Don’t Blame Cows for Climate Change
December 7, 2009
UC Davis
Despite oft-repeated claims by sources ranging from the United Nations to music star Paul McCartney, it is simply not true that consuming less meat and dairy products will help stop climate change, says a University of California authority on farming and greenhouse gases.
UC Davis Associate Professor and Air Quality Specialist Frank Mitloehner says that McCartney and the chair of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ignored science last week when they launched a European campaign called "Less Meat = Less Heat." The launch came on the eve of a major international climate summit, which runs today through Dec. 18 in Copenhagen.
McCartney and others, such as the promoters of "meatless Mondays," seem to be well-intentioned but not well-schooled in the complex relationships among human activities, animal digestion, food production and atmospheric chemistry, says Mitloehner.
"Smarter animal farming, not less farming, will equal less heat," Mitloehner said. "Producing less meat and milk will only mean more hunger in poor countries." Read More
Continued research on the impact of livestock production on our climate shows us once again that removing meat from your diet won’t have any affect. It’s just been another attempt to scare people away from eating a balanced diet. Since they don’t have any facts to back up their claim, anti-meat advocates have plotted a purely emotional campaign to make people feel guilty about what they eat. More than ever, we need to be basing our decisions about things like this on facts, not fear.
3 comments:
Two things: 1)Before the white man came, there were a lot more buffalo than there are cattle now in the western U.S. and it was a healthy ecosystem. 2)Plants need CO2 to grow. Hmmm. There must be more to the story.
Troy,
Cattle are now helping the environment. Researchers will begin turning meadow muffins into electricity. Cows are off the hook. I hear next the environmental wackos are going to ask all humans to hold their breath so we don't contribute to carbon dioxide levels
CO2 is a necessary gas.
Without it, we wouldn't be alive today. All food comes from sunlight reacting with chlorophyll and CO2.
At 380 parts per million, CO2 comprises .00038 of the total atmosphere.
All of humankind's contribution is thought to be around 30 gigatons of CO2 per year added to the atmosphere while the rest of the planet (oceans, forests, natural provcesses, volcanoes, etc.) adds 40,000 gigatons to the residential atmospheric CO2 making mankind's contribution only .00075 of the total CO2.
We need more CO2, not less. I wish people understood simple chemistry better.
Post a Comment