From the Chalmers University of Technology
Greenhouse gas emissions from food production may threaten the UN climate target of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, according to research at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden.
On Monday 31 March the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) presents their report on the impacts of climate change.
Carbon dioxide emissions from the energy and transportation sectors currently account for the largest share of climate pollution. However, a study from Chalmers now shows that eliminating these emissions would not guarantee staying below the UN limit. Emissions from agriculture threaten to keep increasing as global meat and dairy consumption increases. If agricultural emissions are not addressed, nitrous oxide from fields and methane from livestock may double by 2070. This alone would make meeting the climate target essentially impossible.
“We have shown that reducing meat and dairy consumption is key to bringing agricultural climate pollution down to safe levels,” says Fredrik Hedenus, one of the study authors. “Broad dietary change can take a long time. We should already be thinking about how we can make our food more climate friendly.”
By 2070, there will be many more of us on this planet. Diets high in meat, milk, cheese, and other food associated with high emissions are expected to become more common. Because agricultural emissions are difficult and expensive to reduce via changes in production methods or technology, these growing numbers of people, eating more meat and dairy, entail increasing amounts of climate pollution from the food sector.
“These emissions can be reduced with efficiency gains in meat and dairy production, as well as with the aid of new technology,” says co-author Stefan Wirsenius. “But the potential reductions from these measures are fairly limited and will probably not suffice to keep us within the climate limit, if meat and dairy consumption continue to grow.”
Beef and lamb account for the largest agricultural emissions, relative to the energy they provide. By 2050, estimates indicate that beef and lamb will account for half of all agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, while only contributing 3 percent of human calorie intake. Cheese and other dairy products will account for about one quarter of total agricultural climate pollution.
They seem to have missed the use of nitrogen (ammonia) fertilizers.
Do they get these lofty positions by scoring below a very low maximum on an IQ test?
cnxtim says:
March 30, 2014 at 4:48 pm
———
To Serve Mann, a new and improved version of the Twilight Zone episode.
I’m really getting angry now at the degree to which the enviro fascists are trying to control our lives. I am not giving up meat and cheese. Ever.
A Smörgåsbord of green fantasies.
They can have the salad. I’ll take the beef. Vegan – Old Souix word meaning ” bad hunter”
Cults have a proven indoctrination methodology. Reduce protein intake and people become sheeple or more cult-ishly susceptible. GK
Like most humans, I’m a genetically optimized omnivore, leaning to the carnivore side. Years back, I dated a gal that favored a nearly vegetarian diet. I tried it for several weeks…. until my digestive system went into gastric revolt. There wasn’t enough BEANO and Malox available to quell my irritated system and limit emissions. Restoration of meat, cheese, and milk in my diet restored me to normal function and health. A simple and yet instructive experiment in basic human dietary adaptations.
If others choose to reject meat, cheese, and milk, I will happily eat their share! There’s room for all God’s creatures in this world. I prefer them next to the cooked carrots and potatoes…..
We understand that the Universe is of course expanding at an accelerated rate and that common people must restrict their diets. This is all to accommodate the incredible expanding arrogance of the baby boomers.
Let’s define terms. “Sustainable” refers to the number of people that are actually necessary to support the Boomers’ palaces in UN owned heritage lands.
Or, “sustainable” refers to the number of inhabitants on earth who can realistically be forced to live under the collectivist ideology that makes Boomers feel good about themselves, despite their debauched, self-indulgent, drugged up, sexually permissive, and personally treacherous lives.
This is going to have to stop:
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=gourmet+hamburger&FORM=HDRSC2
and this, you wasteful consumering consumers:
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=new+pickup+trucks+for+2014&FORM=HDRSC2
I whacked 4 deer this year for the freezer. Add another 2 by vehicle (not for consumption but every little bit helps)). I hope I’m helping save the earth. Looking for another freezer so I can whack a couple more next season. I only do it for the children and the children’s children. Well maybe I enjoy a good steak or roast also.
Boomers “liberated” your daughters
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=cosmopolitan+covers&FORM=HDRSC2
so naturally destroying agricultural advances, electrical power, personal cars, and cattle must follow as a little extra gift from the worst generation.
Can we eliminate cheesy Sweds who produce bullsh*t?
It’s about time, good to see the anti-Baby Boomer generation (of which I am a happenstance member) remarks. Greatest Generation begat the Lamest Generation.
Cheers Ed, Mr. Jones.
Speaking of generations, my own kids told me they prefer to be known as “Digital Natives.” (:
How are we supposed to get rid of the cows if we don’t eat them? I’m trying to get rid of them as fast as I can.
Seriously though, why do they assume that the vegetation cows feed on will completely stop growing if cows stop eating it? If farmers stopped planting hay, would nothing grow in those fields, not even weeds? When plants burn or decay in the field, instead of being eaten, don’t they still give off green-house gasses? It seems to me that all cows do is speed up the process. Just measuring how much GHGs cows produce is not enough. You also have to demonstrate how much less would be produced by natural processes if the cows were not around. I doubt there would be a whole lot of difference.
You can take my ribeye steak dinner followed by tiramisu from my cold dead hands.
The Desperate Character Writhes Again, a page from 70s hippie comics was a premonition, not a joke.
All this nonsense is comparable to the trend of witch hunting of the 17th century.
First came the prophet – James I who wrote a treatise on witches circa 1600, from which (!) followed the first persecutions. But this quickly snowballed into a kind of mass hysteria infecting practically the whole Christian world, until people were denouncing each other as witches and thousands were put to death. It only ended about 70 years later as the enlightenment took hold and people realised how absurd the whole thing was.
We’re in for a long wait.
It makes me wonder if IPCC scientists are really scientists. The carbon in the methane produced by livestock comes from the atmosphere. It’s part of the natural carbon cycle. Cows eat plants. Plants get carbon dioxide from the atmosphere via photosynthesis. High school science. Besides livestock manure is a rich source of amines. These become aerosol in the atmosphere producing cooling effect.
And then along comes this little gem:
University of Graz Study Finds Vegetarians Are Unhealthier, More Mentally Disturbed Than Meat-Lovers
http://notrickszone.com/#sthash.sh6OWwVK.dpuf
A paper by Dr Wilson Flood of Scotland a few years ago shows that doubling global livestock methane emissions would only raise temperatures by 0.01 degree, if doubling carbon dioxide were to raise temperatures 2 degrees. Yes the decimal point is correct. Nitrous oxide supposedly makes up a smaller part of livestock emissions, so doubling them would raise the temperature by less. However I have seen some draft research that suggests nitrous oxide may cause double the warming of methane. At that rate doubling livestock numbers would only raise temperatures by 0.03 degrees. Hard to see how that would cause the 2 degree ‘tipping point’ to be exceeded.
NO ICE CREAM??!!???!
>:-(((O)))
Wow! I see it’s Hate Week on WUWT so let me restore the balance a fraction. Stalin ate meat. Mao ate meat. Pol Pot ate meat. Even Adolf (despite internet myths to the contrary) ate meat. Thus I have proved conclusively that meat eaters are despotic tyrants. 😉
Oh, and by the way, Mac the Knife (March 30, 2014 at 8:45 pm), you can’t be “nearly vegetarian”. Was this girl you allegedly dated nearly a virgin too?
I’ve been a vegetarian for over 35 years but I don’t get worked up about this peculiar desire on the part of many people to insult those with whom they happen to disagree. I merely point out to you, as I do to my brother, a passionate meat eater, that the law of supply and demand makes it likely that your meat is cheaper because of the number of vegetarians about.
Oh, and so I can reinforce a few prejudices on here, I have long hair and a beard and have been known to indulge in the occasional consumption of that which the State of Colorado has recently legalized. But then, libertarianism has always been a difficult concept for those who prefer the opposite.
On 5th October 2013 the Veterinary Record (The journal of the BVA) carried a ‘leader Comment column with the title ‘Curbing emissions’. The author of which was anonymous, but it had the hallmarks of being by a staffer from DEFRA, who of course would be duty bound to follow the government line on Climate Change.
This is the letter I sent to the VR:-
Curbing emissions?
I refer to the Editorial Comment ‘Curbing emissions’. The particular focus of this column was the so-called greenhouse gas emissions (CO2 and CH4) associated with agricultural production processes.
In my letter (VR March 24 2012), I stated that I knew of no published empirical data or verifiable experiments that either of these gases had ever caused or driven global warming. This observation was never challenged in the VR or on a widely read climate science website. (WUWT of course!)
The Editorial bases its authority in saying that these emissions should be curbed on the recent IPCC Assessment Report (AR5). A briefer summary for policy makers (SPM) was also issued.
A Scientific Critique of this SPM has been written by Drs. Idso, Carter, Singer and Soon. These four experts in climate related sciences have identified thirteen untrue or misleading statements in the SPM, and a further nine statements that ‘misrepresent the science’. Their significant conclusion is that ‘no unambiguous evidence exists for adverse changes to the global environment caused by human-related CO2 emissions’.
I respectfully suggest that this VR Leader Comment does not reflect accurately the current empirical observations and published data on climate science. I also suggest that curbing these emissions will have no measurable effect on global temperatures and the ‘economic benefits’ are dubious.
REFERENCES
OXENHAM.M(2012)Best use of taxpayers’ money? Vet.Rec. 170,318
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/19/scientific-critique-of-ipccs-2013-summary-for-policymakers/#more-95880
My previous comments are here:-
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/23/veterinary-research-and-global-warming/#more-67988
This is not science, it is science hijacked for progressive politics. It is why it is absurd. Progressives see people as farm animals that must be “managed” cradle to grave for the “good” of _____, fill in the blank. This is not about whether meat or CO2 is good or bad, don’t get caught in that trap. Are you someone else’s farm animal to be managed is the issue.
It’s definitely worse than we thought!