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.