Killer cow emissions : LA Times Editorial Powerfully Connects Meat to Global Warming

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Editor, Los Angeles Times

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*L.A. Times Editorial Powerfully Connects Meat to Global Warming

*http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-methane15oct15,0,1365993.story?coll=l\

a-opinion-leftrail

 

From the Los Angeles Times

*Killer cow emissions

 

*Livestock are a leading source of greenhouse gases. Why isn't anyone

raising a stink?

 

October 15, 2007

 

It's a silent but deadly source of greenhouse gases that contributes

more to global warming than the entire world transportation sector, yet

politicians almost never discuss it, and environmental lobbyists and

other green activist groups seem unaware of its existence.

 

That may be because it's tough to take cow flatulence seriously. But

livestock emissions are no joke.

 

Most of the national debate about global warming centers on carbon

dioxide, the world's most abundant greenhouse gas, and its major sources

-- fossil fuels. Seldom mentioned is that cows and other ruminants, such

as sheep and goats, are walking gas factories that take in fodder and

put out methane and nitrous oxide, two greenhouse gases that are far

more efficient at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. Methane, with 21

times the warming potential of CO2, comes from both ends of a cow, but

mostly the front. Frat boys have nothing on bovines, as it's estimated

that a single cow can belch out anywhere from 25 to 130 gallons of

methane a day.

 

It isn't just the gas they pass that makes livestock troublesome. A

report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization

identified livestock as one of the two or three top contributors to the

world's most serious environmental problems, including water pollution

and species loss. In terms of climate change, livestock are a threat not

only because of the gases coming from their stomachs and manure but

because of deforestation, as land is cleared to make way for pastures,

and the amount of energy needed to produce the crops that feed the animals.

 

All told, livestock are responsible for 18% of greenhouse-gas emissions

worldwide, according to the U.N. -- more than all the planes, trains and

automobiles on the planet. And it's going to get a lot worse. As living

standards rise in the developing world, so does its fondness for meat

and dairy. Annual per-capita meat consumption in developing countries

doubled from 31 pounds in 1980 to 62 pounds in 2002, according to the

Food and Agriculture Organization, which expects global meat production

to more than double by 2050. That means the environmental damage of

ranching would have to be cut in half just to keep emissions at their

current, dangerous level.

 

It isn't enough to improve mileage standards or crack down on diesel

truck emissions, as politicians at both the state and national levels

are working to do. Eventually, the United States and other countries are

going to have to clean up their agricultural practices, while consumers

can do their part by cutting back on red meat.

 

Manure, methane and McGovern

 

In a Web forum for presidential candidates in September, TV talk-show

host Bill Maher asked former Sen. John Edwards a snarky question:

Because Edwards had suggested that people trade in their SUVs to benefit

the environment, and cattle generate more greenhouse gases than SUVs,

" You want to take a shot at meat? " Maher asked.

 

Edwards wisely dodged the question. It is extremely hazardous for

politicians to take on the U.S. beef industry, a lesson learned by Sen.

George McGovern in the late 1970s when his Select Committee on Nutrition

dared to recommend that Americans cut down on red meat and fatty dairy

products for health reasons. After a ferocious lobbying blitz from meat

and dairy interests, the committee rewrote its guidelines to suggest

diners simply choose lean meats that " will reduce saturated fat intake. "

McGovern was voted out of office in 1980, in part because of opposition

from cattlemen in his home state of South Dakota.

 

Beyond the dangers of taking on the beef bloc, legislating food choices

is an unpopular and nearly impossible task, so it's unlikely any

candidate will endorse a national vegetarian movement to fight global

warming any time soon. There are other approaches, though.

 

Cows and other ruminants have four stomachs, the first of which, called

the rumen, is where the trouble lies; bacteria in the rumen produce

methane. Scientists -- mostly in Australia, New Zealand and Britain,

where the problem is taken a lot more seriously than it is here -- are

working on a variety of technical solutions, including a kind of bovine

Alka-Seltzer. Scientists are also trying to develop new varieties of

feed grasses that are more energy efficient and thus generate less

methane, and they are experimenting with targeted breeding to produce a

less-gassy strain of cattle.

 

But it's not just about the belching. Livestock manure also emits

methane (especially when it's stored in lagoons) and nitrous oxide,

better known as laughing gas. There's nothing funny about this gas: It

has 296 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide, and livestock are

its leading anthropogenic (human-caused) source. The best way to reduce

these gases is to better manage the manure; storage methods and

temperature can make a big difference. The California Air Resources

Board is studying manure-management practices as part of a sweeping

effort to identify ways of cutting greenhouse-gas emissions, work that

by the end of next year might lead to regulation of the state's ranches

and dairies. Other states should do the same.

 

There are also smart ways of treating or converting animal waste. Manure

lagoons can be covered, capturing gases that can be used to generate

power or simply be burned away (burning the gases converts most of the

emissions to CO2, which is far less destructive than methane). That's

the strategy being pursued by American Electric Power Co., a gigantic

utility based in Columbus, Ohio, whose coal-fired power plants make it

the nation's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide. This summer, the company

began putting tarps on waste lagoons at farms and ranches and sending

the gases they capture to flares.

 

American Electric is under heavy regulatory pressure. Last week, it was

on the wrong end of the biggest environmental settlement in U.S. history

and agreed to spend up to $4.6 billion to clean up its smokestacks. Its

work on manure is part of an experiment in carbon offsets; the company

anticipates that someday Congress will cap the amount of carbon dioxide

that can be emitted and allow polluters to trade pollution credits. As a

previous installment of this series noted, that's a less effective way

to combat global warming than carbon taxes, but the American Electric

example shows that it would also direct the economic might of industrial

polluters toward solving off-the-beaten-path problems such as livestock

waste.

 

Other possible solutions include providing more aid to ranchers in

places like Brazil, where forests are rapidly disappearing, to make

cattle operations more efficient and thus decrease the need to cut down

trees. Changes in farming practices on fields used to grow livestock

feed could help capture more carbon. And U.S. agricultural policy is

overdue for changes. Subsidies on crops such as corn and soybeans have

traditionally kept the price of meat artificially low because these are

key feedstocks.

 

Broccoli: It's what's for dinner

 

Such policy shifts and new technologies would help, but probably not

enough. A recent report in the Lancet led by Australian National

University professor Anthony J. McMichael posits that available

technologies applied universally could reduce non-carbon dioxide

emissions from livestock by less than 20%. The authors advocate another,

fringe approach that has long been embraced by dietitians and vegans but

is a long way from going mainstream in the United States: eating less meat.

 

Americans love beef. According to the 2000 census, the U.S. ranks No. 3

in the world in per-capita consumption of beef and veal (after Argentina

and Uruguay), gorging on 100 pounds per year. We're also among the

leaders in obesity, heart disease and colorectal cancer, and there is a

connection -- fatty red meat has been linked to all of these conditions.

 

McMichael's idea isn't likely to gain much traction outside Australia;

he proposes that developed countries lower their daily intake of meat

from about 250 grams to 90 grams, with no more than 50 grams coming from

ruminant animals -- that's less than 2 ounces, or half a McDonald's

Quarter-Pounder.

 

Still, as evidence mounts that cutting back on beef would both improve

our health and help stave off global warming, a campaign urging people

to do so is clearly in order. It's understandable why political

candidates are wary of bashing beef, but less understandable why

environmental leaders with nothing to lose are reluctant to raise the

issue. They would be more credible in targeting polluters if they were

equally assertive in pointing out what all Americans can do to fight

global warming, and at the very top of that list -- way ahead of more

commonly mentioned approaches such as buying fluorescent lightbulbs or

energy-efficient appliances -- would be eating less red meat.

 

A University of Chicago study examined the average American diet and

found that all the various energy inputs and livestock emissions

involved in its production pump an extra 1.5 tons of CO2 into the air

over the course of a year, which would be avoided by a vegetarian diet.

Thus, the researchers found, cutting out meat would do more to reduce

greenhouse gas emissions than trading in a gas guzzler for a hybrid car.

 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture assesses ranchers, dairymen and

producers of other commodities to pay for marketing campaigns to promote

their products, raising millions of dollars a year and turning such

slogans as " Got Milk? " and " Beef: It's What's for Dinner " into national

catchphrases. This isn't quite tantamount to a government-mandated

campaign to promote cigarette smoking, but it's close. The government

should not only get out of the business of promoting unhealthful and

environmentally destructive foods, it should be actively discouraging them.

 

 

For more information on this vital subject,

please visit

 

Meat Eating & Global Warming

http://www.ivu.org/members/globalwarming.html