Saving the planet by going vegetarian…
I used to dismiss the idea of saving the planet by choosing a vegetarian diet as far-fetched until I came across this report from EarthSave, ”
Although some of the points it makes may be contentious (e.g. the aerosols argument is more complex  than appears: while some aerosols help reduce temparatures, others may have a warming effect), it nevertheless makes for fascinating reading.
It is richly annotated and deserves serious attention and wide publicity – far more than it has got in the mainstream media and press to date. Â I wish someone likes Shri Pachauri makes it part of his/her agenda…Otherwise we are unlikely to see any significant move away from the current obsession with CO2.
Excerpts (emphasis mine):
“…The environmental community rightly recognizes global warming as one of the gravest threats to the planet. Global temperatures are already higher than they’ve ever been in at least the past millennium, and the increase is accelerating even faster than scientists had predicted. The expected consequences include coastal flooding, increases in extreme weather, spreading disease, and mass extinctions.
…Unfortunately, the environmental community has focused its efforts almost exclusively on abating carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
This is a serious miscalculation. Data published by Dr. James Hansen and others show that CO2 emissions are not the main cause of observed atmospheric warming….
Though this may sound like the work of global warming skeptics, it isn’t: Hansen is Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies who has been called “a grandfather of the global warming theory.” He is a longtime supporter of action against global warming, cited by Al Gore and often quoted by environmental organizations…
…The focus solely on CO2 is fueled in part by misconceptions. Its true that human activity produces vastly more CO2 than all other greenhouse gases put together. However, this does not mean it is responsible for most of the earth�s warming.
Many other greenhouse gases trap heat far more powerfully than CO2, some of them tens of thousands of times more powerfully. When taking into account various gases, global warming potential – defined as the amount of actual warming a gas will produce over the next one hundred years, it turns out that gases other than CO2 make up most of the global warming problem
…the fact remains that sources of non-CO2 greenhouse gases are responsible for virtually all the global warming we�re seeing, and all the global warming we are going to see for the next fifty years. If we wish to curb global warming over the coming half century, we must look at strategies to address non-CO2 emissions. The strategy with the most impact is vegetarianism.
By far the most important non-CO2 greenhouse gas is methane, and the number one source of methane worldwide is animal agriculture.
…Methane is responsible for nearly as much global warming as all other non-CO2 greenhouse gases put together. Methane is 21 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2. While atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have risen by about 31% since pre-industrial times, methane concentrations have more than doubled.
With methane emissions causing nearly half of the planet’s human-induced warming, methane reduction must be a priority.
…the number one source (of methane) worldwide is animal agriculture. Animal agriculture produces more than 100 million tons of methane a year. And this source is on the rise: global meat consumption has increased fivefold in the past fifty years, and shows little sign of abating.
About 85% of this methane is produced in the digestive processes of livestock…
…The conclusion is simple: arguably the best way to reduce global warming in our lifetimes is to reduce or eliminate our consumption of animal products.
Simply by going vegetarian (or, strictly speaking, vegan), we can eliminate one of the major sources of emissions of methane, the greenhouse gas responsible for almost half of the global warming impacting the planet today…
In addition to having the advantage of immediately reducing global warming, a shift away from methane-emitting food sources is much easier than cutting carbon dioxide…”
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Read the report in full: EarthSave Report.
Adjacent Post: Of Sacred Bulls, Divinity & Development
Cross-posted on DesiCritics
Is somebody reading this blog in London?!
Council’s green advice to staff: Go vegetarian
by Elizabeth Hopkirk, Evening Standard
I became vegetarian 2 years ago, all of a sudden, after realizing exactly these – the most stunning argument was something like it is 8 times more ineffcient to produce a pound of redmeat(pork, beef) compared to a pound of grain. Producing white meat(chicken) costs 4 times!
In tracking food animal production from the feed through to the dinner table, the inefficiencies of meat, milk and egg production range from a 4:1 energy input to protein output ratio up to 54:1.[4] The result is that producing animal-based food is typically much less efficient than the harvesting of grains, vegetables, legumes, seeds and fruits for direct human consumption ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_production )
How To Win An Argument With A Meat-Eater
http://www.vegsource.com/news/2009/09/how-to-win-an-argument-with-a-meat-eater.html
Going green means going vegetarian!
SIGN THIS PETITION
The Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) bill can be tabled anytime in this monsoon session of the Parliament. The bill will form a body which will single-handedly clear cultivation of GM crops in the country.
By being secretive, the government is only creating more suspicion about the intention of the bill. Public opposition made the Karnataka government ban field trials of GM crops in the state recently. Now we need to get the national government to stop this bill.
You should ask Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to stop this bill.
http://www.greenpeace.in/take-action/save-your-food/stop-the-brai-bill.php?tyf
Excerpts from an article by Harsh Vora: What’s Your Beef with Vegetarianism?:
In a similar way, eating meat seems so natural to most of us that we seldom ever spare a thought about the ethical problems it presents. We never ask why we eat some animals like pigs, cows, or chickens, but love others like dogs or cats. Some argue that domesticated animals are smarter than others and so deserve better treatment. However, this is based in flawed thinking. Pigs, for instance, are among the most intelligent animals. They are known for their ability to adapt to ecological conditions, and can be trained as easily as dogs and cats.
By killing an animal, not only do we extinguish a life, we cause unnecessary violence. Certainly it can be argued that in being vegetarian, we kill plants (which too are living forms). But pledging to stop killing plants would be impractical. We kill millions of minute but living organisms as we walk, sit and even breathe. And so, I suggest any position of ‘absolute’ nonviolence is a fictitious concept. Nonviolence can only be assessed relatively. Rather, our goal as responsible humans should be to practice nonviolence to the largest possible extent. If we can avoid unnecessary violence in a particular situation, why choose otherwise? A common-sense approach to nonviolence would lead us to conclude that chopping a tomato is diametrically different from slitting the throat of an animal.
One concern non-vegetarians often raise is the lack of proteins in a vegetarian diet. This is largely based on misconceptions. All plant-based products have some amount of protein. In fact, by combining proteins from various sources we can make a ‘complete protein’ diet, and that’s true for vegetarians as well as non-vegetarians. Plant-based foods such as green leafy vegetables, barley, quinoa, soy, lentils, tofu, beans (and many others) are all fantastic sources of proteins and other essential nutrients.
Let’s also look at meat-consumption’s effects on the environment. We understand that a variety of greenhouse gases like CO2 are at the heart of the global climate change issue. But methane, another key greenhouse gas, is responsible for nearly as much global warming as all other non-CO2 greenhouse gases put together. Because methane has a much shorter atmospheric cycle than CO2, reducing methane emissions would be a very effective means of quelling global warming on a relatively short time scale. Methane is produced by a number of sources, such as coal mining and landfills, but the number one source of methane is animal agriculture, which produces about 100 million tons of methane per year. Arguably the best way to reduce global warming in our lifetimes is to reduce our consumption of meat.
When reconsidering our dietary patterns, it may also help to compare the amount of land resources required to produce meat versus that required to produce vegetables, fruits, and grains. According to a study conducted by Cornell researchers, “A person following a low-fat vegetarian diet will need less than half (0.44) an acre per person per year to produce their food, while a high-fat diet with a lot of meat needs 2.11 acres.†5 This study also found that “if everyone in New York State followed a low-fat vegetarian diet, the state could directly support almost 50% more people, or about 32% of its population, agriculturally.†This at a time when the state is able to support only 22% of the population with today’s high-meat diet. Clearly, reducing meat consumption will conserve land and other resources, which can then be employed for much better uses.
From the NewYork Times:
The purely pragmatic reasons to eat less meat (and animal products in general) are abundant.
…
Five years ago, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization published a report called “Livestock’s Long Shadow,†which maintained that 18 percent of greenhouse gases were attributable to the raising of animals for food.
…A couple of years later, however, it was suggested that the number was too small. Two environmental specialists for the World Bank, Robert Goodland (the bank’s former lead environmental adviser) and Jeff Anhang, claimed, in an article in World Watch, that the number was more like 51 percent. It’s been suggested that that number is extreme, but the men stand by it
…
The exact number doesn’t matter. What does is that few people take the role of livestock in producing greenhouse gases seriously enough. Even most climate change experts..often ignore the much easier fix of adjusting our eating habits.
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A primer: The earth may very well be running out of clean water, and by some estimates it takes 100 times more water (up to 2,500 gallons) to produce a pound of grain-fed beef than it does to produce a pound of wheat. We’re also running out of land: somewhere around 45 percent of the world’s land is either directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, and as forests are cleared to create new land for grazing animals or growing feed crops, the earth’s capacity to sequester greenhouse gases (trees are especially good at this) diminishes.
I could go on and on about the dangers of producing and consuming too much meat: heavy reliance on fossil fuels and phosphorous (both in short supply); consumption of staggering amounts of antibiotics, a threat to public health; and the link (though not as strong as sugar’s) to many of the lifestyle diseases that are wreaking havoc on our health.
How eating vegetables and fruits can make you feel more positive, happy and optimistic and improve your mental wellbeing