From My Cold Dead Teeth: Shun Meat In Mortal Struggle With Global Warming, Says UN Climate Chief
By Richard Black - (BBC)
People should consider eating less meat as a way of combating global warming, says the UN’s top climate scientist.
Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), will make the call at a speech in London on Monday evening.
UN figures suggest that meat production puts more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than transport.
But a spokeswoman for the UK’s National Farmers’ Union (NFU) said methane emissions from farms were declining.
Dr Pachauri has just been re-appointed for a second six-year term as chairman of the Nobel Prize-winning IPCC, the body that collates and evaluates climate data for the world’s governments.
“The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has estimated that direct emissions from meat production account for about 18% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions,” he told BBC News.
“So I want to highlight the fact that among options for mitigating climate change, changing diets is something one should consider.”
Climate of persuasion
The FAO figure of 18% includes greenhouse gases released in every part of the meat production cycle - clearing forested land, making and transporting fertiliser, burning fossil fuels in farm vehicles, and the front and rear end emissions of cattle and sheep.
The contributions of the three main greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide - are roughly equivalent, the FAO calculates.
Transport, by contrast, accounts for just 13% of humankind’s greenhouse gas footprint, according to the IPCC.
Dr Pachauri will be speaking at a meeting organised by Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), whose main reason for suggesting people lower their consumption of meat is to reduce the number of animals in factory farms.
CIWF’s ambassador Joyce D’Silva said that thinking about climate change could spur people to change their habits.
“The climate change angle could be quite persuasive,” she said.
“Surveys show people are anxious about their personal carbon footprints and cutting back on car journeys and so on; but they may not realise that changing what’s on their plate could have an even bigger effect.”
Side benefits
There are various possibilities for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions associated with farming animals.
They range from scientific approaches, such as genetically engineering strains of cattle that produce less methane flatus, to reducing the amount of transport involved through eating locally reared animals.
“The NFU is committed to ensuring farming is part of the solution to climate change, rather than being part of the problem,” an NFU spokeswoman told BBC News.
“We strongly support research aimed at reducing methane emissions from livestock farming by, for example, changing diets and using anaerobic digestion.”
Methane emissions from UK farms have fallen by 13% since 1990.
But the biggest source globally of carbon dioxide from meat production is land clearance, particularly of tropical forest, which is set to continue as long as demand for meat rises.
Ms D’Silva believes that governments negotiating a successor to the Kyoto Protocol ought to take these factors into account.
“I would like governments to set targets for reduction in meat production and consumption,” she said.
“That’s something that should probably happen at a global level as part of a negotiated climate change treaty, and it would be done fairly, so that people with little meat at the moment such as in sub-Saharan Africa would be able to eat more, and we in the west would eat less.”
Dr Pachauri, however, sees it more as an issue of personal choice.
“I’m not in favour of mandating things like this, but if there were a (global) price on carbon perhaps the price of meat would go up and people would eat less,” he said.
“But if we’re honest, less meat is also good for the health, and would also at the same time reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.”
Be respectful of others and their opinions. Inflammatory remarks and inane leftist drivel will be deleted. It ain’t about free speech, remember you’re in a private domain. My website, my prerogative.
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Here’s a new way to combat “Global Warming” kill yourself. Face it you’re hurting the earth. If you were a true environmentalist you’d put a bullet in your head to save a fucking tree.
Ok I’m done ranting
September 7th, 2008 at 9:42 amPlease shut up and go away.
I will use one of the few sane British politicians to retort:
Britain’s environment minister on Friday discounted arguments that global warming is man-made and said instead that the phenomenon is a naturally occurring event.
“Resources should be used to adapt to the consequences of climate change, rather than King Canute-style vainly trying to stop it,” Sammy Wilson said in an interview with the New Letter newspaper.
He described green campaigners’ views on global warming as “hysterical psuedo-religion,” and said he refused to “blindly accept” the need to make significant changes to the economy to stop climate change.
“The tactic used by the ‘green gang’ is to label anyone who dares disagree with their view of climate change as some kind of nutcase who denies scientific fact,”
Wilson said.
He said he accepts that climate change can occur but argued that its cause is as yet unknown.
“Reasoned debate must replace the scaremongering of the green climate alarmists,” he said.
Wilson has clashed with environmental groups since being appointed to his post in June.
September 7th, 2008 at 9:46 amSo how long before these idiots start protesting volcanoes for putting out more greenhouse gasses in one eruption than humanity does in a year? They going to try to tax fault lines? Plug the hole? Throw in Al Gore?
September 7th, 2008 at 9:55 amWhat a useless POS this guy is. Hey, I’m all for PETA. In fact I’m a member in good standing of PETA. You know the group: “People Eating Tasty Animals”.
I wonder where these tree-hugging Gaia worshippers come from? How many degrees does one have to get in order to be as stupid and as useless as this guy is?
Save the bullet dude. Jump off a bridge or something.
September 7th, 2008 at 9:58 amhaha, I love animals. In fact, Im in school to be a veterinarian. But NOTHING will make me stop eating red meat.
September 7th, 2008 at 10:17 amI am so fucking sick of this shit.
September 7th, 2008 at 10:18 amSerious question here.
Where the FUCK do they find these guys? The fuckin’ loony bin?
September 7th, 2008 at 10:25 amhell im working on a way right now to make meat bread so i can eat more meat on my sandwiches. this douche from the UN can eat me.
September 7th, 2008 at 10:26 amHere’s where their ideas come from: The UN and its ilk of spineless associates meet once a week. They then buy a bag of fortune cookies, break them all open and put the slips of paper in a drum. Then they spin the drum a few times, take out one slip of paper and whatever is written on that paper, becomes the agenda or the news of the day.
/Saracsm Off
September 7th, 2008 at 10:36 am
As useless as they are, that’s actually believable.
September 7th, 2008 at 11:04 amI changed my name and the moderation filter got me.
As useless as they are, it’s actually believable that they work on a system like that.
September 7th, 2008 at 11:06 amMeat causes global warming! Tasty, tasty global warming…
September 7th, 2008 at 12:33 pmI’m a former beef & dairy farmer. Some cattle facts Peta and their supporters choose to ignore:
1) Cattle operations use much less fuel than grain, vegetable, and orchard farms.
Per pound of protein, beef is cheaper to transport. Even on the hoof. Compare a truckload of cattle or refrigerated beef to a truck load of Total cereal.
September 7th, 2008 at 2:40 pm2) Cattle produce most (maybe all) of the fertilizer the farm uses.
3) Cattle emissions calculations don’t take into account the emissions of the 25-50 million buffalo, and other similar grazing animals no longer in the US alone.
4) Cattle can eat (and do very well) on the waste brewers grains coming from beer, liquor and ethanol production.
5) Cattle graze on field waste from grain harvesting, etc. that would otherwise be plowed under.
6) Mid-sized and above cattle operations can gather feed area animal waste and put in a bio-digester that not only produces enough methane for farm heating, but will run a generator that produces enough electricity to sell some back to the power company. Payback is under 5 years. The stuff coming out of the digestor has more than double the fertilizer value than before going in.
7) Human health benefits (especially growing children) from dairy and meat products.
September 7th, 2008 at 5:32 pmDr. Pachauri, since you don’t mind telling me what to eat, then I am sure you won’t mind when I tell you to go fuck yourself.
I will be eating another steak, in your honor of course.
September 7th, 2008 at 6:15 pmSince the sun has gone VERY quiet, and we’re due for another mini ice age, we’ll need all the cow farts we can get. A nice, warm blanket of bovine methane to keep the Earth livable!
September 7th, 2008 at 9:35 pm