Global warming: Keep your cars, ditch your hamburger
32 Comments Published by Segen on Tuesday, April 8 at 11:45 PM.
According to a UN press release, “When emissions from land use and land use change are included, the livestock sector accounts for 9 percent of CO2 deriving from human-related activities, but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse gases. It generates 65 percent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure. And it accounts for respectively 37 percent of all human-induced methane (23 times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 percent of ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain.”
Animal farming contributes to water contamination—with pollutants such as animal waste, antibiotics, hormones, chemicals, fertilizers, and pesticides entering the water sources. Animal farming is also leading to soil erosion and desertification through improper grazing.
Not only is the land where animals graze an issue, but the land used to grow animal feed is also an issue. According to Michigan State University Professor Bruce Dale, "We grow animal feed, not human food in the
In 1900 just over 10% of the total grain grown worldwide was fed to animals; by 1950 this figure had risen to over 20%; by the late 1990s it stood at around 45%. Over 60% of US grain is fed to livestock.
Think how those millions of acres of crop-land products could be used to feed other humans in the world, and not animals. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that around 840 million people are undernourished. That's about 14% of the human population. On average, around 25,000 people die every day from hunger-related causes.
In terms of protein efficiency, humans would be better off eating the protein-rich grains that animals eat, rather eating the animal—which requires energy, food, water, and other resources to “make” protein. (Think veggie burgers vs. beef patties). The prospect for a more protein-efficient use of the land looks bleak, however. Global meat production is projected to more than double from 229 million tons in 1999/2001 to 465 million tons in 2050, while milk output is set to climb from 580 to 1043 million tons.
Labels: animal, Global Warming, segen, united nations
While browsing the UN report, another statistic leapt out at me. It claims American per capita meat consumption is 123 kg/year. I knew we ate a lot of meat, but damn!
If you consider that many Americans are children, then adults might be averaging over a pound of meat per day!
A point that is implied in all of this but not directly said is that this is a problem of the way livestock is raised, not the existence of livestock period. Livestock and other animals have lived in harmony with nature for centuries. When we jam hundreds of cattle into a small space, fill them full of drugs and chemicals and feed them food that they were never intended to eat (such as corn and other animals), these problems arise.
Above, Centuries should be millenia. But you get the point
Deforestation, extreme (mis)use of water resources, pollutants & greenhouse gasses - personal health - animal ethics -
Gosh.... can there possibly be any more reasons to adopt a vegan/vegetarian diet?
My family did so years ago and we're all quite healthy (and happy) - For health & heart -
Go Vegan!
Yeah, but veggie burgers taste like crap.
Once you get grains tasting like a Kobe Steak or a great prosciutto, then come back and talk to me.
Dunkin' just came out with some delicious new hash browns to complement my sausage, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich.
Oh come on. Are you all still acting like global warming is legitimate? With all the recent articles and outspoken critics? With all the new contradicting data?
I actually recently became a vegetarian because of similar concerns to those expressed by Segen.
Kofi, seriously? Show us the data (I'm not even looking for ultra hard science, show me a few plausible arguments in news articles)
http://mediamatters.org/items/200703230007
That's a start.
hahaha. That's pretty funny anonymous. I'm still waiting on Kofi though.
:P
Kevin and I came to an interesting realization. If everyone became Vegan, we'd undoubtedly live longer according to all the health nuts. So let's say that it extends the average life from 75 to 80. That is 5 more years for every one of the 6 billion+ people on this earth, not to mention all the new babies people are working on making every single day. We'll wind up with even more people, and need even more grain, and perhaps even hurt the environment more!?!
Perhaps we're doing the world a favor by eating unhealthy and dying sooner than the average?
EAT BAD, DIE SOON, PROTECT THE PLANET!!!
@Jay
Hopefully the Utopian days envisioned by the great Willy Wonka aren't too far off...3 course meal gum, delicious. Personally, I'm hoping they can combine that with the nutrient goo from the first Matrix movie; nothing better than deliciousness rapped in the texture of runny eggs.
Hanno, I don't have the time to dig through the last six months of news stories.
What you don't have fifteen minutes to find this voluminous literature you're toting at conclusive that global warming is bullshit?
I'm not referring to a single report or source, Hanno. I'm referring to one or two stories each week for the last several months. I'm not going to compile dozens of sources and write a ten page report for you. The information is out there. It has been developing over a period of time. More comes out all the time. If you haven't been paying attention then plead ignorance.
Mike,
Interesting thought. While it seems clear to me that our current livestock practices cause problems, it does not logically follow from that fact that the environmentally optimal amount of livestock to raise is zero.
Are there some benefits to raising a small amount of livestock? Perhaps lack of grazing would cause overgrowth?
I am curious about this because I don't eat much meat, but I don't strictly eliminate it from my diet. For various reasons, such as health, ethical, and environmental, I like keep my meat consumption low, but, for me, it's not optimal to avoid meat at all costs.
Of course, any ethical problems associated with raising livestock apply whether you're raising 10 cattle or 10 million, but the problem is far smaller (1 million times smaller, to be precise) in the former case.
Jay,
I know you were joking, but I always feel compelled to respond when someone suggests that a longer healthy lifespan might be bad.
Firstly, it's unclear that longer lifespans cause people to have more children. In countries where lifespan is longest, people are not having many children nowadays. There have been many other societal changes to confound any connection between longer lifespan and fewer children, so I don't mean to suggest such a correlation exists. I just mean to say it's unclear.
Secondly, if you assume that people have the same number of children, then societal costs drop as the generational turnover rate slows down. When you lengthen lifespan by healthier behavior, you're extending the healthy span. The unhealthy span - the expensive part - remains the same length. Childhood is another societally expensive time period, as resources must be devoted to raising and molding them into adults.
With both the childhood and elderly , dependent segments of life taking up a smaller percentage of overall lifespan, costs drop.
Oops. I meant "causal relationship" instead of "correlation".
"There have been many other societal changes to confound any connection between longer lifespan and fewer children, so I don't mean to suggest such a causal relationship exists"
"I'm not referring to a single report or source, Hanno. I'm referring to one or two stories each week for the last several months"
Funny considering I read the news daily from at least three different news sources and have never seen more than a smattering, most of which says it's not happening as fast as we are led to believe.
I'm not giving up my car or my cheezburger. I had a nice drive today to a new restaurant for a burger and fries, off campus of course. Yay. Left-wing nutcases left behind!
Segen and I were discussing a potential post on this topic a few days ago, and one thing we wondered about was whether there would be any anti-vegetarian backlash. On one hand, the usual level of discourse here is quite high, but, on the other hand, this topic is emotionally charged and brings out the worst in some people.
JAL, Dunkin anon, and anyone else who is strongly anti-vegetarian - do you think you could shed some light about why you feel the way you do instead of merely peacefully being omnivorous?
thetodd,
I could easily identify two sources of animosity. The first is simple distaste for those who are different. Throughout most of history and most of the world, meat is a luxury that would be consumed when available and never voluntarily turned down. Vegetarian behavior is contrary to natural instinct and societal norms, and that makes it and its practitioners suspicious. Second, vegetarians are stereotypically very liberal. Very liberal people have a history of imposing their preferences on the rest of us. SUV driving, gun owning, nativity erecting Americans read something like Segen's post and the immediate reaction is: You took everything else, now you want my steak?
That sounds very reasonable.
Are there a lot of preachy vegetarians on college campuses these days? I'm not sure how much the culture has changed in the last 5 years or so.
A couple more far-out (interesting, but perhaps not correct) theories:
1. It might just be my luck, but almost all anti-vegetarians I've come across are male. Meat eating is often considered a manly thing to do. Perhaps some men feel a need to assert their manhood when it is being challenged.
2. Desire to avoid cognitive dissonance and unnecessary challenges in life. Eating meat is natural, it's tasty, and it's the easy thing to do. Entertaining any opposing arguments might cause mental conflict or challenge one to change well-established habits, so it's easier just to reject any attempt at serious discussion.
thetodd,
I actually was not saying that all livestock harm the environment. Far from it. As you said, livestock grazing can actually increase the health of pastures through stimulating growth and preventing overgrowth. They also fertilize growth through their manure.
However, once you group thousands of them together and keep them in one place, you get the problems cited in the other posts regarding the environment.
I think what is more important is the amount of meat people eat, rather than the fact that people eat meat. As you said 123 kg/year is a lot.
"Humans lack both the physical characteristics of carnivores and the instinct that drives them to kill animals and devour their raw carcasses. Ask yourself: When you see dead animals on the side of the road, are you tempted to stop for a snack? Does the sight of a dead bird make you salivate? Do you daydream about killing cows with your bare hands and eating them raw? If you answered "no" to all of these questions, congratulations—you're a normal human herbivore—like it or not. Humans were simply not designed to eat meat."
read more here...
Dead plants (or even living ones, for that matter) also don't make me salivate. I've never felt the desire to stop my car to pick some berries, either.
I salivate when I see a beautiful New York Strip cooked to perfection.
www.Todd.JustOwnedAnon.com
I'm keeping both. Global Warming is a myth. I heard scientists are now predicting global cooling. Make up your mind!
The New York Times chips in on this issue...manufacturing meat an option?
Ooh. I like :)
Meat grown from a cell culture would also probably be less likely to cause food poisoning and other nastiness.
Maybe I am just a hopeless techno-optimist, but I think once the taste and price of this meat is on par with our current meat, it would only take a few years for most people to stop objecting to manufactured meat on grounds that it's "weird" or "not natural".