Even “Organically Raised” Cows Are a “Climate Bomb”
March 1, 2009
With global warming, here’s the inconvenient truth about meat and dairy products: Like all ruminants, cows are constantly emitting methane — a greenhouse gas that is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide — from both ends. . . . If you eat them or drink their milk, regardless of their origin and how they were produced, you significantly contribute to climate change. Period. If your cow is from New Zealand or your own backyard, if your lamb is organic free-range or factory farmed, it still has a negative impact on global warming.
For more interesting deails… Change.org.
Entry Filed under: Food, Gardening & Agriculture, Recycling & Conservation. .
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Blake | March 6, 2009 at 12:47 pm
While the premise is right that a vegan or vegetarian diet contributes less greenhouse gas than a meat-eating diet, it’s important to note that grass-grazing ruminants play an important role in a plains ecosystem. Grazing on a natural scale actually improves the health of the land by fostering root growth, grass health and soil biodiversity (via the naturally recycled waste).
Americans (like myself) almost certainly eat too much meat these days (as evidenced by the massive growth in consumption since as recently as the 1950s), but I don’t believe it needs to be completely eradicated from the human diet, as a “balanced” consumption would certainly be considered sustainable given that it’s been a “natural” part of our diet the entirety of human history.