Sleckie's Favorite Links on globalwarming from Diigo

Take a Bite out of Climate Change » Welcome from Anna Lappé

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 02:04:17 -0000

Tags: globalwarming

Posted by: sleckie

Eshel and Martin, Diet, energy and global warming

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 01:50:43 -0000

Original paper of the study that compared cars to meat-eating. Beef and fish are the worst.

Tags: globalwarming meat fish

Posted by: sleckie

Study Finds Meat and Dairy Create More Emissions Than Miles : TreeHugger

Wed, 21 May 2008 18:24:13 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

The study is flawed because it counts CO2 equivalents of methane and nitrous oxide which have an atmospheric lifetime of only 10-15 and 120 years respectively while CO2 has a lifetime of several tens of thousands of years.

This means that after rime the 8.1 tons of CO2 equivalent from meat and dairy farming will decrease while the 4.4 tons of CO2 generated from your average car will still be the same for tens of thousands of years.

Of course it still isnt good that meat and dairy farming polutes but one must take into account the time factor in such a study before comparing it to transport as when you look at this some will think we should rather be careful of the farming then the transport.

Conclusion: Transport is far worse then farming even though on the short term it looks like the opposite.

As others have pointed out, the article incorrectly compared automobile emissions to food emissions.

It also did not compare full lifecycle emissions from the operation, manufacturing and storage of automobiles.

Emissions during the manufacture of an automobile are typically equal to around 20% of the operating emissions.

Each automobile requires road space to operate and at least 3 parking spaces; one at home; one at work and one at shopping. If the spaces are in a parkade, significant emissions occur in the construction. If the spaces are surface lots, they decrease the land that can be used by vegetation to sequester.

Road and bridge construction causes significant GHG emissions as well.

Glad to see dairy lumped in with meat as major contributor to global warming. Even organic, grass-fed dairy is not a solution for tons of reasons, including the fact that grassfed cows emit 4 times as much methane as grain-fed cows.

I disagree that switching from red meat to fish is a good idea, since geophysicists Eshel & Martin published a U. of Chicago study in 2006 reporting that a fish-based diet is as bad as a red meat-based diet. The commercial ocean fishing industry emits ton of CO2 in fossil fuels, and salmon farms are extremely inefficient.

if i (and others) stop eating meat, it follows that the animal population will increase. and wouldn't more numbers equate to an increased carbon production, just by their very existence? and how will that [probable] overpopulation then affect the rest of the biological structure?

Yes, less meat means less animals raised for food.

But farm animals would be replaced by an increase in wildlife on the land no longer needed for agriculture. Much of this land could be returned to wilderness. While some natural grazing animals like Buffalo emit methane, it is more than offset by the carbon sequestered in the soil and plants that make up a healthy grassland wilderness.

Tags: globalwarming local anti milk fish

Posted by: sleckie

Ethical dilemma: It is time to become a vegetarian? | Environment | The Observer

Tue, 20 May 2008 21:08:37 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Chicago University researchers to state that going vegan is more effective at combating global warming than switching to a Prius. I'm nervous of this because it might suggest that if you eat tofu you are at liberty to drive a Porsche. Not so. And it should be remembered that some non-meat eaters are feeding their faces with non-sustainable fish (trawler fishing requires about 3.4 litres of fuel oil per kg of fish), cheese from cow's milk (the environmental burden of which is 9-21 times larger than for vegan cheese

Tags: food_prices milk fish globalwarming

Posted by: sleckie

Researchers Report Dietary Choice Has Greater Impact on Climate Change Than Food Miles

Tue, 20 May 2008 20:58:11 -0000

Tags: globalwarming local

Posted by: sleckie

Latest global warming factor: Obesity - Climate Change- msnbc.com

Tue, 20 May 2008 13:56:10 -0000

Irony - food prices going up and so is obesity. Hopefully one will solve the other.

Tags: weight globalwarming food_prices

Posted by: sleckie

Top 10 Reasons Why It's Green to Go Veggie | KGMB9.com | Animals, Water, Food,

Mon, 19 May 2008 14:51:02 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

advantage of immediately reducing global warming

no limit to reductions in this source of greenhouse gas that can be achieved through vegetarian diet. In principle, even 100% reduction could be achieved with little negative impact. In contrast, similar cuts in carbon dioxide are impossible without devastating effects on the economy.

Second, shifts in diet lower greenhouse gas emissions much more quickly than shifts away from the fossil fuel burning technologies that emit carbon dioxide. The turnover rate for most ruminant farm animals is one or two years, so that decreases in meat consumption would result in almost immediate drops in methane emissions. The turnover rate for cars and power plants, on the other hand, can be decades.

unlike carbon dioxide which can remain in the air for more than a century, methane cycles out of the atmosphere in just eight years, so that lower methane emissions translate to cooling of the earth quickly.

Thirty percent of the earth's entire land surface-a massive 70% of all agricultural land-is used for rearing farmed animals. Much of this is grazing land that would otherwise host a natural habitat such as valuable rainforests, Crops are also grown specifically as animal feed and, in fact, a third of the world's land suitable for growing crops is used to produce feed for farmed animals.

Tags: globalwarming

Posted by: sleckie

Diet of salvation ->Emirates Business 24|7

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 13:05:15 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

But while 100 million tonnes of grain are being diverted to make fuel this year, over seven times as much (760 million tonnes) will be used to feed animals. The world’s passion for meat is a much bigger cause of global hunger than its passion for the car.

Isn’t it completely unrealistic for large groups to go vegan?

Most people will not take readily to a diet of green leaves, pulses, fruit and nuts. This is about the direction we should be moving in, not the ultimate destination.

Tags: food_prices globalwarming ethanol land_use faq

Posted by: sleckie

Agriculture's climate change role demands urgent action- greenpeace

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 03:34:11 -0000

Tags: farming globalwarming

Posted by: sleckie

A vegetarian diet reduces the diner's carbon footprint - International Herald Tribune

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 12:52:32 -0000

Tags: globalwarming

Posted by: sleckie

Vegetarians put the brakes on climate change - Alan Calverd

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:35:20 -0000

Tags: globalwarming

Posted by: sleckie

Cut global warming by becoming vegetarian - Alan Calverd

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:31:55 -0000

Tags: globalwarming environment

Posted by: sleckie

Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler - New York Times

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 04:08:50 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Global demand for meat has multiplied in recent years, encouraged by growing affluence and nourished by the proliferation of huge, confined animal feeding operations. These assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests.

Just this week, the president of Brazil announced emergency measures to halt the burning and cutting of the country’s rain forests for crop and grazing land. In the last five months alone, the government says, 1,250 square miles were lost.

The world’s total meat supply was 71 million tons in 1961. In 2007, it was estimated to be 284 million tons. Per capita consumption has more than doubled over that period. (In the developing world, it rose twice as fast, doubling in the last 20 years.) World meat consumption is expected to double again by 2050, which one expert, Henning Steinfeld of the United Nations, says is resulting in a “relentless growth in livestock production.”

Americans eat about the same amount of meat as we have for some time, about eight ounces a day, roughly twice the global average. At about 5 percent of the world’s population, we “process” (that is, grow and kill) nearly 10 billion animals a year, more than 15 percent of the world’s total.

Growing meat (it’s hard to use the word “raising” when applied to animals in factory farms) uses so many resources that it’s a challenge to enumerate them all. But consider: an estimated 30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation.

To put the energy-using demand of meat production into easy-to-understand terms, Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at the Bard Center, and Pamela A. Martin, an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago, calculated that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius. Similarly, a study last year by the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Japan estimated that 2.2 pounds of beef is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 155 miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days.

Once, these animals were raised locally (even many New Yorkers remember the pigs of Secaucus), reducing transportation costs and allowing their manure to be spread on nearby fields. Now hog production facilities that resemble prisons more than farms are hundreds of miles from major population centers, and their manure “lagoons” pollute streams and groundwater. (In Iowa alone, hog factories and farms produce more than 50 million tons of excrement annually.)

If those trends continue, meat may become a treat rather than a routine. It won’t be uncommon, but just as surely as the S.U.V. will yield to the hybrid, the half-pound-a-day meat era will end.

Maybe that’s not such a big deal. “Who said people had to eat meat three times a day?” asked Mr. Pollan.

Tags: environment globalwarming meat pigs

Posted by: sleckie

Eat less meat, reduce global heat, says study

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 04:32:18 -0000

Tags: globalwarming meat

Posted by: sleckie

New Stove Project Could Save 28 Million Tonnes of CO2 (TreeHugger) - China Coal

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 03:47:57 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Some perspective in case you think 28 million tons over five years is a lot.

From a recent article about coal from Yahoo news:

"Worldwide demand for coal dipped at the end of the 20th century, but is now back up and projected to rise 60 percent by 2030 to 6.9 billion tons a year, according to the International Energy Agency."

Today, most coal goes to electrical power plants. In developing nations such as India, China and Africa, coal is the staple — and affordable — source of fuel with which families run their first washing machines and televisions. Worldwide electricity consumption is expected to double by 2030, the World Energy Council says.

In America, about 150 new coal-fired electrical plants are proposed over the next decade. In China, there are plans for a coal-fired power plant to go on line nearly every week. Emissions from these plants alone could nullify the cuts made by Europe, Japan and other rich nations under the Kyoto Protocol treaty."

Tags: china coal globalwarming

Posted by: sleckie

Google Sets Ambitious Goals For Renewable Energy (TreeHugger)

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 04:52:35 -0000

Tags: coal globalwarming

Posted by: sleckie

TheStar.com | Business | 'Green' fuel worsens global warming

Sat, 29 Sep 2007 06:30:01 -0000

Tags: ethanol globalwarming

Posted by: sleckie

reportonbusiness.com: Ignoring the meat of the global warming issue - Comments

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 09:12:19 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

L Harder from Richmond, Canada writes: "The source of CO2 that we (and cows) breath is food, which is renewable(mostly), and is taken out of the atmosphere when crops are grown."

That would be great were it true. But the so-called "green revolution" of mechanized, industrialized agriculture is entirely based on fossil fuel products. Ten calories of petroleum go into each calorie of food produced. So the CO2 emitted by today's domesticated ruminants largely comes from underground, not from current uptake of CO2 by plant material, as was true of wild animals in the past.

MIT From SW ONT from Canada writes: "Although farmers are getting the same price per bushel that they received 25 years ago, the yields from their fields have increased substantially."

But again, such productivity improvements are almost entirely the result of additional energy inputs from fossil fuels. Fertilizer comes from natural gas. Pesticides come from petroleum, as does tractor fuel and irrigation pumps. (And don't forget that most irrigation is from "fossil water" that is in decline in many large aquifers.)

After a bit of googling, I believe he is in the main right. He might have included some animal population stats to back up his argument though. Current world cow population - 1.4 billion. Wikipedia. Historical bison population, Canada - 168,000. Extrapolate Canada to world based on Canada having 6% of the land and assuming equivalent species worldwide - 27 million large grass eaters historically. Result - over 500 times as many big ruminants today than during hunter gather times.

And because they produce methane in quantities that people do not (even readers of this comment group), and because methane is 21 times more efficient in trapping heat, the contribution of the meat industry is significant.

For Brent Beach: "Historical bison population, Canada - 168,000."

It took me a few minutes to find the reference. I believe that number refers to the Wood Bison population only rather than the more common Plains Bison. American estimates put the historical Plains Bison population at 60-100 million.

Even if you had an accurate figure for the bison population, your conclusions would be inaccurate because they fail to account for OTHER grass-eaters. (caribou, moose, deer) The sustainable forest management site in Canada pegs the CURRENT caribou population at 2.4 million. Imagine what it was like 200 years ago!

I can appreciate the argument, and certainly coupled with the elimination of the world's forests and runaway industrialization, I'm sure cow burps are helping to destroy the planet. However, to build a case that culling cattle will save the world is a load of... well... cow plop.

Opinion from Canada writes: "American estimates put the historical Plains Bison population at 60-100 million."

Only in popular mythology. There are no suggestions of 100 million and the famous 60-75 million was a false extrapolation made a century ago by E. Thompson-Seton. No serious researcher considers ANY of his numbers credible any more. Current better informed estimates for the PEAK historical population run as high as 30 million with the best estimates only half that - for all North American bison. This peak population occurred only after populations of their main predator - Native North Americans - were severely reduced by smallpox.

Still, 15 million bison produced a lot of methane and CO2.

Tags: anti globalwarming

Posted by: sleckie

Shhhh, We've Got a Secret: Soil Solves Global Warming, Part 1 (TreeHugger)

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 12:29:38 -0000

Tags: globalwarming soil

Posted by: sleckie

The Carbon Footprint of Sushi (TreeHugger)

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 06:45:32 -0000

Tags: fish globalwarming

Posted by: sleckie