Yes, speciesism seems to prevail here.

I guess your cow and you don't fart.

If every meat eater in America were to switch to eating only grass-fed beef raised in open pastures by small farmers, there would not be NEARLY enough cattle to allow Americans to continue to eat as much beef as they do now, so it still leads to eating less beef (and killing fewer cows).

In terms of food per acre, grass-fed cattle produce 75-200 lbs. of beef per acre.  Grain-fed "feedlot" cattle can produce as much as 3,661 lbs. of beef per acre (with all the problems mentioned above that go along with that), whereas an acre of land can produce 10-20 tons (20,000 - 40,000 lbs.) of various vegetable crops.

Just grow up and stop eating meat already.

The animal rights blog does not make a case for veganism solely or even primarily (or, really, even often) on the basis of global warming. The primary argument is the ethical one. But I see no issue with also pointing out the enormous environmental, health, wildlife, and world hunger issues with eating animals and animal products as well. It's all related. And when animal ag is such a contributor to climate change, and climate change in turn affects so many other animals and their habitats, climate change very much becomes an animal rights issue. It's not illogical to give people all the reasons and information we have, from varying angles. If "stop global warming" were the only or the primary reason animal advocates gave people for going vegan, I'd agree with you. But it isn't.

As for eating grass-fed cows being good rather than bad for the environment and climate change, other scientists have come to a very different conclusion from what this individual (who has a clear and admitted interest in pushing people to eat grass-fed cow flesh and whose piece seems more speculation and opinion than science) has determined. And what's being ignored is that it would be impossible to simply move all beef production to this method. There simply isn't enough land. The resources just aren't there. It's a fantasy (for people, naturally, not for the cows, whom we're still talking about killing en masse when they're essentially still children).

Harold Brown touched on some of these issues in a guest post as part of a series a while back: http://animalrights.change.org/blog/view/free-range_pasture_systems_not_a_viable_solution

I'll also note that whether his remark about soybean cultivation versus the raising of cows is actually true--I don't know--it's not true that all vegetarians or vegans eat copious amounts of soy. Many do eat soy. Many eat limited amounts of soy. And some avoid it altogether.

And one last point that I really feel warrants repeating because it's so important: Even if non-animal advocates take the position of "you don't have to go vegan" to stop climate change, I don't understand how non-AR environmentalists can seriously question whether people still need to at least reduce their animal consumption given, as noted, the impossibility of meeting current demand for animal flesh and animal products via the systems recommended by Coleman. It's completely unsustainable. We have to rememember how much deforestation, for example, is already happening for livestock grazing. And global warming isn't the only environmental concern at play here.

Stephanie, you're throwing the whole pot of spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.  I didn't say:

- That you advocate veganism solely on the basis of stopping global warming.

- That there are not a number of good reasons to eat less or no meat, from an enviro pov.

- That there are not other animal rights angles on global warming.

Since this blog is about global warming, my focus here is on how the 'go vegan' and global warming action efforts are being conflated, and whether that ultimately makes sense.

The point I keep trying to make is that stopping global warming is a poor argument in favor of veganism, because there are obvious answers to the quandry of GHGs caused by animal farming: eat less meat, and raise the animals free-range.

I believe that red meat and dairy are much more energy intensive than other food products (chicken, fish, eggs, and vegetable-based protein.  Check out this life cycle analysis:  

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es702969f

The abstract:

Despite significant recent public concern and media attention to the environmental impacts of food, few studies in the United States have systematically compared the life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with food production against long-distance distribution, aka “food-miles.” We find that although food is transported long distances in general (1640 km delivery and 6760 km life-cycle supply chain on average) the GHG emissions associated with food are dominated by the production phase, contributing 83% of the average U.S. household’s 8.1 t CO2e/yr footprint for food consumption. Transportation as a whole represents only 11% of life-cycle GHG emissions, and final delivery from producer to retail contributes only 4%. Different food groups exhibit a large range in GHG-intensity; on average, red meat is around 150% more GHG-intensive than chicken or fish. Thus, we suggest that dietary shift can be a more effective means of lowering an average household’s food-related climate footprint than “buying local.” Shifting less than one day per week’s worth of calories from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more GHG reduction than buying all locally sourced food.

Emily, I think we all understand the point you're trying to make.  The real issue here is why you're supporting this argument with your time and effort.  If you're for the animal rights movement then turn your motivation into something positive and stop playing devil's advocate.  If you're not, then you might want to consider applying some of the knowledge you've gleaned from the animal rights blogs you've visited.  Just sayin...

Well, a lot of people have disagreed with me here, so not everyone seems to get my point as well as you do, Eric.

As for why I put my time into it: 1.  It's a discussion people are obviously interested in having.  2.  On the whole, I find the animal rights movement's public embrace of global warming to be opportunistic, and not in a way that's likely to be very useful to global warming activism.  

"On the whole, I find the animal rights movement's public embrace of global warming to be opportunistic."

Insulting. The common portrayal of animal rights advocates as those concerned with a single issue who just feign concern for other issues as it suits them couldn't be further from the truth--and the insult gets old. Many animal advocates--I'd venture to say most, when we're talking about serious, committed activists--are aware of, concerned about, and active in many issues and movements. And many of us were activists in other movements, particularly environmental issues, long prior to learning about and starting to advocate for animal rights. Indeed, animal advocates are some of the most all-around-active and progessive people I've ever met. They tend to also be serious environmentalists, ardent antiwar activists, commited LGBT rights supporters, agitators for fair trade, and so on and so on.

Someone's sincere concern for global warming--and advocacy of actions that can help stop it--isn't canceled out simply because he or she is also an advocate for animal rights. AR advocates tend to see how so many injustices and problems are interconnected, and they comment on it, and they try to show those connections. And yes, when they see the effects animal agriculture has on global warming, in addition to all its other detrimental environmental effects--and its host of other problems, for health, for world hunger, for workers, etc.--they gain yet another valid reason to advocate for the end to the consumption of animals.

The advocacy is logical and sincere, not opportunistic. And the frequent dismissal by meat-eating environmentalists of our interest in stopping global warming is condescending and, frankly, convenient.

I agree that a lot of these issues are interconnected. But I don't recall hearing a really big message about global warming coming from the direction of animal rights before the FAO report on livestock ag began to get attention.

That's just an impression; I'd be happy to be shown information that tells a different story.

Don't you think there's a much better case to be made on wilderness preservation, say?  There are animals that simply are not going to survive outside of the wild; does their right to exist and flourish fall into the rubric of animal rights?

A detail here is that the CAFO industry can't just change to grass-fed. There's the issue of space. It would not be possible to produce the quantity of meat that CAFOs produce, and would cost more to produce. Also, grass-fed takes longer to reach market weight. More, time, more money. Meat would be more expensive, and no at everyone's reach. Grass-fed is not an option. Eating less (or going vegan) is.

"Grass-fed takes longer to reach market weight," is a partial truth.  There are still some breeds of cattle that do extremely well on grass, but they tend to be smaller animals (which is why they haven't been chosen for mass-production).  For me, I'll continue to raise my own food while refusing to support the meat industry.

"...and would cost more to produce."

Marcello, do you have numbers to substantiate this? If beef producers weren't externalizing so many of their costs to taxpayers in the form of corn subsidies, enviornmental cleanup, etc., confined feeding would be enormously more expensive. Right now, CAFOs build large buildings and purchase feed and medicine all year long. That's expensive.

Grass grows for free. You just need the land--and presently, there's an awful lot of grassland doing nothing but serving as decoration around buildings. Even in the winter, you just feed cattle the grass you cut earlier in the year (hay).

Saying CAFOs are cheaper than grazing sounds like saying it's cheaper to mow your lawn and spray it with chemicals every week than it is to just let the weeds grow.

You're right. Meat is produced in CAFOs with a lot of subsidies, and chemicals, making it artificially cheap. So in reality, it's expensive to the taxpayers. But that doesn't resolve the grass-fed problem of where to grass-feed all the animals necessary to supply enough meat for everybody. There's lots of grassland doing nothing (I'm thinking the great outdoors, not outside of buildings nor urban areas), but would it be wise to fill it up with cows just to feed humans meat? That would mean millions of acres dedicated to meat. I'm sure we can think of something better to produce on it! And all the land dedicated to corn and soy; I think it's better to produce something more heart-healthy than meat.

It's true that eating exotic plants instead of shipping around cows, you would reduce CO2 based on the number of trips, but the plants will be harvested using big CO2 producing tractors.

I think the animal rights people would have a lot stronger case and a lot more support if they would focus solely on the moral issue of eating meat, and leave out all the "Well, it's also bad for the environment and blah blah..." because people can argue against that (heck they could argue against it even if they were wrong).  People can't argue against "Killing is wrong."

Using nothing but morality in your argument totally backfires when your morals are based entirely on one religion and they say that HARMING someone is GOOD.  But in the end, you can't go wrong with "Everyone deserves equal rights."

Maybe I stated that wrong, I meant to say that eating exotic plants causes huge amounts of CO2 as well, so you can't tell people that they only have to reduce their meat consumption because it is not the only food causing global warming. Palm oil is a huge offender of global warming because the rainforest is chopped down to grow the plants that produce it.

I can only agree with you halfway on the stronger case argument. I know several vegetarians who don't eat meat strictly because of environmental reasons; so if I can sway someone using any means available I will do so. In the long run no matter why a person chooses to stop eating meat it will benefit the animal, even if they could give a rat's behind about animals.

Speaking in practical terms, most of meat sold in this country is raised by industrial-scale methods.  So there's a functional logic to eating less or no meat for environmental reasons, even if the "philosophical" argument has some fatal weaknesses.

If diet/animal rights issues are what a person finds most personally motivational, then of course they should go for it, in their own lives and in organizing for change.  Food hits right at home, so it's a good means for getting people to re-evaluate their lifestyles, and take action.

That said, when it comes to excessive greenhouse gas pollution, the fastest path to a re-stabilized climate is to transform energy generation, transportation and building/infrastructure construction; and to end mass deforestation (whether it's for pasturage, palm oil, or soybeans).  

People can't argue against "Killing is wrong."

Sorry, but you must not be from where I'm from. I grew up in the South in the United States where people in the Bible Belt argue that their Bible tells them they have "dominion over the earth and all of its creatures." Therefore, they can do what they want to with the animals. Yet another reason I moved away from the South.

Just to clarify, what I meant is that many people I grew up around would laugh at you if you told them killing is wrong. That argument means absolutely nothing to them, so it's best to have some other arguments as well.

Cole,

Creating one pound of meat is about as inefficient a way to produce protein as we can possibly come up with.  You are basically raising an animal by feeding them every day, 9/10 of the resources going into that process end up as cow dung, which gets thrown into the environment.  CO2 is only one part of the problem with "raising" our food via an animal.  

And plenty of people have so called "moral" justifications for eating meat which usually include some lame ass reference to god.

Actually, that was a quote from the excerpt.

I do agree on many levels, that if everyone ate less meat (eggs & dairy), it would be better than if a few went vegan.  But that's kind of the lowest goal.  And I would think that it would be better to put it out there for people to try to attain to more than that.

I have a couple of random comments that I thought of later.

First, if the Global Warming people would put the word out there on animal agriculture's impact, so the animal rights people wouldn't have to, then our goal could be to ask people not to replace the  beef they cut out with chicken or fish, but to truly cut down on the number of animals they eat.  (It takes a lot of chickens and fishes to equal one cow.)

Second, on the topic of grass-fed cattle, maybe they don't produce as much methane.  But since most people buy what's available in the grocery stores and restaurants, offering them a loop-hole that grass-fed is OK most likely blows right past them.  I don't see that they'd cut down on their normal beef consumption, unless the message is strong.  If y'all want to eat grass-fed, that's one thing.  But it really waters down the message to "eat less meat" if you offer them the grass-fed loophole as an enticement to do basically nothing.

Re: everyone eating "less" meat vs. a few going vegan, I still think that the people who are most publicly concerned about Global Warming should be the ones to set the highest example, because people seeing you eating beef aren't going to know if it's grass-fed or not.  And they aren't going to follow, if there's nothing to follow either by word or example.  And that's why I made the comment at the end that they'll be enticed to do basically nothing.

I can't speak for "the global warming people," but as I've mentioned, the single biggest culprit in global warming is generating energy from fossil fuels.  

So energy gets a lot of attention from environmental reporters and bloggers. I imagine it's the same for activists.

We're all in the position of trying to get the biggest bang for very few bucks, when it comes to global warming reporting OR activism.

Intensive plant-based agriculture does have its own problems, you are absolutely right and it is obviously better to buy local, in-season and organic, wherever possible.

However, it's worth noting that much of current plant-based agriculture is intensive in order to produce the necessary amount of feed needed for livestock. More than half the US grain goes to livestock not humans; livestock production takes up 70% of all agricultural land (worldwide, I don't have the US figures to hand); and produces more climate change gases than transport, 18%, according to the UN.

Removing livestock farming and releasing the land and water it wastefully uses would surely allow all plant-based agriculture to be extensive and organic. Grasslands not suitable for growing plants could be given back to wildlife; bison, deer, elk etc.

I am desperately searching for a report I read recently on the feasability of the UK going totally vegan and organic (the report said yes) and respective land use. If/when I locate it I will repost.

That's an out-dated report.  The largest portion of grain is going toward the production of 'green' fuels - ethanol and biodiesel.  Talk about irony!

According to an article I read recently, a third of this year's corn crop is going to ethanol.

It's a very significant percentage, but not the largest portion of the crop by far.

To quote an opening portion of that article -"Along with wheat, corn and soybeans are the foundation of the U.S. food supply. They are mixed into livestock rations, milled and crushed to become food and beverage ingredients, and employed as lubricants and feedstocks for motor fuels."

I never meant to say it was over 50% - I meant 'the largest portion'.  Put that 1/3 on a pie chart and you'll see what I mean.

I guess I wasn't blantant enough in my sarcasm about the biofuel issue.  It could have been a great thing, but somehow was twisted.  Originally, people were (and some private people still are) making them from by-products of grain - not the grain itself.

Personally, I only eat grass-fed meat (beef, chicken, lamb, and wild game).  I stopped buying meat from the store years ago when I learned about the way most of it is raised and processed.  Having grown up on a grass-fed farm in the middle of nowhere, I wasn't aware anyone was doing it differently than my family did (and does).  I raise what people would call 'happy' animals that I butcher and process myself.  The grasses that they live on convert far more CO2 than is created by the animals.  A little publicized fact is that grasses that are foraged are stimulated into a rapid growth phase.  The relevant point to climate change is that rapidly growing grass converts CO2 much faster than normal.

So I'm obviously not a vegetarian.  In truth, I'm gluten sensitive and have to avoid most grain products.  I also have a family history of diabetes.  There is no bread in my house, unless I make a gluten free sourdough.  There's no refined sugar, either.  I drink milk that comes from my cow.  I sweeten things with honey my beehives give me.  This is part of who I am, not just what I do.  It may not be right for everyone (and its alot of work at times!), but its right for me.  I won't force it on anyone, but I also won't be forced to give it up.  Nothing I'm doing is harming the planet - if anything, I'm helping it.

All these options... you've never been poor, have you?  I well remember being sent into McD's to fill my pockets up with ketchup packets that my mom would turn into tomato soup.  Without hunting, or butchering a calf if the hunts weren't successful, my sisters and I would have starved.  This is America, not just places like Tibet.

The solution there would be to solve or at least help ameliorate poverty; the meat part is sort of incidental.

As true as that is, the poverty issue is getting worse.  What would you say to someone who grew up like I did - hunt or starve, kill or die?  I don't know anyone who takes being in balance with nature more seriously than I do, but I don't see being an omnivore as being out of balance.

I should also make it clear that while I disagree with much of the philosophy, I agree with the premise that Americans eat too much meat (i.e. McD's et al).  Seeing a modern dry lot farm with hundreds of animals per acre angers me as much as most vegans.  However, it fails to inspire even a shred of guilt over raising my own food.  If you're worried about the methane from my (or anyone's) animals, have you heard of methane digesters?  You can actually harvest methane and use it for fuel.  Google "gobar" if you're curious.

Stopping poverty is impossible and will never happen. Live with it.  It could be reduced tho if there were manditory sterilization  for those who have no skills to ever earn enough to support children.  If you have a magical cure come out with it.

There are some people who need meat. It is difficult to get efficient nutrition on vegies alone. Soy has its down side...do the research.  GM soy is worse. How well does your body process Roundup?

The human digestive system does not do a good job on raw veggies, and this is likely why we ate meat to begin with.  You might say the meat is predigested vegetable matter.  And yes, many of us have a need for meat.  I have read that those whose eye teeth are longer than the adjoining teeth have meat eating ancestry.

As to the animals themselves being a problem....not so...just think of all the really good fertilizer they create for those organic gardeners.  Unfortunately it is not gathered up and composted.  It is Black Gold. Those free range cattle fertilize their next years crop of grass. 

A planet of nearly 7 billion and an increasing appetite for animal corpse destroy the above theorem. There is no such land available to raise the necessary number of animals. One could just as easily make an argument for feeding the world with organic vegetable, grain, and bean production. In fact, this is more realistic. Animal grazing destroys soil: over-grazing produces compaction, depletion, and erosion. And since we are running outta space here, there is no way around over-grazing. And (some) animals eat other animals only because they have no other choice. We have a choice. We are healthier on a plant-based diet, and to eat animals just to satisfy one's taste preferences is immoral.

Animal grazing destroys soil???  Which planet is this?  That's why the land was all desert until people started keeping 'animal free zones', right?  And in this world of organic vegetables with no grazing animals (btw, where did they go?  Did you kill them to make room?) where are you going to get your organic fertilizers?  Good grief.

Tilling soil does release carbon into the atmosphere, which is exactly why the no-till method of organic farming (such as in permaculture) is growing so fast.

Jon, you mention "where are you going to get your organic fertilizers?"; have you heard of the stockfree organics movement? A growing trend in the US and UK is growing plant-based foods without any animal inputs at all and using "green manure" instead.

Proponents of the stockfree organic method say they use considerably less land than livestock dependent systems, have a much lower carbon footprint and lower energy requirements.

http://www.stockfreeorganic.net/

On another note, using human compost toilets is also a growing trend in sustainable farming, and have shown to be very effective to replace conventional fertilisers in places like Africa, and increase sanitation in addition:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/appeal-the-revolutionary-human-compost-that-has-changed-the-face-of-farming-in-mozambique-688358.html

With regard to your statement "where did [the animals] go? Did you kill them to make room?" I assume you are not being serious, obviously as meat-consumption declines, progressively fewer animals would be purpose-bred and numbers of farmed animals would very slowly decline. There would never be a situation where everyone stops eating meat all at once and suddenly we're left with millions of farmed animals not knowing what to do with them.

Lastly,  "Animal grazing destroys soil" holds true on a macroscopic scale, and can be backed up by  the UN Livestock's Long Shadow report (2006) but not necessarily on a case-by-case basis.

But beef production, even grass-fed, still involves the huge production of methane, and apparently even more with grass-fed than CAFO's as the animals take longer to grow due to the food being less concentrated. In addition cows eating grass also produce more methane than grain-fed due to the lignan in grass according to the following report, which is why Australian scientists are trying to genetically modify grass to produce less lignan:

http://discovermagazine.com/2008/aug/08-fighting-cow-methane-at-the-source

In the end, "however close you can be to a vegan diet and further from the mean American diet, the better you are for the planet*" there may be exceptions where some animal products in certain conditions are not totally environmentally un-friendly, which is why the primary reason to stop eating all animal products is the ethical one, and for this you need to see the Animal Rights blog instead for comprehensive arguments.

*Eshel and Martin, University of Chicago, 2006:

http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/06/060413.diet.shtml

These "growing trend(s) in the US and UK is growing plant-based foods without any animal inputs at all and using "green manure" instead" are a new thing for a good reason - they're GMO dependent.  I'd rather starve.

Why do you think there would be fewer animals born if people weren't farming them?  Animals breed.  Farming only contains them.  You can't slow breeding/birthing rates without controlling the breeding stock.  Either we 1) keep eating animals 2) slaughter animals and waste the life taken 3) catch and sterilized most of them 4) let them run rampant until the carnivore population grows sufficiently to contain them for us.  You have to choose.

As I posted earlier this morning, methane can be harvested and burned for fuel.  True that it produces CO2 (and water) when you burn it, but plants NEED co2 to 'breathe' so they can exhale oxygen.  It's a good system ;-)

"The primary reason to stop eating all animal products is the ethical one.."  You can't just make a blanket statement like this - you have to give me a reason to believe.  I understand where you're coming from.  One of my younger sisters even became a vegan after leaving home, and we've had many discussions about the choices we've made.  The long and short of it is that she respects my choice just like I do hers.  We understand each other.  I worry for her health, but that's a whole different subject.  Anyway, the point I was feebly trying to make is that you can't just blanket me in, saying My lifestyle is wrong, and expect that to be enough.  You've made a decision for yourself and I'm ok with that, even though I've made a different choice.  Can you give me the same courtesy?

Dear Jon,

My statement "The primary reason to stop eating all animal products is the ethical one" wasn't actually directed specifically at you, although the previous comments were as they were replying directly to points you had previously brought up, so I can see where this confusion has come in.

I was simply commenting in general to the comments page that not all animal-products are environmentally-unfriendly, although clearly at this point in time there are too many people eating too many of them, hence the corresponding environmental destruction in the reports cited above and the need to drastically reduce our consumption. And so I went on to say that the environmental argument does not necessarily support giving up ALL animal products, whereas the ethical (animal rights) argument does. This was not directed at you, just a general comment to all, I should have made that clear. I think I have been being having a reasonable, respectful discussion with  you so far :-)

But I will reply to another couple of comments that you mentioned, you said that systems using green manure are "GMO dependent", I would be interested to know where you have that information from.
I have looked at the stockfree organic link that I posted above and the standards for stockfree organics state that:

"Synthetic fertilisers, synthetic pesticides and
weedkillers are not permitted in an organic agricultural or horticultural system. The
registered grower is not permitted to use genetically modified organisms (GMOs) or any
products derived from such GMOS."

Secondly, you say "Why do you think there would be fewer animals born if people weren't farming them?".

Well, farmed animals that are rescued from farms and live out their lives on sanctuaries are not made pregnant through artificial insemination, are not intentionally put together with a member of the opposite sex for planned mating, and the animals that do live in groups of mixed sex are sterilized to prevent more births (animals born on the sanctuary would prevent other animals being rescued as they would take up their place). The populations of farmed animals on sanctuaries naturally decline without any killing of the animals taking place, because no breeding takes place. In fact, the population doesn't actually decline due to new arrivals that have been rescued, but you get my point.

THere is no "ethical" reason to stop eating meat. This "ethical" is a human mental construct. It is contrary to nature.  We are the top of the food chain and have always eaten meat.  Or at least we have for the last approx.12,500 years, or since the last catclysm that wiped out most of the life on Earth, changing the climate and the seasons to what we have today.  Research "When Earth Nearly Died."

This says more about the values of Brazilians than it does about anything inherent about livestock production. Obviously, cattle don't *need* to graze on leveled forests. Native grasslands work just fine. It's those who control the rainforests who decide how they'd prefer to profit from the land. Instead of practicing sylvaculture, they cut down trees and bring in steers. That's just dumb. It's a way for people--usually who have no long-term interest in the well-being of the land--to make a quick buck. Greed and bad stewardship are destroying our environment, not livestock.

The thing is, the areas appropriate for grazing ruminants are not insufficient. They're just being poorly utilized. The most glaring example of this is the American suburban neighborhood. We take productive farms that used to produce food, carve them up into parcels of anywhere from a quarter acre to ten acres, throw up a bunch of shoddy cookie-cutter houses, and raise nothing there but dogs and yuppies. Homeowners tend to overfertilize their yards (to say nothing of the unnecessary pesticides and herbicides). The excess runs off and pollutes streams.

Were this land reclaimed for grass-based agriculture, none of this would be happenening and we'd be producing more food. So much food could be grown right in the city--I'm doing it!--but too often there are actually laws against it. 

It's urban sensibilities that are killing us. Sellf-righteous city folks who have no connection to their food, buying it all in pre-wrapped packages in the grocery store, can get all high and mighty about what other people ought to eat, but it doesn't change the fact that it is their way of life that is destroying the planet. http://frijolitofarm.com/blog/?p=20

Oh sure, demonize urbanites!  It's all Sodom and Gomorra all the time, here in the Big City.

Cities are the key to a sustainable civilization.  It's more energy efficient per capita to live, use mass transit, and distribute food and water into a dense metro area.  Urban agriculture is very viable, and it's being done worldwide.

In the US, city mayors have been in the forefront of reforming climate policy, while the federal government has stalled and stagnated.

The trend worldwide is that a majority of people now live in cities, and that the percentage will continue to increase.  It would be incredibly foolish to write cities off in the name of some utopian ideal of man in nature.

Emily,

 "Cities are the key to a sustainable civilization."???  Wow, that's a new one by me.  My 8 acre farm will sustain both itself and my family.  Granted that I have to work to pay for electricity, internet, and such - but I grew up without those things.  No great loss to me.  If you want to truly understand sustainability, let me know.  You'll never find it in town, though.

Jon, I find the "me and mine first" sentiment in that statement disheartening.  In some kind of theoretical totalizing disaster, okay, your family farm might sustain you and your family.  But what about the rest of the community?

In any case, cities can't exist in a vacuum, and I didn't try to imply that they could.  Cities and country need each other.

When you're talking about a whole lot of people, with big food and energy needs, it makes a lot of practical sense to live in a densely-populated environment.  You can concentrate the infrastructure, achieve less energy use per capita, make economies of scale like mass transit systems and public education systems viable and accessible, and spare the countryside and the wilderness of massive human impacts.

I just don't see your logic.  How can it make more sense to bring so many people together that they can't produce what they need in their immediate surroundings?  I'm not of the opinion that things like a concentrated infrastructure are always good things, either.  Sustainability will not be found in more efficient means of powering our chaotic lifestyles.  We can't 'save the planet' (which would be fine even if we were to kill ourselves off) with better technology.  It's harmony with nature that can bring about a sustainable future, not more inventive ways of controlling it.

To the "me and mine" - that's my first responsibility, if you change the order.  If such a disaster were to happen, I would be more than happy to teach anyone who was willing to learn.  My community is typically very small, but only because so few choose to live as I do.  So few believe as I do, though many claim to.  This world saddens me.

Emily, if you'll read my post again, you'll see that I'm not arguing against cities. I know urban agriculture is viable--it's what I do for a living!  :)

My objections are 1) the mismanagement of urban resources and 2) the *cultural values* of urbanity that both inadvertantly and actively discourage agricultural activity in the city. If lawns were turned into gardens, if warehouses were turned into *sanitary* CAFOs, if highway medians were used to grow hay and grain for livestock, cities could be almost--and possibly even entirely--self-sustaining.

That's not the way it's currently done, though. Your typical urbanite is so disconnected from the natural world, they might as well be like those people in the power farms in The Matrix--just living in a bubble, all their nutrients and mental stimuli fed directly into their bodies. Before Michael Pollan came along and made such issues trendy, most urbanites thought questions like "Where did my food come from?" were irrelevant to their lives.

This ignorance led to the food industry operating pretty much unchecked. Large cities today ravage the land for hundreds and thousands of miles around them, even depleting the resources of other nations, triggering wars. If American urbanites were content to live simple peasant lives growing their own food and entertaining themselves at home, do you really think we'd need a military industrial complex to secure oil in the Middle East?

I'm not writing off cities at all. What I'm writing off is blind, greedy consumption, and it is no blinder and no greedier than in the places where people are oblivious to the consequences.

Jon,, I'd suggest you not assume what I do and don't understand about living in cities vs. rural areas.

And anyway, I'm not dealing in that kind of apoca-philia: the disaster that's going to wipe away civilization a la the Biblical Flood.

Jon, cities and technology (the plow, the axe) have been around for millennia.  They're not de facto "unnatural." They're not inherently chaotic, although if that's what a person likes, that's fine too.  

What sort of idyllic state of nature do you envision for humanity?  Some say turning the soil was our Original Sin against nature, that we should all go back to hunting and gathering for sustenance.

And yes, in fact the crucial change we need to make to counter global warming is in how we generate energy to power our lifestyles.  Whether the coal-fired power plant is sending electricity to my apartment building or to your house in the countryside, it's still burning coal and sending tons of CO2 pollution into the atmosphere.

co2 isn't pollution, though.  Plants would die without it!

In regards to assumptions - make all of them you want, like you're doing while accusing me of it and mocking me.  My (mis)understanding of who you are won't change you a bit, nor will yours change me.  And the Biblical flood - not even my farm would be safe ;-)

I really don't believe an idyllic state of nature can be reached now, so how I picture it working matters not at all. 

Ah, I see we're at the "CO2 isn't pollution" moment in the conversation.

Yes, actually: When human activities generate so much CO2 that the oceans and the forests can't absorb enough to maintain a stable climate, that CO2 has become pollution -- something that's a threat to human health and the environment.

Mocking? Okay, a little. But this is weak medicine by online discourse standards.  

I don't condone ad hominem insults and flame wars on the blog, but that doesn't mean people have to abandon (attempts at) wit and entertaining writing when they enter here, either.

Weak medicine that I'd be roasted for here if I were to respond in kind, but say what you will.

Let me pose a question to you about the levels of co2 and plant life to process it - has the destruction of the rain forests been more detrimental than urban sprawl?

I'm out til tomorrow, btw.  Gotta sleep sometime.

Fair enough.

I'm going to try and look into this; it's a really intriguing question.  

But I think it needs to be posed a little differently.  Not so much deforestation *compared* to urban sprawl, but deforestation for human settlements compared to deforestation for agriculture. 

My educated guess would be that globally, modern-era (post 1945) deforestation for agriculture outweighs forest loss for human settlement as a contributor to global warming (both in lost capacity for sinking carbon, and stored carbon released into the atmosphere).

Part of my thinking here is that a) most urban development in the past 60 years has been along coastlines, which suggests more open plain or river delta land, as well as second or third growth forest, as opposed to old growth forested land. (Old growth is usually the most biodiverse and healthy forest, with larger trees, so stores more carbon than subsequent growth.)  

If you throw in loss of coastal mangrove forests to overall deforestation, though, ag's lead on urban development might tighten up.  Although then again, because ag runoff from inland is a major factor in weakening and killing mangroves.

While you're at it Emily, perhaps you'd like to add a third category - 'deforestation for greed'

The clearance of huge tracts of the rain forest in Borneo, using slash and burn techniques, is done to line the pockets of the logging companies and the politicians they bribe to ignore their crimes. I have witnessed the destruction in Borneo personally and while not having the same first hand experience of the destruction in Brazil, I suspect that much of the clearance there is also greed motivated.........

There is no such thing as "creating" CO2.

Nothing is ever created or destroyed, it is only recycled.

Volcanoes spue out more detrimental gases than humans ever had in their whole history. And BTW there are several that are active as we speak .. do the research.

Cities: Humans do not actually like living that close to each other.  Some of us actually hate it...we are extremely uncomfortable being close....even such closeness as in the average suburb.  Where I live no house is closer to me than 100' and actually I would feel better if it were 500'.

Emily, what exactly is wrong with "me and mine first"?  That is the law of survival.   Do you think I should regard "you and yours first"?  And why?  The way it works in this world is basically "every man for himself."  Get used to it, 'cause it isn't going to change.

Anna Marie, you're wrong about carbon dioxide. It's a compound, not an element. It can be both created and destroyed. It's created by oxidizing carbon (such as by burning carbon-based fuels). It can be destroyed by introducing other elements that will force the carbon and oxygen to break apart and recombine as new elements. This happens in photosynthesis when carbon dioxide and water are joined to form glucose and oxygen. (6CO2 + 6H2O -> C6H12O6 + O2)

It sounds like what you were thinking of was sub-molecular (atomic) matter. It's true that matter can't be created or destroyed, but it can be transformed into energy and vice versa. But a chemical compound, and even a molecule of an element, can in fact be both created and destroyed.

"what exactly is wrong with "me and mine first"?  That is the law of survival.   Do you think I should regard "you and yours first"?"

This, of course, is a false dichotomy.

Good luck with your philosophy; hope it works out for you.

Well Wayne, if that's the case, then our brilliant scientists should be able to just split the co2.

Maybe that is what the barium in the chemtrails do?

Anna Marie, our brilliant scientists have figured out how to do that. They call it "carbon sequestration," but it's really just a fancy word for letting plants grow and not tilling soil. This lets the plants lock the carbon in their bodies and in the soil while releasing oxygen into the atmosphere.

Hence, grass-based farming and tree crops as opposed to tilling every year to plant corn.

Dana, meat production uses about 16 times more land to feed any given number of people compared to an animal free system, the result of a massive inefficiency in growing grains to feed animals which then feed people. Regarding the grass-fed shade-grown animal argument, there are many flaws in this approach. Here is one: how would predator type wildlife be kept from killing and consuming the animals intended for meat? The predators would be killed of course. But then many other species would overpopulate and compete with the grazing animals for the available vegetation. So the competition wildlife would be killed. And we are left with large areas, formerly wild and beautiful, now home to farm animals destined for premature slaughter, all to ensure you get adequate B12. And you are sick of the term “speciesism”? I am sick of people confining, torturing, and slaughtering other sentient beings, and believing it is justified only because they had fur or feathers.

Jamie, the "16 times more land" figure is only relevant within the current paradigm of industrial food, where food consumable by humans is instead used in CAFOs.This is one leg of the argument supporting grass-based agriculture.

It's also sort of an apples-to-oranges comparison. Remember those old Total cereal commercials, where they'd say, "You'd have to eat 59 bowls of brand X to equal the nutrients in one bowl of Total"? It's the same thing comparing grains to meat. One cup of white rice is not going to nourish you like one cup of grass-fed liver will. *When allowed to forage for themselves on non-arable land* livestock are actually far more efficient at concentrating nutrients we can use.

I can feel the compassion in your writing, Jamie. You have a kind heart. I've seen how cattle and lambs are killed. Have you ever seen how wolves or big cats kill these animals? I've slaughtered chickens myself, but I've also seen what it's like when raccoons or wild dogs attack them. Botched killings in high-speed industrial slaughterhouses aside, how can you argue that the quick, humane euthanization of an animal that has been fed, protected, and cared for on a family farm is somehow morally inferior to allowing an animal to live a hard, hungry, brutal life in the wild before being slowly ripped apart and eaten alive by non-human predators?

Humans are no less a part of nature than any other animal. We are no less entitled to use the resources around us. Dana is as entitled to vitamin B12 as the vultures and coyotes are, even if it offends your sensibilities.

as am i, who stand with dana and wayne, thanks & gratitude gentlemen :)

Campbell, I'd like to address your first point. In situations where people are forced to eat meat, it's generally a case of people having to hunt/trap/fish wild animals or raise their own--or get them directly from a farmer. Even cheap vegetarian food from the grocery store costs money. Stores don't barter or let you work for your food. People who don't have money can still fish and hunt.

Beyond that, there's the issue of animal products being used in non-meat food products. Gelatin and animal fat are ubiquitous. I remember when I was a vegetarian in the early 90s, I had to read labels very carefully to make sure there was no animal flesh in my beans or bread. Unfortunately, the foods containing animal products were the cheaper ones. Produce was expensive, especially in the winter. We ended up eating lots of starches (and getting fat in the process). At that time, processed foods that were vegetarian friendly were rare and expensive--at least where I lived at the time.

I don't know if that's still the case, because I gave up vegetarianism when poverty forced my wife and me to accept gifts of meat from her grandfather. He wasn't wealthy, either, but he raised beef and hunted all sorts of animals, so he had plenty of meat to share.

Campbell- great to see another Aussie conributing. So much of this discussion seems to link global issues with US frming/ eating habits. Just to round out some of your observations- I'm living in Western News South Wales, and have worked in various farming settings in NSW and Queensland. I'm seeing a lot of land being used to raise livestock that could not be used for vege/ grain farming. Often, I'm seeing livestock as an essential part of the grain growing cycle- a light rain before harvest will deem a crop suitable only for animal consumption, livestock consume stubble and vegetable waste and return them as fertilizer, when the drought hits, sheep are sent into the paddocks that are failing, so that at least some nutrition value can be salvaged before the ground returns to dust. My local abbatior is only viable because it uses every possible scrap possible- so as well as producing meat, we should add that the acreage also produces wool, leather, fertilizer etc. They even convert the fat to fuel! I'm still searching to see if the global solution of reducing meat consumption is such an issue in such situations, but am yet to be convinced.

Thanks for the alert -- I will go read it over.

I really roll on the floor with laughter at people who think that humans can ever stop climate change. 

Do you have any idea of how much air pollution is caused by airplanes? and those space shuttles?  Do the research

You have the military planning on using the Atlantic Ocean and The Gulf of Mexico for bombing practice which will not only pollute the water, but kill Millions of Marine Animals.   Animal Right Activists...Where are you?

YOu have HAARP blowing holes in the Ozone layer with their high powered electrical equipment.  Do the research.  Never heard of HAARP? http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2804238542173218531

And those volcanoes:  http://volcanoworld.wordpress.com/category/volcano-activity-reports/

So if all farmers went back to grazing their cattle on grass, there would be fewer of them going to market, and the price would be higher, so there would be more people buying less meat.

Problem solved!!

Yes, that decorative grass is toxic.  What bothers me most about alll that poison sprayed on lawn is that those poisons work their way into all our water systems.

People, you have more than climate change to worry about.

There are areas where you must keep your lawn green and weed free or you will be fined.  Where are our anti-pollution people on this?

Any animal can graze on my lawn..it has weeds, they are green...bring your cow over, I'd be happy to get whatever fertilizer she leaves.

That's supposed to be "People ATE lard..."