’s spoiled milk from power interruptions to their refrigerators when the wind isn’t blowing … but heck, maybe it’s some kind of UK cultural thing, what do I know?”
I suspect this research came from the same people that calculated that Britons wasted billions of gallons of water (oft quoted in the media) by letting water pour down the sink through allowing the taps to be left on fiull spate for three minutes three times a day as we brush our teeth. The reality is extrapolated from a minimal number of unrealistic case studies.
In these straitended times it looks like there are lots of research grants that could be severely pruned without anyone else noticing.
tonyb
Anthony
Can you give davidmhoffer a weeks time out for his terrible puns?
tonyb
I reckon that the headmaster who turned off the school’s heating for the day was doing the right thing. Now the kids know what life would be like if the Greens had their way.
Fracking in the UK can proceed only if the Frackers can develop a carbon sink. We should thank the team in Edinburgh and milk it for all it’s worth.
New job creation category called Little Miss Muffet is being mandated by EPA for cheese processors. Job applicants must be willing to eat drained whey. Pay scale depends on how much internalized recycling one does. Good earning potential for those who like to sit on a tuffet while work.
Have they factored in the percentage of the UK’s population who are pet owners? Wouldn’t people give the out of date milk or any waste milk to them instead of pouring it down the sink?
Last time I checked, “car exhaust emissions” wasn’t a scientific unit of measurement.
Must be postmodern science then.