Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Humans' beef with livestock
well if you guys think that were causing global warming your wrong. this article says that the cows in the world produce more CO2 then humans do in one day. This article also tells us how we the meat eaters also produce 1.5 tons CO2 then the vegetarians. Also today we consume 295 million tons per year, by 2050 they say we will eat about 465 million tons of meat. http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0220/p03s01-ussc.html
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3 comments:
This article is very good and also pretty nuanced. It's important to realize that when they're talking about cows and methane, they also link it to deforestation (which is a large cause of greenhouse gasses) and the reduction of permafrost in northern latitudes. Basically, as the earth warms, what was permanently frozen vegetation warms up and decomposes causing methane release due to bacterial off-gassing. Burning of fossil fuels (transportation AND coal burning power plants, etc) is the primary cause of anthropogenic greenhouse emissions. Cheers, -Jay
Here's something from Wikipedia: "The atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane have increased by 31% and 149% respectively above pre-industrial levels since 1750. This is considerably higher than at any time during the last 650,000 years, the period for which reliable data has been extracted from ice cores. From less direct geological evidence it is believed that carbon dioxide values this high were last attained 40 million years ago. About three-quarters of the anthropogenic (man-made) emissions of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere during the past 20 years are due to fossil fuel burning. The rest of the anthropogenic emissions are predominantly due to land-use change, especially deforestation."
I think it is unfair to say that humans don't play a large role in global climactic change. It's not like these cattle are raising themselves. I think part of becoming a more sustainable society is consuming less meat.
-Jake
I definitely think it's important to keep in mind the bit about deforestation and increased energy consumption in processing as major concerns... in a way it's a bit misleading. It's not the raising or consumption of beef in and of itself that seems to be of concern, but the industrial raising and processing of beef, which is a distinction I think it's very important to make.
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