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December 12, 2006 19:50 +0000 | Society & Culture 4

Colin just sent me a link to a distressing New Scientist article pointing to livestock as a leading cause of global warming... above transport (ie. cars).

The numbers worked out this way by including the emissions created in all sectors servicing our meat consumption. Not only are we counting "cow farts" but the exhaust from the trucks transporting the livestock and their food, the deforestation for use in their grazing etc.

The article does stress however that it's not so much the meat that's the problem, so much as the resources we use in cultivating it... and a vegetarian diet is not much better (though it doesn't go into detail... I'd like to see a scientific breakdown of the options myself).

It's enough to make me reconsider my own impact on the environment wrt my own dietary habits. I won't be going vegan anytime soon (I still don't think it's as healthy as its proponents claim) but it seems only reasonable to ration my meat consumption. David Suzuki's Nature Challenge includes a suggestion to go "meat free" one day a week... I'll start there. I encourage anyone reading this to do the same.

There was one component of the article that I found rather disturbing though:

Ultimately, the authors argue, environmental services such as sustainably managed land and clean water, need to be given a price.

"Most frequently, natural resources are free or underpriced, which leads to overexploitation and pollution," write the authors, concluding that "a top priority is to achieve prices and fees that reflect the full economic and environmental costs".

New Scientist, "Cows, pigs and sheep: Environment's greatest threats?"

While I can understand the logic, no one will ever be able to convince me that the best way out of this capitalist mess is to add more capitalism:

One of the things I find very interesting in our current debates is this concept of who creates wealth -- that wealth is only created when it's owned privately. What would you call clean water, fresh air, a safe environment? Are they not a form of wealth? And why does it only become wealth when some entity puts a fence around it and declares it private property? Well, you know, that's not wealth creation, that's wealth usurption.

Harvard Professor Elaine Barnard

Comments

Melanie
12 Dec 2006, 9:03 p.m. |

Hey, how about that? Elad was right!

I've been playing with the idea of going vegitarian for several years now. I think I enjoy meat, buy feel guilty about supporting the needless suffering of animals.

Daniel
12 Dec 2006, 9:08 p.m. |

Well actually he wasn't right either. He claimed that "cow farts" were worse for the planet than cars and he's still wrong. I can't find any reputable source that can support that argument. What's more, the article did not say that it included the effects of the entire production cycle of a car, so I have still have a tough time believing that agriculture is worse for global warming than cars. Seriously, consider all the chemicals manufactured just to support cars not to mention the acres of concrete roads & shopping malls absorbing heat... no way if you compared both categories honestly would cars come out looking "greener".

I understand the bit about needless animal suffering but no one can argue against the fact that we all need to kill to survive. Kill a carrot, kill a cow, something's gotta die if we want to live and frankly, I've seen too many people swear off red meat to the detriment of their own health. I'm doing this as a move more toward moderation... assuming my already selective pallate can handle it.