Cattle emissions more harmful to the planet than CO2 emissions from vehicles.
December 11, 2006 -
A United Nations report has identified the world’s rapidly growing herds of cattle as the greatest threat to the climate, forests and wildlife. And they are blamed for a host of other environmental crimes, from acid rain to the introduction of alien species, from producing deserts to creating dead zones in the oceans, from poisoning rivers and drinking water to destroying coral reefs.
The 400-page report by the Food and Agricultural Organisation, entitled Livestock’s Long Shadow, also surveys the damage done by sheep, chickens, pigs and goats. But in almost every case, the world’s 1.5 billion cattle are most to blame. Livestock are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.
Burning fuel to produce fertiliser to grow feed, to produce meat and to transport it - and clearing vegetation for grazing - produces 9 per cent of all emissions of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas. And their wind and manure emit more than one third of emissions of another, methane, which warms the world 20 times faster than carbon dioxide.
Livestock also produces more than 100 other polluting gases, including more than two-thirds of the world’s emissions of ammonia, one of the main causes of acid rain.
Ranching, the report adds, is “the major driver of deforestation” worldwide, and overgrazing is turning a fifth of all pastures and ranges into desert.Cows also soak up vast amounts of water: it takes a staggering 990 litres of water to produce one litre of milk.
Wastes from feedlots and fertilisers used to grow their feed overnourish water, causing weeds to choke all other life. And the pesticides, antibiotics and hormones used to treat them get into drinking water and endanger human health.
The pollution washes down to the sea, killing coral reefs and creating “dead zones” devoid of life. One is up to 21,000sqkm, in the Gulf of Mexico, where much of the waste from US beef production is carried down the Mississippi.
The report concludes that, unless drastic changes are made, the massive damage done by livestock will more than double by 2050, as demand for meat increases.
Meet the world’s top destroyer of the environment. It is not the car, or the plane,or even George Bush: it is the cow.
A United Nations report has identified the world’s rapidly growing herds of cattle as the greatest threat to the climate, forests and wildlife. And they are blamed for a host of other environmental crimes, from acid rain to the introduction of alien species, from producing deserts to creating dead zones in the oceans, from poisoning rivers and drinking water to destroying coral reefs.
The 400-page report by the Food and Agricultural Organisation, entitled Livestock’s Long Shadow, also surveys the damage done by sheep, chickens, pigs and goats. But in almost every case, the world’s 1.5 billion cattle are most to blame. Livestock are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.
Burning fuel to produce fertiliser to grow feed, to produce meat and to transport it - and clearing vegetation for grazing - produces 9 per cent of all emissions of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas. And their wind and manure emit more than one third of emissions of another, methane, which warms the world 20 times faster than carbon dioxide.
Livestock also produces more than 100 other polluting gases, including more than two-thirds of the world’s emissions of ammonia, one of the main causes of acid rain.
Ranching, the report adds, is “the major driver of deforestation” worldwide, and overgrazing is turning a fifth of all pastures and ranges into desert.Cows also soak up vast amounts of water: it takes a staggering 990 litres of water to produce one litre of milk.
Wastes from feedlots and fertilisers used to grow their feed overnourish water, causing weeds to choke all other life. And the pesticides, antibiotics and hormones used to treat them get into drinking water and endanger human health.
The pollution washes down to the sea, killing coral reefs and creating “dead zones” devoid of life. One is up to 21,000sqkm, in the Gulf of Mexico, where much of the waste from US beef production is carried down the Mississippi.
The report concludes that, unless drastic changes are made, the massive damage done by livestock will more than double by 2050, as demand for meat increases. – UN Report, 2006
TINA VOLPE SOBRE AL GORE
I applaud Al Gore for shaking this country to the core and creating such an educational and jolting film. However, whether it be political, or just plain ol’ family history (The Gore family are cattle ranchers) Al Gore failed us terribly. He neglected to tell us the whole truth. Global warming poses one of the most serious threats to the global environment ever faced in human history. But he conveniently decided NOT to mention one of the main culprits behind the global warming we see today. Factory Farming: huge agribusiness's raising animals for food. The most effective and immediate strategies for reducing global warming in our lifetimes: advocating a vegetarian diet.
Kicking the meat habit is a required choice for anyone who cares about the environment. More than one million animals are raised and killed every hour to supply Americans with flesh. This process destroys the environment... accelerating global warming and polluting the air, soil and our water. Meat production also drains scarce land, water, and mineral resources. Every meal you eat provides an opportunity to help or hurt the environment and to set an example for others.
Global warming threatens planetary survival through destruction of wildlife habitats, flooding of coastal communities, and extreme weather conditions. Melting glaciers deny habitats to polar bears and seals. The resulting rise in ocean levels will flood low-lying coastal communities like New York and New Orleans. Warming of ocean waters intensifies hurricanes and droughts that cause extensive property damage and destroy soil productivity.
Global warming is brought on by emission of so-called “greenhouse gases,” primarily carbon dioxide and the much more potent methane and nitrous oxide. These gases trap the sun’s heat in our atmosphere creating a greenhouse effect.
Most of us, as well as Gore, blame automotive and industrial emissions for global warming, and rightly so. But animal agriculture is a major culprit as well. It contributes carbon dioxide from burning forest land to create animal pastures and from combustion of fossil fuels to operate farm machinery, factory farms, animal transport vehicles, and slaughterhouses. It contributes methane from the digestive tracts of cattle and nitrous oxide from animal waste cesspools.
According to a recent study by University of Chicago professors Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin, a vegetarian diet uses less fossil fuel and is therefore more energy efficient and less polluting than the “mean American diet,” a mixture of plant and animal foods. They found that adopting a vegetarian diet reduces greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of 1.5 tons of carbon dioxide per year - as much as switching from an SUV to a compact.
The food that people eat is just as important as what kind of cars they drive when it comes to creating the greenhouse-gas emissions that many scientists have linked to global warming, according to a report published in the April issue of the Journal Earth Interactions.
Both the burning of fossil fuels during food production and non-carbon dioxide emissions associated with livestock and animal waste contribute to the problem, the University’s Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin wrote in the report.
The average American diet requires the production of an extra ton and a half of carbon dioxide-equivalent, in the form of actual carbon dioxide as well as methane and other greenhouse gases compared to a strictly vegetarian diet. Cutting down on just a few eggs or hamburgers each week is an easy way to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, they said.
“We neither make a value judgment, nor do we make a categorical statement,” said Eshel, an Assistant Professor in Geophysical Sciences and the College. “We say that however close you can be to a vegan diet and further from the mean American diet, the better you are for the planet. It doesn’t have to be all the way to the extreme end of vegan. If you simply cut down from two burgers a week to one, you’ve already made a substantial difference.”
The average American drives 8,322 miles by car annually, emitting 1.9 to 4.7 tons of carbon dioxide, depending on the vehicle model and fuel efficiency. Meanwhile, Americans also consume an average of 3,774 calories of food each day.
In 2002, energy used for food production accounted for 17 percent of all fossil fuel used in the United States. And the burning of these fossil fuels emitted three-quarters of a ton of carbon dioxide per person. That alone amounts to approximately one-third the average greenhouse-gas emissions of personal transportation. But livestock production and associated animal waste also emit greenhouse gases not associated with fossil-fuel combustion, primarily methane and nitrous oxide.
“An example would be manure lagoons that are associated with large-scale pork production,” Eshel said. “Those emit a lot of nitrous oxide into the atmosphere.”
While methane and nitrous oxide are relatively rare compared with carbon dioxide, they are—molecule for molecule—far more powerful greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide. A single pound of methane, for example, has the same greenhouse effect as approximately 25 pounds of carbon dioxide.
We must not only avert this crisis by changing our diets to avoid consuming all animal products altogether, but consider the consequences of mass producing animals on our world. The insanity of over a billion people, or 1 in 6 people going hungry is so barbaric when we think about how much of our food grown goes to feeding animals. 40% of food grown in the world goes to feed livestock. - Tina Volpe