Climate Change

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Go veggie to fight global warming, says expert

By Matt Dickinson, Press Association

One of the world's leading climate change gurus urged people to become vegetarian today, to help beat global warming.

Nicholas Stern, the author of an influential 2006 review of climate change, said methane emissions from cows and pigs were putting "enormous pressure" on the world and people needed to think about what they ate.

He told The Times: "Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It put enormous pressure on the world's resources. A vegetarian diet is better."

The former World Bank chief economist was speaking ahead of the climate change conference in Copenhagen this December, which is expected to be attended by thousands of delegates from around the world.

Lord Stern said a successful conference would result in higher costs for meat and other foods that generate large quantities of greenhouse gases.

He also compared his stance on meat to the change in attitudes to drink-driving.

"I think it's important that people think about what they are doing and that includes what they are eating," the London School of Economics professor said.

"I am 61 now and attitudes towards drinking and driving have changed radically since I was a student.

"People change their notion of what is responsible. They will increasingly ask about the carbon content of their food."

Methane is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, and it has been estimated that livestock accounts for a fifth of the global warming impact.

In his interview with The Times, Lord Stern said if business continued as usual then temperatures could increase by 5C by early next century.

"These kinds of changes will have huge consequences - southern Europe is likely to be a desert; hundreds of millions of people will have to move. There will be severe global conflict."

His 2006 review warned that if the world did not act on global warming, the cost would be at least 5 per cent of GDP "now and forever".

"Climate change is a serious global threat, and it demands an urgent global response," he said.

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Comments

American energy consumption
[info]corporeal_v001 wrote:
Tuesday, 27 October 2009 at 10:36 am (UTC)

It would be sufficient to save the world and universe if the Americans applied some corrective actions.
- Massive food wastage
- Their road transport system clocks up something like 4.5 billion miles a year.
- Big cars, big trucks
- Many aspects they could down size
- International invasions
and many other forms of wastage
Lord Stern has eaten his way through a herd of cows.
[info]muckle10 wrote:
Tuesday, 27 October 2009 at 10:59 am (UTC)
The messages is loud and clear, and it is, "Don't do as I do, do as I say."

Here is a fact, 1 acre of natural forest gives off more methane than a 1 acre field of cows.

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2006/January/12010601.asp
stop farts to save the world!
[info]acidpen wrote:
Tuesday, 27 October 2009 at 11:07 am (UTC)
has the whiff of utter bollox...
Food warming...
[info]gates23 wrote:
Tuesday, 27 October 2009 at 12:38 pm (UTC)
Most people know by now that meat production is responsible for a lot of pollution towards climate change, but i think suggesting everyone become vegetarian is the most ridiculous idea to combat global warming.

Over-consumption is the real problem here, even partially solving that will likely do enough to prevent climate change.
Go Veggie to fight global warming
[info]gattenborough wrote:
Tuesday, 27 October 2009 at 01:03 pm (UTC)
Giving up meat eating and turning vegetarian is not the solution to climate change - it would make only a marginal difference to green house gas emissions.

We face the global challenge of feeding a growing world population using a fixed land resource while reducing inputs such as water, fertiliser and fuel and limiting green house gases.

Meat is part of that balance.

All agriculture depends on the land resource and climate conditions prevailing at the time to be successful. Around 60% of the UK farmland is best suited to growing grass. Ploughing grassland to grow crops would result in loss of carbon sequestered in soil. Grazing animals – cows or sheep- are the best way to use this land resource to produce a food suitable for people. This is repeated world-wide, where there are large tracts of marginal land which are best used to support grassland and livestock production. If we did away with all livestock we could not utilise this for resource-use efficient food production.

A significant proportion of animal diets are also made from co-products produced during the manufacture of human plant foods. Maize and rapeseed meal are co-products of oil production, citrus pulp is a co-product of juice production and sugar-beet feed is a co-product of sugar production – all the products would be waste if they were not used as animal feeds. Livestock make use of a resource that could not otherwise contribute to the human food supply.

The challenge is to produce meat more sustainably – which is already happening in countries such as the UK which is leading global thinking in this area.

High quality research has led to great strides in the improvement of productivity of farmed livestock and one consequence of this is a reduction in GHG per kg of meat produced. That work continues. Genetic selection of animals that produce less methane is starting to happen and selection methods are improving as molecular genetic techniques are applied. Improving grass and clover varieties through genetic selection makes them a feed for ruminants that has a lower GHG cost of production. Simple things like managing grass height at the time of grazing can improve feed quality and so reduce the GHG cost of a kg of milk or meat.

Livestock and meat production has an important role in feeding the world in the decades ahead, it is not logical to suggest otherwise. Lord Stern’s main point, and I agree with him, is that we all need to reassess the way we live our lives.


Professor Ian Crute
Chief Scientist
Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board
Phooey on this story:
[info]johnnywi wrote:
Wednesday, 28 October 2009 at 04:44 am (UTC)
I am a vegetarian who eats fish, egg whites, and skim milk. I do it for heath reasons, not ethical. I think meat eaters have every right to their diets. Meat is geting leaner and healthier. Less chemicals are being used and grazing land is a good use for a lot of the earth's surface. The whole global warming baloney has been long disproved. We have just had one of the coldest summers and falls in decades. The world stopped warming in 1999. Let Prince Charles and Lord Stern lead by example not by force if they think vegiies are the only way to go.
Re: Phooey on this story:
[info]arcane_af wrote:
Wednesday, 28 October 2009 at 08:57 am (UTC)
Global warming is a long-term phenemenon, there are many other factors affecting global temperatures in the short term (mostly to do with ocean cycles). Saying that the world is cooler since 1998 (and may well cool for another decade or so) does not mean the world is not warming in the long term.

Only deniailsts pretend that global warming has been disproved, because that's what they want to believe. The vast majority of CLIMATE scientists agree that it is a fact.

Do your science, and stop being so irresponsible and short-sighted.
Re: Phooey on this story:
[info]sickofstupidity wrote:
Wednesday, 28 October 2009 at 06:19 pm (UTC)
[Only deniailsts pretend that global warming has been disproved, because that's what they want to believe.]

Only warmists believe that global warming is proven, because that's what they *want* to believe.

[The vast majority of CLIMATE scientists agree that it is a fact.]

The vast majority of climate scientists know that questioning the 'consensus' on global warming would mean no more research funding and professional suicide, so it's not surprising that they all fall into line with global warming dogma. And the vast majority of climate scientists do not want to admit that their climate models are based on faulty mathematical assumptions, and therefore cannot be relied upon to give accurate predictions. (Google 'Ferenc Miskolczi').

[Do your science, and stop being so irresponsible and short-sighted.]

You do YOUR science (assuming you are scientifically educated at all - otherwise you have no right to lecture others about doing their science, have you?.), and stop being so goaddam smug, preachy and condescending.
Re: Phooey on this story:
[info]colinru wrote:
Saturday, 31 October 2009 at 03:29 pm (UTC)
If you eat fish, you are not a vegetarian but someone who does not eat meat. If you eat dairy products then you are a lacto vegetarian. If you eat non of the4 above then you are a Vegan.
Don't polar bears fart too?
[info]john_levett wrote:
Wednesday, 28 October 2009 at 10:20 am (UTC)
By what stretch of the imagination is Lord Stern an expert on this subject?

He's an economist whose views and methods do not enjoy universal support even in his chosen field while his title derives from the heyday of Labour's manipulation of the perage system.

Is the argument for AGW really so bankrupt that its adherents are reduced to propagating this nonsense?

By the way, is there any chance that the Independent and the rest of the MSM will inform the public about the detail of the draft Copenhagen Treaty that is generating this constant alarmist bilge? We know that real environmental issues such as rain forest preservation have been quietly dropped but, so far, there has been nothing about the proposals for global governance and swingeing taxes that are due to be imposed on Europe and the US.
I suppose it was only a matter of time...
[info]sickofstupidity wrote:
Wednesday, 28 October 2009 at 01:58 pm (UTC)
...before some spokesman of the posturing, self-righteous global warmist camp endorsed *yet another* attempt of theirs to extend their moral opprobrium into *yet another* area of people's personal freedoms and private lives, in *yet another* attempt to make us all feel guilty of Climate Crime for *just BREATHING*!

It is no secret, of course, that a disproportionate number of Greenies and eco-fundies are vegetarian - a diet/philosophy/lifestyle they usually adopt for predictably self-righteous, moralizing, human-hating ideological reasons. How incredibly smug and self-righteous these tofu-and-nut-roast-munching weirdos must feel if they believe they can now claim that their self-imposed asceticism and dietary self-denial is *saving the world*, while the hedonism and dietary self-indulgence of everyone else is threatening to destroy it!

We KNOW that raising cattle the way we currently do is environmentally damaging and not sustainable. But this does NOT mean that we all have to become vegetarians; it simply means that we have to find better ways of rearing cattle, or switching to other sources of meat protein that are less environmentally damaging (and there are many choices).

And I would suggest that converting the human population to a vegetarian diet would be unlikely to solve the methane problem associated with cattle; I mean, have you never noticed how much beans, lentils and other veggie foods make you *fart*?! We would simply be replacing the bovine methane problem with a human one.
Re: I suppose it was only a matter of time...
[info]sickofstupidity wrote:
Wednesday, 28 October 2009 at 02:12 pm (UTC)
This is an excellent commentary by Madsen Pirie, which exposes the real mentality behind this latest crackpot idea of the eco-fundies:

"At the heart of the environmental lobby lies an unease at progress and change, and a veneration of a calmer, slower lifestyle. It goes hand in hand with a disregard for the material goods which extend choices in the rich nations, and even for the economic growth which offers the poorer ones a ladder out of subsistence. Although 'saving the planet' is advanced as the reason why these lifestyle changes must be implemented, it sometimes seems as if the simpler life is an end in itself, and that global warming is a convenient excuse to force acceptance of it. "

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/6445930/Lord-Stern-is-wrong-giving-up-meat-is-no-way-to-save-the-planet.html

Many of the comments following the article are worth reading, too.
Stern stuff........ but not stern enough
[info]sandn09 wrote:
Wednesday, 28 October 2009 at 05:57 pm (UTC)
I think Lord Stern is moving in the right direction but has got the meat wrong? If half the global population ate the other half the problem would go away.......... and if the poor half ate the rich half the problem would go away even quicker.

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