Boston Globe: One less burger, one safer planet

[marmar]

One less burger, one safer planet
By Derrick Z. Jackson

April 15, 2008


EARTH DAY is a week from today, so brace yourself for cuddly, hug-the-planet blubbering from the presidential candidates. John McCain will tell you we must be the "caretakers of creation" even though he received a zero rating in 2007 from the League of Conservation Voters. Hillary Clinton will tout her 10-step personal home plan on global warming, such as recycling and using efficient light bulbs. Barack Obama will surely tell us we "cannot afford more of the same timid politics when the future of our planet is at stake."

Ah, but what about hamburgers? When the candidates tell us to stay out of McDonald's, then we will know their light bulbs are on. The end of timid politics is when they say that with the planet being at stake, you must eat less steak.

With fatal food riots in poor nations, and with China rapidly approaching Western levels of consumption, we in the obese United States must redefine what constitutes, to borrow from McDonald's, a "happy meal." Scientists are concluding that along with more fuel-efficient cars and curbing industrial pollution, the simple act of eating less meat could help slow global warming.

"For the world's higher-income populations, greenhouse-gas emissions from meat eating warrant the same scrutiny as do those from driving and flying," according to the authors of a study last fall in the Lancet.

This might hit you a bit in the "too-much-information" category, but those authors, from Britain, Australia, and Chile, found that with global meat and milk production being on course to double by mid-century, the methane and nitrous oxide being released (that includes flatulence and gases from manure) is significant. Livestock occupy nearly a third of the land on earth. Agricultural greenhouse gases are about 22 percent of all emissions around the world. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/04/15/one_less_burger_one_safer_planet/