Humans' beef with livestock: a warmer planet

February 23, 2007

20 Feb 07

By Brad Knickerbocker | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

As Congress begins to tackle the causes and cures of global warming, the

action focuses on gas-guzzling vehicles and coal-fired power plants, not on

lowly bovines.

Yet livestock are a major emitter of greenhouse gases that cause climate

change. And as meat becomes a growing mainstay of human diet around the

world, changing what we eat may prove as hard as changing what we drive.

It's not just the well-known and frequently joked-about flatulence and

manure of grass-chewing cattle that's the problem, according to a recent

report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Land-use changes, especially deforestation to expand pastures and to create

arable land for feed crops, is a big part. So is the use of energy to

produce fertilizers, to run the slaughterhouses and meat-processing plants,

and to pump water.

" Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most

serious environmental problems, " Henning Steinfeld, senior author of the

report, said when the FAO findings were released in November.

Livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions as

measured in carbon dioxide equivalent, reports the FAO. This includes 9

percent of all CO2 emissions, 37 percent of methane, and 65 percent of

nitrous oxide. Altogether, that's more than the emissions caused by

transportation.

<snip>

Click on the following link for the whole article:

The FAO report discussed in the Monitor article:

The article comparing the C cost of animal and plant based diets by U of

Chicago scientists Eshel and Martin (discussed in the latter half of the

Monitor article):

Recommended Posts