From the meatheads at the Carnegie Institution
Climate: Meat turns up the heat
Stanford, CA—Eating meat contributes to climate change, due to greenhouse gasses emitted by livestock. New research finds that livestock emissions are on the rise and that beef cattle are responsible for far more greenhouse gas emissions than other types of animals. It is published by Climactic Change.
Carbon dioxide is the most-prevalent gas when it comes to climate change. It is released by vehicles, industry, and forest removal and comprises the greatest portion of greenhouse gas totals. But methane and nitrous oxide are also greenhouse gasses and account for approximately 28 percent of global warming activity.
Methane and nitrous oxide are released, in part, by livestock. Animals release methane as a result of microorganisms that are involved in their digestive processes and nitrous oxide from decomposing manure. These two gasses are responsible for a quarter of these non-carbon dioxide gas emissions and 9 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions overall.
The research team, including Dario Caro, formerly of Carnegie and now at the University of Siena in Italy, and Carnegie’s Ken Caldeira, estimated the greenhouse gas emissions related to livestock in 237 countries over a nearly half a century and found that livestock emissions increased by 51 percent over this period.
They found a stark difference between livestock-related emissions in the developing world, which accounts for most of this increase, and that released by developed countries. This is expected to increase further going forward, as demand for meat, dairy products, and eggs is predicted by some scientists to double by 2050. By contrast, developed countries reached maximum livestock emissions in the 1970s and have been in decline since that time.
“The developing world is getting better at reducing greenhouse emissions caused by each animal, but this improvement is not keeping up with the increasing demand for meat,” said Caro. “As a result, greenhouse gas emissions from livestock keep going up and up in much of the developing world.”
Breaking it down by animal, beef and dairy cattle comprised 74 percent of livestock-related greenhouse gas emissions, 54 percent coming from beef cattle and 17 percent from dairy cattle. Part of this is due to the abundance of cows, but it is also because cattle emit greater quantities of methane and nitrous oxide than other animals. Sheep comprised 9 percent, buffalo 7 percent, pigs 5 percent, and goats 4 percent.
“That tasty hamburger is the real culprit,” Caldeira said. “It might be better for the environment if we all became vegetarians, but a lot of improvement could come from eating pork or chicken instead of beef.”
The Carnegie Institution for Science is a private, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with six research departments throughout the U.S. Since its founding in 1902, the Carnegie Institution has been a pioneering force in basic scientific research. Carnegie scientists are leaders in plant biology, developmental biology, astronomy, materials science, global ecology, and Earth and planetary science.
[ADDENDUM]: My thanks to Anthony for pointing out this study. This might be a good time to recommend to people my previous posts on the relationship of plants and animals in the planetary food systems:
Animal, Vegetable, or E.O. Wilson
Finally, one of the larger methane sources on the planet, ironically, is … rice paddies. Lots and lots of organic materials decaying underwater, someone needs to put an end to that terrible practice immediately …
w.
‘Blazing Saddles’ scene:
They bury the lede – you can’t just top eating livestock, you need to kill all the livestock you have. It’s their *life* that is the problem, not their death.
Taken a step further, this is an argument that wiping out species reduces global warming.
I am going to protest and go get big steak for dinner 🙂
I wish I knew how to embed this image,,,,,,
http://i.imgur.com/eYXMSFA.gif
Alan Watt, Climate Denialist Level 7 says at July 21, 2014 at 12:37 pm
Actually. the claim is being made.
But here in the UK (where I think you are also?) it isn’t considered a bad thing.
I cannot find any figures mentioned, just meaningess percentage increases. A 50% increase of a small number is still a small number. This is what’s called an argument without data. Meaningless from what I can see.
This article highlights a key problem with the Western media’s fixation on carbon. If there had been a calm, rational campaign to encourage people to burn less deep-earth carbon (coal, oil, natural gas) so that there would be plenty left for future generations, I would have been on-board. But this focus on CO2 and now CH4 is a) incorrect and b) confusing for the layman. For example: whether grass rots on the ground or rots in a cow’s stomach, it releases the same amount of Carbon into the atmosphere, so cows are pretty much carbon neutral. The only impact will be minor changes in how long it takes the carbon to return to the gaseous phase.
I think humans started migrating long before they invented carbon hysteria.
How many emmissions did 60 million bison and many otehr ungultes emit before they were reduced? Till we gat that answered these “findings” are meaningless.
Protein deficient peasants are less able to rise up against the rulers.
It’s all part of the plan…
So what are we going to eat? Beans, broccoli & cabbage?
Stupid.
Here’s an interesting TED talk on why grass needs cows.
Michael D says:
July 21, 2014 at 1:05 pm
This article highlights a key problem with the Western media’s fixation on carbon.
===================
Yes, we should re-brand CO2 emissions as “oxygen emissions” since there’s twice as much oxygen as carbon in CO2.
“Carbon dioxide is the most-prevalent gas when it comes to climate change. It is released by vehicles, industry, and forest removal and comprises the greatest portion of greenhouse gas totals.”
They left out quite a few sources of CO2 (which dwarf those they listed), and CO2 certainly doesn’t comprise “the greatest portion of greenhouse totals”.
If cows produce methane, then surely we should be eating cows as quickly as we can.
CO2 is nowhere close to being the most-prevelant greenhouse gas, however you care to define that term.
Water vapor is, by a huge margin.
The religion now has a diet to add to its dogma.
How do they account for that produced during anaerobic plant decay, natural gas leakage etc. Furthermore, CH4 is photoreactive is it not? So therefore has a short residence time.
Here in Sweden, it is well known within the healthcare that vegans sooner or later will get a vitamine B12 deficiency disease. Two of the first common symtoms are low blood count and reduced brain activity …
Why don’t they mention anything about the large number of wildebeests and other herbivores in Africa?
Also, I have never met or heard of any genuine vegan, as they whould remove their canine teeth … I would like to hear a discussion about eating meat between a vegan and an Inuit on traditional food …
Go big game hunting, Save The Planet. You need to kill as many of those wildebeast as you can to stop the planet overheating!
Gamecock says: July 21, 2014 at 12:11 pm “How much carbon is sequestered in livestock?”
Well that’s exactly the point! Has anyone bothered to challenge these nitwits with the fact that 99% of the carbon in the methane these animals emit was pulled OUT of the atmosphere by the plants used for animal feed? What is the difference between this claim and claiming that burning bio-fuel emits GHG’s? They are purposely masking over the other side of the equation; probably to assure future funding.
And they ignored the question… if humans all start eating mostly vegetable matter.. what about the increase of OUR methane emission?
Better dig out Michelle Obama’s spinach pie recipe. Not forgetting (much as I would like to) her non-cream creamed spinach.
BTW, if vegetarianism or veganism is so great, why do they keep inventing “foods” that look like mine……veggie burgers, soy bacon, etc.
There is nothing wrong with carbon dioxide from energy generation and personal transportation, and there is nothing wrong with nitrous oxide from crops, nor nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous for plants, and there is nothing wrong with building a fire, and there is certainly nothing wrong with methane from dairy and beef cattle.
At least cow flatulence produces milk, cheese, yoghurt, cottage cheese, ice cream, beef, leather, medicine, hormones, fertilizers, paint, paint brushes, tire additives, nicely grazed fields that support wild bees and reduce fire hazards, and violin strings. Whereas ill-considered, toxic hippy paradigms produce nothing of the sort.
And speaking of Organic-only Boomers, Where will all the flowers go? — There already wasn’t enough composted bull%$#@ur momisugly to fertilize the cereal crops alone, let alone the vegetables, with the millions of head of cattle we have in this country now. Nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous meet the needs of the cereals, vegetables, and orchard trees in nice clean tanks, shipped any time, any where.
This is an old one. From the same people that claim that all problems can be solved by breeding the “defective Y chromosome” out of humanity. Meanwhile, it remains a simple thing to spot the vegetarians around us by the trail of flatulence they emit.
Just in:
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Monday that last month’s average global temperature was 61.2 degrees (16.2 Celsius), which is 1.3 degrees higher than the 20th century average. It beat 2010’s old record by one-twentieth of a degree.
NOAA climate monitoring chief Derek Arndt said the record was driven by unusually hot oceans, especially the Pacific and Indian oceans.
Heat records broke on every continent but Antarctica, especially in New Zealand, northern South America, Greenland, central Africa and southern Asia.
The United States had only its 33rd hottest June.
Global temperature records go back to 1880 and this is the 352nd hotter than average month in a row.
The Canadian Press
Re
Ken Caldeira’s email address kcaldeira@carnegiescience.edu