Today's Guardian has an interesting opinion piece about climate change and farm animals.
A few choice quotes from the article:
"Precisely how much livestock contributes to climate change remains up for debate: studies show numbers ranging from 18% (a 2006 UN food report) to 51% (a 2009 World Watch study). Most other studies fall somewhere in that range but, in each of them, the advice is the same: humans need to eat less meat to curb climate change and resource scarcity.
"Raising animals to eat produces more greenhouse gasses (via methane and nitrous oxide) than all of the carbon dioxide excreted by automobiles, boats, planes and trains in the world combined. Over a 20-year period, methane has 86 times more climate change potential than carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide has 268 times more climate change potential, according to the 2006 UN report. Radically reducing the amount of methane and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere can produce discernable changes in the greenhouse gas effect within decades, while the same reductions in carbon dioxide take nearly a century.
"Yes, quitting meat can reduce your carbon footprint significantly more than quitting driving.
"To put this in digestible terms, producing the meat for a one-third pound hamburger patty as much as 18,000 gallons of water depending on the farming method, according to the US government."
Something to think about.
A few choice quotes from the article:
"Precisely how much livestock contributes to climate change remains up for debate: studies show numbers ranging from 18% (a 2006 UN food report) to 51% (a 2009 World Watch study). Most other studies fall somewhere in that range but, in each of them, the advice is the same: humans need to eat less meat to curb climate change and resource scarcity.
"Raising animals to eat produces more greenhouse gasses (via methane and nitrous oxide) than all of the carbon dioxide excreted by automobiles, boats, planes and trains in the world combined. Over a 20-year period, methane has 86 times more climate change potential than carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide has 268 times more climate change potential, according to the 2006 UN report. Radically reducing the amount of methane and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere can produce discernable changes in the greenhouse gas effect within decades, while the same reductions in carbon dioxide take nearly a century.
"Yes, quitting meat can reduce your carbon footprint significantly more than quitting driving.
"To put this in digestible terms, producing the meat for a one-third pound hamburger patty as much as 18,000 gallons of water depending on the farming method, according to the US government."
Something to think about.
No comments:
Post a Comment