Meat is Methane

[BridgeTheGap]

What’s the biggest cause of climate change? Cars? Planes? Factories? No. The meat we eat. Producing chicken, lamb, pork and beef takes up one-quarter of the Earth’s surface. Nearly a third of the world’s fertile agricultural land is used to grow feed grains. And to serve the burgeoning meat industry, tropical forests—which are very useful in compensating for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions—are cut down to make room for vast grasslands.

But CO2 is not the main byproduct of livestock farming, though it is responsible for 9 percent of it. Nitrous oxide and methane respectively contribute 300 and 23 times more to the greenhouse effect than CO2—and livestock is responsible for 65 percent of nitrous oxide emissions and 37 percent of methane emissions. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) calculated these figures for a report published last year called Livestock’s Long Shadow. The FAO concluded that the livestock industry accounts for 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. That’s more than is produced by every form of transportation combined. In addition, 1,000 litres (265 gallons) of fossil fuel is needed to produce the meat consumed annually by the average family of four. When this fuel is burned, according to Jeremy Rifkin, author of Beyond Beef, more than 2.5 tons of extra CO2 enters the atmosphere—as much as the average car emits in six months.

Consumers are told to conserve by switching to energy-efficient light bulbs, to take public transportation more often, to turn off the TV when they’re not watching. Why aren’t environmental organizations telling them to eat less meat?

It’s a sensitive issue, says Liz O’Neill, head of communications at the UK’s Vegetarian Society. “Environmental organizations do not want to scare off their meat-eating members and funders. The issue of vegetarianism makes them a little nervous. But these numbers are really shocking!”

http://odewire.com/58532/meat-is-methane.html

[JDPriestly]

1. How about because humans are omnivores.

People who eat just veggies have to eat an awful lot in order to have the nutrition they need. This is especially true of those who tend to be tall and large and consume many calories and need lots of protein per day.

I have a friend who eats only vegetables and fruits -- four pounds of them per day. A human omnivore probably does not eat that much in food weight.

Humans are omnivores, like it or not. We have been for a long, long time. True there are vegetarians in some locations in the world, but for the most part, humans eat meat. Have for a long, long time. It's practical. Certain Vitamin Bs are easiest to get from beef, and people have been eating beef for a very long time.

[caraher]

2. Of course,as the excerpt points out, it's really not the meat eating per se

It's the industrial methods used to produce the meat that really mess things up. If you meat is grass-fed and local the numbers for that look much better. But our food system has made meat so cheap that we gobble far more of it than there's any need to.

Also, the excerpt is highly misleading... NO and methane are more potent greenhouse gases by roughly the factors mentioned than CO2 on a per unit mass basis (i.e. 1 ton of methane would have maybe 23 times the heat-trapping effect (the exact value depends on assumptions one makes in the analysis) of 1 ton of CO2). But that's probably not the most appropriate basis for comparison for two reasons. First, there's a LOT more CO2 in the atmosphere. Second, a per molecule basis is more relevant - each carbon atom can form at most 1 methane or CO2 molecule.

It's also obviously not the case that producing chicken, lamb, pork and beef takes up 25% "of the Earth's surface" - since 70% of Earth's surface is water.

The message is important but the article isn't carefully written.

[Nihil]

3. And those are two very important points ...

> it's really not the meat eating per se it's the industrial methods used to
> produce the meat that really mess things up.

Not just from the methane point of view but also from the animal care,
antibiotic-dosing and corn-demand reasons too.


> we gobble far more of it (meat) than there's any need to.

Not just in portion size but frequency ... there is a lot to be said for moving
to a routine that includes vegetarian (meat-free) days even if most days
have a meat-based main meal.


Extremes (of anything) aren't good - balance is better.

[madokie]

4. My preference is two meat meals a week

Baby back pork ribs cooked on the big green egg is to die for

http://www.biggreenegg.com/

I very much dislike the conditions that is that the ribs come by though.