SciAm reports that
- Pound for pound, beef production generates greenhouse gases that contribute more than 13 times as much to global warming as do the gases emitted from producing chicken. For potatoes, the multiplier is 57.
- Beef consumption is rising rapidly, both as population increases and as people eat more meat.
- Producing the annual beef diet of the average American emits as much greenhouse gas as a car driven more than 1,800 miles.
I primarily focus on technology-based solutions since they can be the basis of government policy and since many websites are devoted to personal behavior choices, like No Impact Man.
Behavior-based strategies really only work at large scale when societal values change (and/or prices jump) sharply, which is certainly inevitable in the coming years as more and more people come to grips with the increasingly painful reality of human-caused global warming (see “What are the near-term climate Pearl Harbors?“) and realize just how immoral it is to maintain current levels of GHG emissions per capita at the expense of the next 50 generations to walk the earth (NOAA stunner: Climate change “largely irreversible for 1000 years,” with permanent Dust Bowls in Southwest and around the globe).
For a good article on how one meat-loving environmentalist has changed his behavior, see Mike Tidwell’s “The Low-Carbon Diet.”
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I’ve gone from being a wine writer and restaurant reviewer to a vegetarian environmentalist. (It was easy for me because my partner is the best natural chef I’ve ever met).
I know that not everyone can do what I did, but we should all be able to change our diet for the good of the planet. I recommend that everyone head on over the listen the Bill Moyer’s interview with Michael Pollen to better understand the issues involved, and how the North American farm industry became so broken. And then you’ll know some of the steps we can take to make a real difference. (The second link is to the podcast.)
http://www.pbs.org/ moyers/ journal/ 11282008/ profile2.html
http://www-tc.pbs.org/moyers/rss/media/BMJ-1233.mp3
It’s the reason why I added a vegetarian section to One Blue Marble.
Please calm down. You are beginning to frighten the children and other poorly informed folk, with your emotive speculations.
I dread seeing articles like this pop up, because I know that if they catch wing, I’ll be facing a deluge of idiots talking about vegans and the benefits that meat-eating has conferred on our species, how they won’t quit eating meat and if I don’t quit I’m a hypocrite for my environmental concern and advocacy.
I also know that I large part of many such calculations are based upon natural balance emissions of the animal and intestinal bacteria processing plant material and that such would generally occur whether we are talking about one (billion) big animal grazing on grain or a natural ecosystem mulching and processing scrub and brush forests.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that SciAm’s analysis primarily focussed on the hydrocarbon fuels and fertilizers used to raise the feed grain, transport and tend the livestock and to provide electricity all along the route from pasture to dinner table. However, none of these are inherently necessary to putting beef on the table, they are simply part and parcel of the current system. Using renewables and nuclear power for electricty and to power transportation and farm vehicles, dramatically slashes these equations. Biochar and processed organic wastes (in the stead of landfills, and as a part of sewage treatment), along with crop rotation and simply a more organic approach to the entire beef production system would further clean up this system.
Raising, harvesting and distributing large animal foodstuffs is always going to be a more energy intensive process than the process for potatoes, but this doesn’t mean that such necessarily produce dramatically more environmental carbon.
Trakar
One of the most immediate and big impact things an individual can do to save the world (and at the same time be kind to animals). In any case once we are firmly on the other side of peak oil meat will be very expensive and our diets in the west will change.
Its going to cost a lot of money apparently to solve AGW…To stabilise temperatures will cost €4tn
to ….ensure that global temperatures don’t rise by more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels – then nations collectively need to spend at least 200bn euros a year until 2030.
http://www.mckinsey.com/ clientservice/ ccsi/ pathways_low_carbon_economy.asp
Would that be the LIA, MWP, dark ages cool period, RWP? What temperature is the correct temperature that the climate has always been at?
I was wondering why I was seeing so many headlines talking about the climate impact of meat all of a sudden. It’s refreshing to see this issue finally mentioned.
Of course it’s not just about the carbon. Meat, especially beef, needs much more water and land, which are both thing we can’t afford to waste anymore. But whatever the reason, the important thing is that people just eat less meat.
Vernon babbles:
What temperature is the correct temperature that the climate has always been at?
Here is a chart of the talking point “correct temperature”.
Denialists note: 2º warming takes us into uncharted territory for any time during the reign of Homo sapiens on this planet. This is against your conservative nature.
Not that I’m implying hypocrisy or anything. Most likely the ideological sites denialists read are preying on their gullibility.
Paulm, thanks for the link to the latest McKinsey report.
I had been waiting for that to make good on expectations that it would be an improvement over the earlier version.
It is disappointing.
Hmmm. Just asking, but the subtitle says ‘pound for pound.’ A pound of beef has many more calories than a pound of potatos. And if you tried to live on only eating celery, you’d have to eat many pounds of it every day. You might starve. (I don’t know, but its a good question)
I think the study should go by ‘calorie for calorie.’
I’ve gone from being a wine writer and restaurant critic to a vegetarian environmentalist. (It was easy for me because my partner is the best natural chef I’ve ever met).
I know that not everyone can do what I did, but we should all be able to change our diet for the good of the planet. I recommend that everyone head over the listen the Bill Moyer’s interview with Michael Pollen to better understand the issues involved, and how the North American farm industry became so broken. And then you’ll know some of the steps we can take to make a real difference.
http://www-tc.pbs.org/moyers/rss/media/BMJ-1233.mp3
::: I tried posting this earlier, but it never appeared. :::
Joe:
You write:
“I primarily focus on technology-based solutions since they can be the basis of government policy and since many websites are devoted to personal behavior choices, like No Impact Man.
Behavior-based strategies really only work at large scale when societal values change (and/or prices jump) sharply, which is certainly inevitable in the coming years as more and more people come to grips with the increasingly painful reality of human-caused global warming…”
But since our choices are not limited to, on the one hand, policies built on or around technology-based solutions, and, on the other, behavior-based strategies, why not a gradually increasing carbon (or GHG) tax on beef (ie, a non-technology-based policy)?
It could be one small part of the overall bouquet.
See estimates for the EU here:
http://www.guengl.eu/upload/Stefan_Wirsenius.pdf
I recommend rabbit meat, delicious. Their CO2 and CH4 emissions are only a quarter of chicken meat.
Manufactured Landscapes
Every mammal instinctively creates a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but humans do not. They spread to an area and they multiply. And multiply until every natural resource is consumed. And the only way they can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism that follows this pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus.
Wouldn’t grass-fed beef eliminate a lot of the associated CO2 emissions From what I’ve read, grass feeding would somewhat increase methane emissions – though there is some conflicting information.
When I took my kids to Australia, they suddenly refused to eat at McDonalds. They serve grass-fed hamburger – nasty. They’re in college now, and they still talk about how nasty it was.
I would like to put in a good word for CO2 – it helps plants grow, and higher levels can increase agricultural productivity. It has had no demonstrable effect as a driver of climate, but does seem to increase in the atmosphere following warmer periods in the climate record.
Environmental leader has a story about Britain’s National Health reducing meat to cut CO2.
http://www.environmentalleader.com/ 2009/ 01/ 28/ uk-hospitals-cut-carbon-by-cutting-meat/
Joe,
How about deleting the long-debunked nonsense posted by Frank above? It has no place on this blog.
Joe,
John’s post sent me back to my previous comment to check it. Try as I might, I can find nothing nonsensical in it, and nothing ‘de-bunked’. Here is recent link to some relevant research:
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/6855
Frank,
your assertion is bullsh–, long-ago refuted.
As I explain here, for the 1,627th time.
Repeating long-ago refuted BS doesn’t make it true.
Best,
D
Not to mention the CO2 assertion by Timball is so easily disproven that it should be considered parody.
Best,
D
Frank says:
Here is recent link to some relevant research:
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/6855
And here is the Wiki link for the author.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_F._Ball
be sure to read the section on “Disputes over qualifications to comment on Global warming”.
Perhaps Frank is thinking of this post when he refers to increased agricultural production:
http://climateprogress.org/ 2009/ 01/ 26/ noaa-climate-change-irreversible-1000-years-drought-dust-bowls/
Oops… crops won’t grow very well if the Southwest becomes a permanent dust bowl.
Or maybe this article:
http://climateprogress.org/ 2009/ 01/ 23/ science-global-warming-is-killing-us-trees-a-dangerous-carbon-cycle-feedback/
Uh oh, that doesn’t support his hypothesis either.
Vernon — The temperature range associated with about 300 ppm CO2-equivalent would be just right.
recreated veggie chicken….
http://www.itsallgoodfoods.com/ our-products/ chickn-breast.aspx