Meat and Environment unrelated? WRONG!

All that meat we consume everyday, do you think it has nothing to do with the environment? Think again!

A very classic example is that of cows' fart which contains methane and is a huge contributor of greenhouse gases.

Can we cool the Earth by eating less red meat?

Methane from livestock has experts and food-service think tank at odds

LONDON - Two scientists writing in a major health journal are heating up a debate about global warming: whether eating less meat will help cool temperatures.

In a special energy and health series in the medical journal The Lancet, Tony McMichael of the Australian National University in Canberra and John Powles of Britain’s University of Cambridge said worldwide average meat consumption could be realistically reduced by 10 percent.

Doing so, they say, would decrease the amount of methane gas emitted by cows, sheep and goats. Such methane flatulence is a major greenhouse gas, the kind that most scientists tie to global warming.

But a Washington think tank funded by restaurants and food companies wasn't at all pleased.

"Something doesn't smell quite right here," David Martosko, research director at the Center for Consumer Freedom, said in a statement. "It's sad that a few scientists truly believe cow flatulence is the biggest threat to humanity.

"If someone can breed livestock that emits less methane, I'm all for it," he added. "But consumers are never going to give up their steaks, milkshakes, and drumsticks. This opinion paper doesn't offer convincing reasons why they should."

McMichael and Powles noted that demand for meat is increasing worldwide. In China, for instance, people are eating double the amount of meat they used to a decade ago.

Global average meat consumption is currently 100 grams per person a day but there is a tenfold variation between high-consuming and low-consuming populations.

Other ways of reducing greenhouse gases from farms — like feeding animals higher-quality grains — would only have a limited impact, the authors said.

Worldwide, agricultural activity accounts for about a fifth of total greenhouse-gas emissions and livestock production has a particularly big impact because of the methane.

And while global methane emissions are much lower than carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, methane is about 20 times more powerful a greenhouse gas, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The scientists said that reducing meat consumption would not only help to battle warming but also reduce health risks associated with excessive consumption of red meat.

The food think tank had different advice.

"The authors of this opinion paper say governments should tell consumers to eat less meat on environmental grounds," Martosko said. "The last time I checked, people who want to be vegetarians already have that option. But it should be their choice."

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Click here to listen to a short 5 min interview with Professor Roz Naylor, director of the Program on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford University, talk about how eating meat affects the environment.
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We're not talking about environmental impacts which will only emerge in the next 50 years. We're talking about environmental impacts which can very possibly happen within the next 5 - 6 years, including shortage of water, shortage of food, rising temperatures (which has already happened and will continue to happen) etc. Which means it is not your children or your children's children who will experience it, but us who will experience it.
I must go dig out the information and blog about it.

If you can't let go of eating meat, like how many of us are, the key is to eat lesser. Exclude meat, especially red meat like beef, from your diet 1 meal per day, everyday. I believe we do eat more than enough meat everyday, more than the Health Food Pyramid suggests we should eat everyday. Go eat your vegetables and fruits =P

Hope this has given you an idea of how our diet affects the environment.