How to Fight Global Warming at Dinner – Yahoo! News –I’ve been noticing more and more of the “eating red meat” causes global warming argument. It stood out like a sore thumb when Bill Maher spewed it out-of-the-blue on his HBO show. Please send me these when you find them. This report which they say was funded by the EPA is particularly troubling since it condemns the important “eat local” sub-trend.
Environmental advocates and retailers urge customers to purchase goods from local sources to minimize environmental impacts. The idea is that food grown locally requires less fuel for shipping to the store. The new study does not argue that point. Yet few studies have compared greenhouse gas emissions from food production to those of transportation.
The production phase is responsible for 83 percent of the average U.S. household’s greenhouse-gas burden with regard to food, while transportation accounts for only 11 percent, the new study found. The production of red meat, the researchers conclude, is almost 150 percent more greenhouse-gas-intensive than chicken or fish.
The study, by Christopher L. Weber and H. Scott Matthews of at Carnegie Mellon University, was funded by the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Science Foundation.
Found by Jason Baker.
Why can’t issues be faced head on rather than get dithered away on distractions?
Food will for 99% of people be a function of the free market. And in fact the free market does an excellent job of balancing all the diverse and conflicting interests.–as in, how long before the government subsidies of ethanol will get removed because of rising food costs?
And that’s where the “main” focus should be–how government policies interfere with the free market.
Government should provide a “base” and above the base is free market. Poor people get the base of milk, bread, eggs, cheese, and spam. Anything else they need to pan handle for.
All this global warming nonsense is just a bunch of cow chips. These people need to see how much energy is used when farming by hand. Oh yes, it will save the planet, while they end up dead in the first drought. Give them an acre of land and see how well they do without food stores, gas stations, refineries, shipping, computers, electricity, coal, natural gas, Doritos, and plastic bags. Just give them a cow, a horse 100 gallons of water, and some seeds. Then after a year or two, lets hear their stories about how important it is to save the planet. I get so sick of hearing these people whine. They all use their cars, computers, and all of that, and go on and on preaching the gospel of GW and STP. If Jesus were here he’d roll over in his grave.
#2–chip==whats all this “giving” you are jabbering about? In the main, global warming restraints are about industrialized/ing nations stopping carbon pollution and cutting back on fuel/transportation costs.
What the tribes are doing in sub-Saharan Africa is of little interest to anyone. They don’t want cows and horses, they want goats! I won’t go farther.
Chipperoo is missing the point.
The fuel use in US and European farming comes largely from the fact that animals are fed on grain rather than grass for much of the time. A huge percentage of this grain is grown in developing nations and then transported half way around the world to fatten animals in the developed world.
As well as this, the grain is frequently grown on marginal land that was cleared of rain forest specifically to grow the grain. When the land is farmed out they clear more rain forest.
John, I have heard you talk about this with AC. Your argument against is that grass fed is better anyway so drop the 8 pounds of grain to make one pound of beef.
I am in the camp that believes that while the planet does seem to be going through a cycle of warming, it is a natural process and thinking humans have more then a 5% roll in it is a confidence game or at least hubris.
Feedlots were invented to make beef production efficient, and it is or was before the corn got diverted to ethanol production. My problem with grain fed beef is that it is wasteful. (not to mention the health effects if eaten daily) As populations grow and resources like petroleum and tillable land become static or are diminishing real cases of starvation will begin to be more common in the first world. The lack of cheap corn and other grains as well as the cost of fuel for farming equipment is making beef back into a feed just for the affluent or special occasions. Likewise grass fed beef is very expensive to grow because of the labor and fuel intensive way it is made.
This may be a case where the market will slow the production of beef anyway so the enviro-nuts can have their way and show us all the rightness of their cause because of how effective they were at getting the word out.
While I don’t believe the whole carbon hype thing, since air pollution controls have been implemented the air here in California is nicer to breathe. That may be a reason to seek less wasteful food sources.
Remember that people that eat vegetables, especially beans, all fart. Farts are full of CO2 and methane, which are greenhouse gases. Sounds like a good reason to eat meat to me!
#6 Seriously now: almost all beef is range fed, except for the last few weeks/months of life (not sure how long they stay at the feedlot). The corn makes the beef a bit more marbled and a bit less gamy. That said, many Westerners actually prefer range fed beef.
Per usual, the True Disbelievers are the weevils who haven’t the smarts – or integrity – to examine the science behind the determination about global warming.
We get lots of “I believe this” or “my grandpa’s farm” that. The sort of sheep who fall in line behind every government’s officialdom – sign their kids up for the next war – and whine the loudest when the bill arrives for their ignorance.
Sorry, how much of the rainforest is now being used to harvest flesh to feed the hungry carnivorous masses? Wonder if losing those forests at that rate could possibly be related to a lack of Co2 being “digested” instead of rising to the atmosphere’s edge.
The wholesale slaughter of cattle is wasteful and unnecessary… anyone know how much never touches lips anyway? No, I bet you don’t… cause it is one minor piece of a very screwed up puzzle of how we are living so very wrong and out of sync with the natural world… and we are all too consumed with being out of sync, eh?
Consider. What IF it weren’t vegans behind this concept, but people who actually considered… “hey maybe we SHOULD change our habits.
Nah… that would be crazy.
If we’re not smart enough to keep us alive. We deserve to die off. No big deal as far as the planet is concerned.
The cloud of smug surrounding vegans is much worse
“Per usual, the True Disbelievers are the weevils who haven’t the smarts – or integrity – to examine the science behind the determination about global warming.”
Here we go again with the “anyone who doesn’t believe in man-made global warming is dumb” nonsense. And I see you followed it up with a healthy dose of “I knows more science than you!”
Congratulations. You have mastered the art of arguing like a 10 year old. (Seriously, I have a 10 year old and this is exactly how they do it)
Well, if you’re right about skeptics being dumb, an awful big chunk of the climatologists working at NOAA right now are pretty damned stupid. You see, I have a friend there and he insists that there are more skeptics than believers within the organization’s ranks right now. The REAL consensus is that this is just a natural warming cycle. Apparently though, the media has no interest in talking to these people so geniuses like yourself only get to hear about the FAKE consensus. …like the bullshit that came out of the UN climate council. (a council made-up of people who were mostly NOT scientists)
Keep on believing what you WANT to believe. 10 years from now it will be obvious to all who the real morons are.
Aren’t scientists supposed to be scared?
Back not to long ago the environmentalists were all about pollution. That didn’t work so well so now they are trying to make it sound like this world is in doom, so they came up with Global Warming.
Soon they will probably link Global warming to middle eastern terrorists, since after all we are consuming their oil, to fund terrorists cells, while we burn gas to pollute our nation, and causing global warming. You’re a terrorist, if you buy gasoline!
Mostly, #13, I try to be kind and say you are ignorant. True, “dumb” is a better fit for a lout whose argument, say, against any of the reports from the IPCC is…”I have a friend who works at so-and-so and he tells me…”.
You’d be laughable if you weren’t a walking stereotype. Wander through http://www.ipcc.ch/ if you can spare the time. There is a chunk of science there representing several years of work from thousands of scientists.
That might require you getting off your bar stool – or couch – and cranking up a few gray cells.
But, then, folks who care to have an educated opinion often take the time to get an education – and a university isn’t required. It’s all there on the Web from qualified, legitimate sources.
#15 – FRAGalot
The environmentalists already tried linking gasoline consumption to terrorism after 9/11. I remember seeing the commercials saying that if you drove any SUV then you supported terrorists.
And they say conservatives are the ones spreading FUD.
That being said, I’ve started hearing rumblings about the rights of plants… the world is definitely on a downward spiral.
#13 – billy,
Nice. A bunch of anonymous climatologists allegedly at NOAA believe the trend to be natural. You wouldn’t happen to have a link to a peer reviewed paper or two now would you? Without any links to either peer reviewed pubs or reputable journals citing peer reviewed pubs, you have failed to even reach the level of argument of a ten year old. But, please do try again. Some of us would love to be wrong.
#1 – bobbo,
Actually, I hate to say it, but there is a lot to eating green. It doesn’t have to be vegetarian. Some protein sources are more efficient than even soy, the most efficient vegetarian protein source. Eating local is better than eating food from far away. Eating organic is better than eating mass production food, if you can afford it.
There are lots of small incremental changes we can make that are not so drastic and will help quite a bit over the long term. Try bison over beef. They’re native to North America and so, require a lot less intensive care and fewer antibiotics, as an aside. They’re also high in omega 3 fatty acids and lower in cholesterol than chicken.
Unfortunately, not everyone can afford such changes.
Also, the free market would be an excellent means by which to determine what is best to eat and what actions are best for global warming and any number of other concerns. However, it will not do so until we institute proper accounting.
Externalities abound.
And, while they do, we have no real representation of costs in our lives. Companies make the government pay for anything and everything they can. We push the real costs off on other countries at every opportunity. The free market would work with proper accounting.
Alas, there is no proper accounting and the market is far from free.
Check how much ExxonMobil gets in government subsidies even in years of record profits. Check whose lining up for the corporate dole at the Export Import Bank. Until we make companies pay as they go, we can’t rely on the market for help with anything.
Sorry. I forgot to list the really efficient sources of protein. Carp, tilapia, and catfish when raised in a pond on a farm and fed grain will produce more protein per acre than soy, the best vegetarian source of protein. Catfish is readily available from farmed U.S. sources. I eat quite a bit of it. Tilapia is often available too, but usually from Central American sources. So, I tend to prefer catfish for environmental reasons.
Sorry John,
But there is no “vegan” agenda that is beginning to emerge…. Vegans have for a very long time talked about the costs of meat in terms of the environment. Have you never heard about the destruction of the rain forests caused by the need to increase the amount of grazing land available? This is one of the oldest environmental arguments.
Sometimes you need to separate what has just dawned on you (the JCD point of view of the world) with the view that many other people have. You see this as slowly emerging when it’s been there all along.
Consider your own personal awakening to this issue the next time you post one of your more offensive posts. It’s your blog, it’s your POV, but that doesn’t mean you’re right.
#17 – blah blah blah,
Excellent name for yourself. Where exactly do you think the terrorists get their funding? Yup. It is from the oil rich nations. The connection is stronger than you think.
I think we are are doing quite well as far as the human race goes.
Dumb as a post.. 4 thousand years after building a pyramid
#18–Scott==not clear to me what you are trying to clarify. I eat “firm tofu” all the time. As to your other point, eating the plant material directly rather than after it has gone thru fish is still the most efficient way to consume protein. But that is not the driving mechanism. Culture and habit is.
A good book for the vegan way of life is “Diet for a Small Planet Earth” (or close to it) teaching us how to mix plant groups to get complete proteins.
Seems to me that firm tofu is more expensive than cheap meat. Cheap meat also tastes incredibly good after 12 hours in the crock pot.
Free Market as the approach. Those who only want to eat plants, or plus fish, or whatever==have at it. The free market is all inclusive.
Whats wrong with that?
Bobbo: Food will for 99% of people be a function of the free market.
I am afraid we are back to disagreeing again my feathered friend. Food is probably the greatest single commodity that hasn’t been tested on the free market. Farming has been, and still remains, one of the most heavily subsidized industries, pretty much the world over. Over the last 10 years of so, globablisation has killed a lot of subsidies, but there are still a lot there.
Read up on the corn/maize industry and see if why it is that corn, corn starch, or other corn derivatives are in virtually every bit of processed food, despite the fact that the corn is one of the more energy intensive crops out there.
If anything, food is a great example of what happens when you let monopolies and government control something instead of the free market…
#23 – bobbo,
I guess my real point is in regards to your statement about the free market. We don’t have one. There are huge government subsidies to some businesses, including some agribusiness, while there are none to others.
Further, externalized costs are never accounted for. If, for example, the real cost of gasoline were paid at the pump instead of in our income tax bills, foods that require high energy to produce would become very expensive with a corresponding price drop in foods that are lower in energy.
Too bad the White Man slaughter the naturally occuring Buffalo herds that covered the plains !!! Could have had meat for free !!! But of course, slaughtering the herds was part of the campaign of genocide against the Native Americans so the Whites could steal the land !!! Then the whites go and divide up the land and raise beef cattle, that way “Freedom in America” could flourish ???
I don’t care about GW. However, I love eating local. Of course, I live in Kentucky. During the winter, I’m stuck with whatever you can get at Kroger (Or Wal-Mart for box/canned items). However, when the local markets open up, I’m in hog heaven. I have local sources of beef, pork, corn, beans, cabbage, tomatoes, blackberries…all of it. Hell, there’s even a buffalo farm a couple of miles from my house.
It never occurred to me that it was saving gas (which I’m all for) or any of that. It did occur to me that a tomato grown just a few miles from my house, in the ground and ripened on the vine tastes so good that you’ll never eat one of those gas colored, mega-mart, sorry-excuse-for-a-tomato’s again.
The wholesale slaughter of cattle is wasteful and unnecessary… anyone know how much never touches lips anyway? No, I bet you don’t… cause it is one minor piece of a very screwed up puzzle of how we are living so very wrong and out of sync with the natural world… and we are all too consumed with being out of sync, eh?
While you were typing that, some little pieces of spit flew out of your mouth and splattered on the screen. You should wipe them off before they cause you to misread some other stuff.
You’re welcome.
Many times, local production of food also wastes energy. This is because the far away source that uses more gasoline is also more productive. There’s a reason those big farms are elsewhere.
You can have my beef when you pry the burger from my cold greasy fingers.
#17 “I remember seeing the commercials saying that if you drove any SUV then you supported terrorists.”
Funny little factoid. On Earth Day I drove by the
celebration that was taking place in the Malibu Hills. All the cars had to park on the road side.
At least 8 out of 10 vehicles belonging to the tree hugger’s attending were huge SUVs. Environmentalist’s like most of their wacky kin, are hypocrite’s of the worst kind.