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MEAT IS A GLOBAL WARMING ISSUE
By Dan Brook
E Magazine
August 24, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/40639/
There are many human activities that contribute to global
warming. Among the
biggest contributors are electrical generation, the use of
passenger and
other vehicles, over-consumption, international shipping,
deforestation,
smoking and militarism. (The U.S. military, for example, is the
world's
biggest consumer of oil and the world's biggest polluter.)
What many people do not know, however, is that the production of
meat also
significantly increases global warming. Cow farms produce
millions of tons
of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane per year, the two major
greenhouse gases
that together account for more than 90 percent of U.S.
greenhouse emissions,
substantially contributing to "global scorching."
According to the United Nations Environment Program's Unit on
Climate
Change, "There is a strong link between human diet and methane
emissions
from livestock." The 2004 State of the World is more specific
regarding the
link between animals raised for meat and global warming:
"Belching,
flatulent livestock emit 16 percent of the world's annual
production of
methane, a powerful greenhouse gas."
The July 2005 issue of Physics World states: "The animals we eat
emit 21
percent of all the CO2 that can be attributed to human
activity." Eating
meat directly contributes to this environmentally irresponsible
industry and
the dire threat of global warming.
Additionally, rainforests are being cut down at an extremely
rapid rate to
both pasture cows and grow soybeans to feed cows. The
clear-cutting of trees
in the rainforest -- an incredibly bio-diverse area with 90
percent of all
species on Earth -- not only creates more greenhouse gases
through the
process of destruction, but also reduces the amazing benefits
that those
trees provide. Rainforests have been called the "lungs of the
Earth,"
because they filter our air by absorbing CO2, while emitting
life-supporting
oxygen.
"In a nutshell," according to the Center for International
Forestry
Research, "cattle ranchers are making mincemeat out of Brazil's
Amazon
rainforests."
Of course, the U.S. should join the other 163 countries in
ratifying the
Kyoto Protocol. Of course, we should sharply reduce our reliance
on fossil
fuels and shift towards renewable sources of energy. Of course,
we need to
stop destroying the rainforests. Of course, we need to stop the
war in Iraq
and drastically reduce the U.S. military budget (presently at
half of the
entire world's total military spending), which would increase,
not decrease,
national and global security. But as we're struggling and
waiting for these
and other structural changes, we need to make personal changes.
Geophysicists Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin from the University
of Chicago
concluded that changing one's eating habits from the Standard
American Diet
(SAD) to a vegetarian diet does more to fight global warming
than switching
from a gas-guzzling SUV to a fuel-efficient hybrid car. Of
course, you can
do both. Where the environment is concerned, eating meat is like
driving a
huge SUV. According to Eshel, eating a vegetarian diet is like
driving a
mid-sized car or a reasonable sedan, and eating a vegan diet (no
dairy, no
eggs) is like riding a bicycle or walking. Shifting away from
SUVs and
SUV-style diets, to much more energy-efficient alternatives, is
key to
fighting the warming trend.
Global warming is already having grave effects on our planet.
Vegetarians
help keep the planet cool in more ways than one. Paul McCartney
says, "If
anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is just
stop eating
meat. That's the single most important thing you could do."
Andrea Gordon,
in her article "If You Recycle, Why Are You Eating Meat?"
agrees: "There is
a direct relationship between eating meat and the environment.
Quite simply,
you can't be a meat-eating environmentalist. Sorry folks."
Vegetarianism is literally about life and death -- for each of
us
individually and for all of us together. Eating animals
simultaneously
contributes to a multitude of tragedies: the animals' suffering
and death;
the ill-health and early death of people; the unsustainable
overuse of oil,
water, land, topsoil, grain, labor and other vital resources;
environmental
destruction, including deforestation, species extinction,
mono-cropping and
global warming; the legitimacy of force and violence; the mis-allocation
of
capital, skills, land and other assets; vast inefficiencies in
the economy;
tremendous waste; massive inequalities in the world; the
continuation of
world hunger and mass starvation; the transmission and spread of
dangerous
diseases; and moral failure in so-called civilized societies.
Vegetarianism
is an antidote to all of these unnecessary tragedies.
The editors of World Watch concluded in the July/August 2004
edition that
"the human appetite for animal flesh is a driving force behind
virtually
every major category of environmental damage now threatening the
human
future -- deforestation, erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and
water
pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice,
the
destabilization of communities and the spread of disease." Lee
Hall, the
legal director for Friends of Animals, is more succinct: "Behind
virtually
every great environmental complaint there's milk and meat."
Global warming may be the most serious global social problem
threatening
life on Earth. We need to fight global warming on the
governmental and
corporate levels, and we also need to fight global warming on
the everyday
and personal levels. Now we need to fight global warming -- with
our forks.
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RELATED NHNE NEWS LIST ARTICLES:
ANIMAL AGRICULTURE GREATEST SOURCE OF GLOBAL WARMING
(8/30/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9833
CUT GLOBAL WARMING BY BECOMING VEGETARIAN (7/19/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9591
NUMBER OF LAND-BASED ANIMALS KILLED FOR FOOD IN U.S. (2/3/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/8807
WORLD 'MUST EAT LESS MEAT' (8/16/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/7738
MORE ON THE DARK SIDE OF STRICT VEGGIE DIETS (7/14/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3413
SHOULD WE ALL BE VEGETARIANS? (7/10/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3392
SO YOU'RE AN ENVIRONMENTALIST; WHY ARE YOU STILL EATING MEAT?
(1/5/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/2475
...........
OTHER NHNE LINKS:
NHNE Factory Farming Resource Page:
http://www.nhne.org/tabid/451/Default.aspx
NHNE Factory Farming (& Cruelty To Animals) News Stories:
http://tinyurl.com/hmy5k
NHNE Climate Change Resource Page:
http://www.nhne.org/tabid/490/Default.aspx
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Published by David Sunfellow
NewHeavenNewEarth (NHNE)
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