Global Warming and Meat: A Debate with a Bite
Published October 29, 2009 @ 06:37AM PT
Writing about the clean-energy potential of pig manure yesterday got me thinking: We've been writing frequently over on the sustainable food blog about the growing consensus that the meat industry is a major contributor to global warming. More and more people are saying what a lot of others don't want to hear: eating a low-meat diet is one of the most effective ways of shrinking your carbon footprint.
The most high-profile figure to expound this idea is the UK's Lord Stern of Brentford, a leading figure in climate change studies, who recently told the Times of London that "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.”
Stern himself is not a strict vegetarian, which is a great illustration of an important point in this debate: You don't have to disavow meat entirely to start using your eating choices to make a difference on climate change.
According to Grist, if all of the US cut meat out one day a week, it would have the equivalent effect on emissions as taking 8 million cars off the road. A "Meatless Monday" movement is starting to make headway; Baltimore City recently became the first US school system to take on the challenge.
Of course Stern's comments have raised the furies of industry leaders, Big Sky Country elected officials and generally misinformed crazies. The Times article notes that UK's pork industry is up in arms, angered that they aren't getting credit for putting emissions-cutting technological advances in place. US News and World Report tells us that South Dakota Senator John Thune called the meat-reduction theory a bunch of bull, stating that the last thing the US meat industry needs right now is "elitist lecturing."
Then there's the hair-brained climate change deniers like Christopher Booker, who writes in the UK's Telegraph today that "even by the Green lobby's standards of self-deceiving absurdity, this must be a front-runner for the most fatuous proposal so far."
Booker claims, without citing any sources whatsoever, that all of agriculture, including meat production, is responsible for a mere 14 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, most of it from growing rice in China and India. Meanwhile, Worldwatch Institute, a respected think tank, recently came out with a new figure for emissions caused by livestock: 51 percent. The gulf between these two statistics is so wide we could all jump in and drown. Maybe we will once the sea level rises enough.
So what gives? Ironically, Booker himself gives us a clue to this debate. "Livestock farming," he writes, "is not some unnecessary consumer indulgence. When properly managed, it is a vital part of the natural cycle of the land."
The two key words here are "properly managed." And because of those two words, I would generally agree with what he says. I imagine, however, that we might be talking about different things. By "properly managed," I mean "included as part of a solar-energy-powered polyculture small farming environment." Industrial meat production is not properly managed meat production.
All these people saying meat is hard on the environment are making this same point; meat in the quantity we consume it produced the way we produce it in the Western industrial farming system is not environmentally sustainable. The sooner we can all see that, the sooner we can all get on with saving ourselves from destruction.
Photo courtesy of Alex E. Proimos via flickr
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Comments (10)
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Katherine Gustafson is a freelance writer and editor with a background in international nonprofit organizations. Her articles, essays, and stories have been published in numerous magazines, newspapers, books, and Websites.
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However, "produced the way we produce it" is often invisible, or not seen as a variable. One commonly reads that "It takes 12000 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef" or some such. A lot hides behind the words, "it takes."
Consider another popular phrase: It takes a village to raise a child. This doesn't mean we destroy or consume a village in the process of raising a child.
The beef I eat takes a lot of sunlight, a lot of grass, a lot of microbial activity, and of course water flowing through the system. The grass helps absorb and retain rainwater, leading to more groundwater recharge. The grazing is good for the grass, because it gets ample recovery periods, but not so much as to cause senescence and unproductivity of the grass. The managed/timed grazing helps the whole grassland system turn atmospheric carbon into soil organic matter, which may be our greatest leverage on climate change.
soilcarboncoalition.org
Posted by Peter Donovan on 10/29/2009 @ 09:23AM PT
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I'm waiting for the "Why Grass-Fed/Free Isn't Environmentally Friendly" link to be thrown in here, but thought I'd jump in first.
A point that is often missed is that it is not meat in general that it is climate bomb, but rather, the way that meat is produced on a large-scale.
No matter how you think about it, this is really a demand problem. If consumers continue to demand the massive availability of cheap meat, there is absolutely no incentive for meat processors to change the status quo. They'd rather destroy the earth than get beat out by their competitors.
Posted by Greg Plotkin on 10/29/2009 @ 10:01AM PT
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The meat you eat also takes a lot longer to mature (cattle on grass grow more slowly than on grain), meaning all that extra time emitting methane adds up to more GHG impact per unit of final product than feedlot. Also, well managed pasture might hold good amounts of carbon, but not as much as forest when you count what is above ground too. Grass-fed is nice, probably better for us and the animals, but it is not a large-scale solution to the problem. Ultimately we still need to cut back in a big way.
Posted by Bernard Brown on 10/29/2009 @ 12:22PM PT
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Yeah I always laugh whenever I see an environmentalist who wants to ban SUVS sinking their teeth into a hamburger or something. Meat is at the center of global warming and environment issues, and any intellectually honest environmentalist who isn't a hypocrit is going to have that front and center in this discussion.
Posted by Jason Martin on 10/29/2009 @ 08:17PM PT
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I would wager that the presence of meat in a meal is not as important as how meat is used. I've been trying to move to a model where, when I do eat meat with meals, I use it in something like stir fry or soup, as opposed to as the main part of the meal. For example, I can use one chicken breast in a stir fry for two people, whereas serving "chicken" as a main dish would probably mean 2 breasts. If more Americans followed the model of cooking used in parts of Asia and Latin America, where meat is eaten in small portions along with vegetables, grains, and other proteins, I think it could go a long way to reduce overall meat consumption. Plus, it's much cheaper. Just the opinion of a non-expert omnivore trying to be a little better.
Posted by Amanda Kloer on 10/30/2009 @ 07:16AM PT
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I have been on a strict vegan diet for some time now. It is hard to adjust at first, but it is easier to stick with it. Not only is it better for your health, it also prevents inhumane acts and global warming :)
Posted by Emily Pollard on 10/30/2009 @ 08:13AM PT
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Amanda's comment gets at a very important point - that there's plenty of room for moderation here without going all the way. We don't ask people to completely give up petroleum even if we do look for reductions (walking, biking, public transportation, more efficient cars); we can do a lot more to encourage people to eat a more plant-based diet even if they're not going veg.
Posted by Bernard Brown on 10/30/2009 @ 09:47AM PT
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I recently became vegan and it feels great!!!
Posted by Jeff Butts on 10/31/2009 @ 07:34PM PT
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This is not confined just to meat; we have to account for milk, cheese and butter production. Bernard raises a very good point. Intensive agriculture methods like feeding livestock grain instead of grazing, produce a double (triple?) whammy. The creation of carbon emissions while producing feed, transporting feed to stock, and the stock producing methane. Traditional grazing methods should produce smaller carbon footprints per cow. It's not a matter of counting cows, it's also a matter of how the cows are farmed. I don't beieve any of this (triple whammy) has been taken into account in the determination of a cows carbon foot print. There is also some discussion about the long term effects of CO2 vs Methane. Methane may have a higher potential for green house effects, but is denser, heavier and doesn't hang around as long. So what is the net relative effect? More research needed before Copenhagen. I agree whole heartedly with both Emily and Bernard; a degree of moderation across a range of activities will be beneficial to ourselves and our environment in many ways. Is Copenhagen the way to do this? Will a taxation method make us moderate? Or will it hurt the dissadvantaged even more?
Posted by Roger Grice on 11/01/2009 @ 02:38PM PT
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I started eating cheap, healthy and vegetarian two years before quitting my job and downsizing to the bush, just to find out how little I could really live on. It also happens to make a small carbon footprint. So, I've been eating this way for 5 or 6 years. I narrowed my supper choices to a short list of tasty peasant food from around the world and pretty much fixed lunch and breakfast to one or two choices. I spend $140 a month on groceries (includes some sundries). I serve guests the dinners I eat, nothing special for them, and they're always pleased. I've built a web site that supplies a printable cookbook and a menu plan. It's mostly plant-based, not depending much on dairy or eggs for protein. I'm hoping that climate change will motivate people, but the real incentive is eating cheap and tasty. Convenience is covered – most of the dinners are made in big batches so your freezer is full of single servings, ready to eat.
I'm also on a committee to promote local food producers. I garden and preserve and try to buy local. But my program is meant for underemployed and/or conscious young urbanites.
Lynn Shwadchuck
http://www.10in10diet.com/
Posted by Lynn Shwadchuck on 11/02/2009 @ 03:24PM PT
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