http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6891362.ece
People will need to turn vegetarian if the world is to conquer climate change, according to a leading authority on global warming.
In an interview with The Times, Lord Stern of Brentford said: "Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world's resources. A vegetarian diet is better."
Direct emissions of methane from cows and pigs is a significant source of greenhouse gases. Methane is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a global warming gas.
Lord Stern, the author of the influential 2006 Stern Review on the cost of tackling global warming, said that a successful deal at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December would lead to soaring costs for meat and other foods that generate large quantities of greenhouse gases.
He predicted that people's attitudes would evolve until meat eating became unacceptable. "I think it's important that people think about what they are doing and that includes what they are eating," he said. "I am 61 now and attitudes towards drinking and driving have changed radically since I was a student. People change their notion of what is responsible. They will increasingly ask about the carbon content of their food."
Lord Stern, a former chief economist of the World Bank and now I. G. Patel Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, warned that British taxpayers would need to contribute about £3 billion a year by 2015 to help poor countries to cope with the inevitable impact of climate change.
He also issued a clear message to President Obama that he must attend the meeting in Copenhagen in person in order for an effective deal to be reached. US leadership, he said, was "desperately needed" to secure a deal.
He said that he was deeply concerned that popular opinion had so far failed to grasp the scale of the changes needed to address climate change, or of the importance of the UN meeting in Copenhagen from December 7 to December 18. "I am not sure that people fully understand what we are talking about or the kind of changes that will be necessary," he added.
So. What's the issue? This news to you?
Save Mother Earth
Only after they have pried my cold dead fingers from my fork and steak knife.
Quote from: unreliablesource on October 27, 2009, 09:19:13 PM
Only after they have pried my cold dead fingers from my fork and steak knife.
The devil devoured a big steak in front of two generations tonight....and he'd give the meat up for their future if required or requested. URS, you got kids?
Quote from: FOTD on October 27, 2009, 09:21:56 PM
The devil devoured a big steak in front of two generations tonight....and he'd give the meat up for their future if required or requested. URS, you got kids?
I'm not at the top of the food chain to eat veggies...Nothing is better than a wet juicy steak.
Quote from: unreliablesource on October 27, 2009, 09:23:13 PM
I'm not at the top of the food chain to eat veggies...Nothing is better than a wet juicy steak.
No ties to the future?
This devil likes steak too....but wet and juicy are reserved other pleasures.... can leave the steak but not so sure about the wet and juicy.
Quote from: unreliablesource on October 27, 2009, 09:23:13 PM
I'm not at the top of the food chain to eat veggies...
I used to know a guy that said that. Just steak and potatoes for him. Didn't want to eat rabbit food. He died of a heart attack at about age 44.
Enjoy your veggie free diet.
Direct emissions of methane from cows and pigs is a significant source of greenhouse gases. Methane is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a global warming gas.
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If you eat less/no meat, doesn't that mean we'll end up with MORE cows and pips since we aren't killing them to eat? So, then don't you end up with MORE global warming?
Junk science. Or quack.
Quote from: Wilbur on October 28, 2009, 05:59:22 AM
If you eat less/no meat, doesn't that mean we'll end up with MORE cows and pips since we aren't killing them to eat? So, then don't you end up with MORE global warming?
I expect it would not take long for the cattle and pig industry to breed less animals if demand drops.
Bbbbbbut, wouldn't eating more veggies wind up in us harvesting more greenery, and therefore eating the plants that convert CO2 to Oxygen?
Quote from: Conan71 on October 28, 2009, 08:17:34 AM
Bbbbbbut, wouldn't eating more veggies wind up in us harvesting more greenery, and therefore eating the plants that convert CO2 to Oxygen?
You just don't understand. The plan is to stop emitting so much CO2. Converting CO2 back to O2 and captured carbon doesn't count.
Quote from: Wilbur on October 28, 2009, 05:59:22 AM
If you eat less/no meat, doesn't that mean we'll end up with MORE cows and pips since we aren't killing them to eat?
That's what slaughterhouses are for, city boy. I grew up in a deeply agricultural area, and believe me, many, many livestock can be liquidated in a mighty short time and/or simply not bred if prices get cheap enough.
I'm no vegetarian, but one of the big issues with livestock in the coming years is going to be the lack of water and other resources. Simply put, livestock are a lot more resource-intensive than grain -- resources that are often scarce in many parts of the country where they're raised.
I could never be a vegetarian. I like my food mobile and vegetables just sit there.
Quote from: rwarn17588 on October 28, 2009, 09:59:12 PM
That's what slaughterhouses are for, city boy. I grew up in a deeply agricultural area, and believe me, many, many livestock can be liquidated in a mighty short time and/or simply not bred if prices get cheap enough.
I'm no vegetarian, but one of the big issues with livestock in the coming years is going to be the lack of water and other resources. Simply put, livestock are a lot more resource-intensive than grain -- resources that are often scarce in many parts of the country where they're raised.
Lack of water, just like global warming, right?
Quote from: Red Arrow on October 28, 2009, 09:35:37 PM
You just don't understand. The plan is to stop emitting so much CO2. Converting CO2 back to O2 and captured carbon doesn't count.
Oh, but I thought that's what they were doing with the carbon credits they want me to voluntarily buy when I book an airline trip, so they can plant trees in Europe that are going to convert my bad CO2 into O2.
Quote from: Conan71 on October 29, 2009, 10:06:43 AM
Oh, but I thought that's what they were doing with the carbon credits they want me to voluntarily buy when I book an airline trip, so they can plant trees in Europe that are going to convert my bad CO2 into O2.
Maybe I missed it but I don't remember hearing where the money was going. An interesting side note is that having electric trains in developing countries counts as carbon credits to sell but the same electric train in Portland OR doesn't count because we are a developed country. I think I saw that on Light Rail Now.
Meat is expensive. For every pound of meat it takes several pounds of feed (generally vegetable matter). The industry refers to it as "feed conversion" :
Beef - 15:1 (~2lbs of that is fodder humans could possibly eat . . . mostly grasses)
Chicken - 3.5:1
Pork - 3.6:1
Fish - 2:1 (farmed, though generally fed protein as a portion, which messes it up)
But at the end of the day, humans don't get protein from vegetable matter very efficiently. We are designed to eat meat (small one chamber stomach). So while Americans over consume meat, cutting it out is ridiculous.
On a basic economic level, if the vegetable matter was more efficiently distributed as food instead of fodder, it would be. But millet, hay, and field corn have limited human consumption value. Items that are more readily consumed by humans are much more expensive to produce/process.
And on the environmental impact is debatable. While a cow has an environmental footprint, eliminating meat based protein from our diet would almost certainly require additional farm land for the production of food for humans. The pasture land suitable for raising livestock but not for crops would be wasted ground as far as human hunger is concerned.
It's a mixed bag. While I know I should cut back and am (will) try . . . I love meat.
Oh, and think of all the emissions you and I create when we smoke meat CF. Shameful, I tell you, just shameful. (But quite delicious!)
Just wait, some knob somewhere, will suggest all outdoor fires like campfires and grills should be outlawed to help curb global warming.
you don't have to smoke it! (hasn't the devil told you this!)
http://www.vidmax.com/video/2954/Hungry_for_a_late_night_snack__How_about_some_raw_meat_/