A farmer speaks: Debunking the meat/climate change myth

[AllieB]

Editor’s note: Eliot Coleman is one of the most revered and influential small-scale farmers in the United States, famous for growing delicious vegetables through the Maine winter with little use of fossil fuel. Eliot sent me the following letter as a response to my recent piece on the greenhouse-gas foorprint of industrial meat. At question is a 2007 report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization called “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” which claimed that 18 percent of global human-induced greenhouse gas emissions stem from meat production.
—Tom Philpott

I am dismayed that so many people have been so easily fooled on the meat eating and climate change issue following the UN report. The culprit is not meat eating but rather the excesses of corporate/industrial agriculture. The UN report shows either great ignorance or possibly the influence of the fossil fuel lobby with the intent of confusing the public. It is obviously to someone’s benefit to make meat eating and livestock raising an easily attacked straw man (with the enthusiastic help of vegetarian groups) in order to cover up the singular contribution of the only new sources of carbon—burning the stored carbon in fossil fuels and to a small extent making cement (both of which release carbon from long term storage)—as the reason for increased greenhouse gasses in the modern era. (Just for ridiculous comparison, human beings, each exhaling about 1kg of CO2 per day, are responsible for 33% more CO2 per year than fossil fuel transportation. Maybe we should get rid of us.)

More here: http://www.grist.org/article/2009-08-07-debunking-meat-climate-change-myth/

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[lapfog_1]

1. This talks a lot about CO2...

but I thought the real problem with cattle was methane, a gas which is many times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas.

Humans emit methane too, but not nearly as much as cattle do.

[kestrel91316]

3. The world has always been full of ruminants, most of which we have killed

off and replaced with our own favored bovine ruminants. I doubt there is much more methane produced by them than when large mammals covered the earth.

Industrialized agriculture and crop monocultures that provide food for our bovine charges in feedlots, however, are a huge problem.

If we raised cattle on grass and did away with feedlots, that would be most of the methane battle right there.

JMHO as a veterinarian and food issues observer.

[AllieB]

4. Agree. The whole feedlot issue is the crux of the problem.

If you haven't seen 'Food Inc.' yet, it's definitely worth watching.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. Do feedlot animals produce more greenhouse gas then free range animals?

[MrMickeysMom]

6. Great respect for that which you said... plus...

Wouldn't the type of fat in that marbled beef from cattle fed in feed lots contain MUCH more Omega 6 (not good) fatty acid, than cattle that are grass fed and have a higher Omega 3 fatty acid content?

This is good food for thought for carnivores to chew on.

[Davis_X_Machina]

2. Debunking the debunking...

....here.

[eppur_se_muova]

7. Thank you! nt