meat eaters are responsible for 1.5 more tons of carbon dioxide per person than vegetarians every year

[Guest guest]

>Humans' beef with livestock: a warmer planet

>American meat eaters are responsible for 1.5 more tons of carbon

>dioxide per person than vegetarians every year. By Brad Knickerbocker

>http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0220/p03s01-ussc.html?s=hns

 

 

from the February 20, 2007 edition

 

GRAZING: As meat consumption grows worldwide, cows, like these in a

field near Riverside, Pa., are becoming a 'major player' in

greenhouse-gas emissions, according to a recent report.

JIMMY MAY/AP

Humans' beef with livestock: a warmer planet

American meat eaters are responsible for 1.5 more tons of carbon

dioxide per person than vegetarians every year.

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.

The latter two gases are particularly troubling - even though

they represent far smaller concentrations in atmosphere than CO2,

which remains the main global warming culprit. But methane has 23

times the global warming potential (GWP) of CO2 and nitrous oxide has

296 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide.

Methane could become a greater problem if the permafrost in

northern latitudes thaws with increasing temperatures, releasing the

gas now trapped below decaying vegetation. What's more certain is

that emissions of these gases can spike as humans consume more

livestock products.

As prosperity increased around the world in recent decades,

the number of people eating meat (and the amount one eats every year)

has risen steadily. Between 1970 and 2002, annual per capita meat

consumption in developing countries rose from 11 kilograms (24 lbs.)

to 29 kilograms (64 lbs.), according to the FAO. (In developed

countries, the comparable figures were 65 kilos and 80 kilos.) As

population increased, total meat consumption in the developing world

grew nearly five-fold over that period.

Beyond that, annual global meat production is projected to

more than double from 229 million tons at the beginning of the decade

to 465 million tons in 2050. This makes livestock the fastest growing

sector of global agriculture.

Animal-rights activists and those advocating vegetarianism

have been quick to pick up on the implications of the FAO report.

" Arguably the best way to reduce global warming in our

lifetimes is to reduce or eliminate our consumption of animal

products, " writes Noam Mohr in a report for EarthSave International.

Changing one's diet can lower greenhouse gas emissions

quicker than shifts away from fossil fuel burning technologies, Mr.

Mohr writes, because the turnover rate for farm animals is shorter

than that for cars and power plants.

" Even if cheap, zero-emission fuel sources were available

today, they would take many years to build and slowly replace the

massive infrastructure our economy depends upon today, " he writes.

" Similarly, unlike carbon dioxide which can remain in the air for

more than a century, methane cycles out of the atmosphere in just

eight years, so that lower methane emissions quickly translate to

cooling of the earth. "

Researchers at the University of Chicago compared the global

warming impact of meat eaters with that of vegetarians and found that

the average American diet - including all food processing steps -

results in the annual production of an extra 1.5 tons of

CO2-equivalent (in the form of all greenhouse gases) compared to a

no-meat diet. Researchers Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin concluded

that dietary changes could make more difference than trading in a

standard sedan for a more efficient hybrid car, which reduces annual

CO2 emissions by roughly one ton a year.

" It doesn't have to be all the way to the extreme end of

vegan, " says Dr. Eshel, whose family raised beef cattle in Israel.

" If you simply cut down from two burgers a week to one, you've

already made a substantial difference. "

* Staff writer Peter Spotts contributed to this report.

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