Cows Create More Global Warming Gases
Cow 'emissions' more damaging to planet than CO2 from cars
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Published: 10 December 2006
Meet the world's top destroyer of the environment. It is not the car, or the plane,or even George Bush: it is the cow.
A United Nations report has identified the world's rapidly growing herds of cattle as the greatest threat to the
climate, forests and wildlife. And they are blamed for a host of other environmental crimes, from acid rain to the
introduction of alien species, from producing deserts to creating dead zones in the oceans, from poisoning rivers
and drinking water to destroying coral reefs.
The 400-page report by the Food and Agricultural Organisation, entitled Livestock's Long Shadow, also surveys the
damage done by sheep, chickens, pigs and goats. But in almost every case, the world's 1.5 billion cattle are most to
blame. Livestock are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than
cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.
Burning fuel to produce fertiliser to grow feed, to produce meat and to transport it - and clearing vegetation for
grazing - produces 9 per cent of all emissions of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas. And their wind
and manure emit more than one third of emissions of another, methane, which warms the world 20 times faster
than carbon dioxide.
Livestock also produces more than 100 other polluting gases, including more than two-thirds of the world's
emissions of ammonia, one of the main causes of acid rain.
Ranching, the report adds, is "the major driver of deforestation" worldwide, and overgrazing is turning a fifth of all
pastures and ranges into desert.Cows also soak up vast amounts of water: it takes a staggering 990 litres of water
to produce one litre of milk.
Wastes from feedlots and fertilisers used to grow their feed overnourish water, causing weeds to choke all other
life. And the pesticides, antibiotics and hormones used to treat them get into drinking water and endanger human
health.
The pollution washes down to the sea, killing coral reefs and creating "dead zones" devoid of life. One is up to
21,000sqkm, in the Gulf of Mexico, where much of the waste from US beef production is carried down the
Mississippi.
The report concludes that, unless drastic changes are made, the massive damage done by livestock will more than
double by 2050, as demand for meat increases.
news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2062484.ece
Humans' beef with livestock: a warmer planet
American meat eaters are responsible for 1.5 more tons of carbon dioxide per person than vegetarians every year.
By Brad Knickerbocker | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
As Congress begins to tackle the causes and cures of global warming, the action focuses on gas-guzzling vehicles
and coal-fired power plants, not on lowly bovines.
Yet livestock are a major emitter of greenhouse gases that cause climate change. And as meat becomes a growing
mainstay of human diet around the world, changing what we eat may prove as hard as changing what we drive.
It's not just the well-known and frequently joked-about flatulence and manure of grass-chewing cattle that's the
problem, according to a recent report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Land-
use changes, especially deforestation to expand pastures and to create arable land for feed crops, is a big part. So is
the use of energy to produce fertilizers, to run the slaughterhouses and meat-processing plants, and to pump water.
"Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems," Henning
Steinfeld, senior author of the report, said when the FAO findings were released in November.
Livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions as measured in carbon dioxide equivalent,
reports the FAO. This includes 9 percent of all CO2 emissions, 37 percent of methane, and 65 percent of nitrous
oxide. Altogether, that's more than the emissions caused by transportation.
The latter two gases are particularly troubling – even though they represent far smaller concentrations in
atmosphere than CO2, which remains the main global warming culprit. But methane has 23 times the global
warming potential (GWP) of CO2 and nitrous oxide has 296 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide.
Methane could become a greater problem if the permafrost in northern latitudes thaws with increasing
temperatures, releasing the gas now trapped below decaying vegetation. What's more certain is that emissions of
these gases can spike as humans consume more livestock products.
As prosperity increased around the world in recent decades, the number of people eating meat (and the amount one
eats every year) has risen steadily. Between 1970 and 2002, annual per capita meat consumption in developing
countries rose from 11 kilograms (24 lbs.) to 29 kilograms (64 lbs.), according to the FAO. (In developed
countries, the comparable figures were 65 kilos and 80 kilos.) As population increased, total meat consumption in
the developing world grew nearly five-fold over that period.
Beyond that, annual global meat production is projected to more than double from 229 million tons at the beginning
of the decade to 465 million tons in 2050. This makes livestock the fastest growing sector of global agriculture.
Animal-rights activists and those advocating vegetarianism have been quick to pick up on the implications of the
FAO report.
"Arguably the best way to reduce global warming in our lifetimes is to reduce or eliminate our consumption of
animal products," writes Noam Mohr in a report for EarthSave International.
Changing one's diet can lower greenhouse gas emissions quicker than shifts away from fossil fuel burning
technologies, Mr. Mohr writes, because the turnover rate for farm animals is shorter than that for cars and power
plants.
"Even if cheap, zero-emission fuel sources were available today, they would take many years to build and slowly
replace the massive infrastructure our economy depends upon today," he writes. "Similarly, unlike carbon dioxide
which can remain in the air for more than a century, methane cycles out of the atmosphere in just eight years, so
that lower methane emissions quickly translate to cooling of the earth."
Researchers at the University of Chicago compared the global warming impact of meat eaters with that of
vegetarians and found that the average American diet – including all food processing steps – results in the annual
production of an extra 1.5 tons of CO2-equivalent (in the form of all greenhouse gases) compared to a no-meat
diet. Researchers Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin concluded that dietary changes could make more difference than
trading in a standard sedan for a more efficient hybrid car, which reduces annual CO2 emissions by roughly one
ton a year.
"It doesn't have to be all the way to the extreme end of vegan," says Dr. Eshel, whose family raised beef cattle in
Israel. "If you simply cut down from two burgers a week to one, you've already made a substantial difference."
• Staff writer Peter Spotts contributed to this report.
www.csmonitor.com/2007/0220/p03s01-ussc.html
www.arabianbusiness.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8167:abu-dhabi-to-build-350m-solar-
power-plant&Itemid=1
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Cow 'emissions' more damaging to planet than CO2 from cars
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Published: 10 December 2006
Meet the world's top destroyer of the environment. It is not the car, or the plane,or even George Bush: it is the cow.
A United Nations report has identified the world's rapidly growing herds of cattle as the greatest threat to the
climate, forests and wildlife. And they are blamed for a host of other environmental crimes, from acid rain to the
introduction of alien species, from producing deserts to creating dead zones in the oceans, from poisoning rivers
and drinking water to destroying coral reefs.
The 400-page report by the Food and Agricultural Organisation, entitled Livestock's Long Shadow, also surveys the
damage done by sheep, chickens, pigs and goats. But in almost every case, the world's 1.5 billion cattle are most to
blame. Livestock are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than
cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.
Burning fuel to produce fertiliser to grow feed, to produce meat and to transport it - and clearing vegetation for
grazing - produces 9 per cent of all emissions of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas. And their wind
and manure emit more than one third of emissions of another, methane, which warms the world 20 times faster
than carbon dioxide.
Livestock also produces more than 100 other polluting gases, including more than two-thirds of the world's
emissions of ammonia, one of the main causes of acid rain.
Ranching, the report adds, is "the major driver of deforestation" worldwide, and overgrazing is turning a fifth of all
pastures and ranges into desert.Cows also soak up vast amounts of water: it takes a staggering 990 litres of water
to produce one litre of milk.
Wastes from feedlots and fertilisers used to grow their feed overnourish water, causing weeds to choke all other
life. And the pesticides, antibiotics and hormones used to treat them get into drinking water and endanger human
health.
The pollution washes down to the sea, killing coral reefs and creating "dead zones" devoid of life. One is up to
21,000sqkm, in the Gulf of Mexico, where much of the waste from US beef production is carried down the
Mississippi.
The report concludes that, unless drastic changes are made, the massive damage done by livestock will more than
double by 2050, as demand for meat increases.
news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2062484.ece
Humans' beef with livestock: a warmer planet
American meat eaters are responsible for 1.5 more tons of carbon dioxide per person than vegetarians every year.
By Brad Knickerbocker | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
As Congress begins to tackle the causes and cures of global warming, the action focuses on gas-guzzling vehicles
and coal-fired power plants, not on lowly bovines.
Yet livestock are a major emitter of greenhouse gases that cause climate change. And as meat becomes a growing
mainstay of human diet around the world, changing what we eat may prove as hard as changing what we drive.
It's not just the well-known and frequently joked-about flatulence and manure of grass-chewing cattle that's the
problem, according to a recent report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Land-
use changes, especially deforestation to expand pastures and to create arable land for feed crops, is a big part. So is
the use of energy to produce fertilizers, to run the slaughterhouses and meat-processing plants, and to pump water.
"Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems," Henning
Steinfeld, senior author of the report, said when the FAO findings were released in November.
Livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions as measured in carbon dioxide equivalent,
reports the FAO. This includes 9 percent of all CO2 emissions, 37 percent of methane, and 65 percent of nitrous
oxide. Altogether, that's more than the emissions caused by transportation.
The latter two gases are particularly troubling – even though they represent far smaller concentrations in
atmosphere than CO2, which remains the main global warming culprit. But methane has 23 times the global
warming potential (GWP) of CO2 and nitrous oxide has 296 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide.
Methane could become a greater problem if the permafrost in northern latitudes thaws with increasing
temperatures, releasing the gas now trapped below decaying vegetation. What's more certain is that emissions of
these gases can spike as humans consume more livestock products.
As prosperity increased around the world in recent decades, the number of people eating meat (and the amount one
eats every year) has risen steadily. Between 1970 and 2002, annual per capita meat consumption in developing
countries rose from 11 kilograms (24 lbs.) to 29 kilograms (64 lbs.), according to the FAO. (In developed
countries, the comparable figures were 65 kilos and 80 kilos.) As population increased, total meat consumption in
the developing world grew nearly five-fold over that period.
Beyond that, annual global meat production is projected to more than double from 229 million tons at the beginning
of the decade to 465 million tons in 2050. This makes livestock the fastest growing sector of global agriculture.
Animal-rights activists and those advocating vegetarianism have been quick to pick up on the implications of the
FAO report.
"Arguably the best way to reduce global warming in our lifetimes is to reduce or eliminate our consumption of
animal products," writes Noam Mohr in a report for EarthSave International.
Changing one's diet can lower greenhouse gas emissions quicker than shifts away from fossil fuel burning
technologies, Mr. Mohr writes, because the turnover rate for farm animals is shorter than that for cars and power
plants.
"Even if cheap, zero-emission fuel sources were available today, they would take many years to build and slowly
replace the massive infrastructure our economy depends upon today," he writes. "Similarly, unlike carbon dioxide
which can remain in the air for more than a century, methane cycles out of the atmosphere in just eight years, so
that lower methane emissions quickly translate to cooling of the earth."
Researchers at the University of Chicago compared the global warming impact of meat eaters with that of
vegetarians and found that the average American diet – including all food processing steps – results in the annual
production of an extra 1.5 tons of CO2-equivalent (in the form of all greenhouse gases) compared to a no-meat
diet. Researchers Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin concluded that dietary changes could make more difference than
trading in a standard sedan for a more efficient hybrid car, which reduces annual CO2 emissions by roughly one
ton a year.
"It doesn't have to be all the way to the extreme end of vegan," says Dr. Eshel, whose family raised beef cattle in
Israel. "If you simply cut down from two burgers a week to one, you've already made a substantial difference."
• Staff writer Peter Spotts contributed to this report.
www.csmonitor.com/2007/0220/p03s01-ussc.html
www.arabianbusiness.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8167:abu-dhabi-to-build-350m-solar-
power-plant&Itemid=1
Next
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