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  • From: yarrow@sfo.com
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] So what do you really think about long term climate change due to pollution-related global warming
  • Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2007 23:53:45 -0800

lawrence asked,
Can we, acting collectively, actually make any difference?

Is it for generations hence to deal with or should we start now?

What do we do?


The number-one thing everyone can do is to eat lower on the food chain.

That, plus political action focused on removing subsidies and price supports for factory farming and monocultures, and shifting support to and promoting local food, small farms, organic agriculture and agroecology, school gardens, community gardens, and agroforestry, is the most productive action.

*****
From Eureka, CA
My Word by Martha Devine
Article Launched: 01/28/2007 04:26:17 AM PST


On Dec. 10 of last year, the environment editor of U.K.'s Independent Online posted a report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), asserting that “the world's top destroyer of the environment is not the car, or the plane, or even George Bush: It is the cow.”
According to the report, the world's rapidly growing herds of cattle have been identified as the greatest threat to the climate, forests and wildlife. And they have been 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 FAO, 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 percent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.
Burning fuel to produce fertilizer 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 soak up vast amounts of water: It takes a staggering 990 litres of water to produce one liter of milk.
Wastes from feedlots and fertilizers used to grow their feed overnourish water, causing weeds to choke out 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 21,000 square kilometers in the Gulf of Mexico, where much of the waste from U.S. 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.
That's the bad news. The good news is that reducing our consumption of food derived from animals happens one meal at a time and that it is well within the power of each of us to make changes, however incremental, in our food choices!
I'm a firm believer that one can stay low on the food chain and still enjoy life. As a mostly vegan vegetarian, I know I am looking out for my health and the health of the animals I choose not to eat. And now, as it turns out, I'm saving the planet as well! (And what about not wanting to eat the products of cloned or genetically engineered animals? Another reason to go vegan!)
So get a grip on global warming by resolving to lessen your dependence on animals for food in 2007.
Martha Devine lives in Arcata.




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