Climate Change: Meat eating vs. Prius Driving

[Rae Vynn]

The Washington Post published an article on the ramifications of dietary choice on the environment:
The Meat of the Problem
Here is a snippet:

Two researchers at the University of Chicago estimated that switching to a vegan diet would have a bigger impact than trading in your gas guzzler for a Prius (PDF). A study out of Carnegie Mellon University found that the average American would do less for the planet by switching to a totally local diet than by going vegetarian one day a week. That prompted Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to recommend that people give up meat one day a week to take pressure off the atmosphere.

[timberwolf]

Mmmm, could start eating long-pig as one of my colleagues always like to say. I am cynic and I am assuming this report has one of those hidden agendas, because as the population grows, it has been suggested that the earth would not be able to support billions more people unless we all go veggie.

[oxnardprof]

I don't think it is necessarily 'either-or'. There are reasons people prefer a vegan diet, and others continue to eat meat because they enjoy the meat, and perhaps it is easier not to change. (I am an omnivore.)

I have not read the referenced article, but I do believe we may have to look at our model of food production. If meat is produced in smaller farms, with practices that reduce carbon emissions, then undoubtedly there would be a reduce carbon footprint (if we use that as a measure). So, if you wish to reduce your impact, then one of several strageties would be to reduce meats consumption, and to buy meat produced in a sustainable way. The meat will cost more, which will help reduce consumption.

So, the title of the thread, suggesting that we should make a choice implies that driving a Prius, and reducing fuel consumption is 'green washing' yourself. Instead, drive a Prius, reduce miles driven, reduce air travel, etc.

[moner]

Well, I'm a Prius driver and a 15 year vegetarian (not a vegan, I would starve to death)... pretty much making me a walking stereotype! Good article, meat eating is very inefficient.

[Rae Vynn]

Originally Posted by oxnardprof

I don't think it is necessarily 'either-or'. There are reasons people prefer a vegan diet, and others continue to eat meat because they enjoy the meat, and perhaps it is easier not to change. (I am an omnivore.)

I have not read the referenced article, ....

And, if you had, you would have seen that they provide good arguments for cutting down on meat consumption - recognizing that not everyone will go vegan. It really is pretty amazing just how big an impact it would make, in a positive way, if a significant percentage of people dropped meat eating for just ONE DAY each week. If you can swing two days of no meat, that's even better.

[Shawn Clark]

Or better yet, eat your dogs and cats. That way you still get meat for awhile, but reduce your own food bill as well as eliminating your pet food bill and vet bills. What could be more inefficient than feeding more carnivores? Sorry Spot and Fluffy, I like my BBQ, so you've got to go!

Or we could replace the current cattle population with bison. The historical numbers appear to be similar to the current U.S. cattle population. Both are methane producing ruminants. That and we need to be more efficient at managing and harvesting deer, rabbit, squirrel, turkey, duck, pheasant, quail, fish, bullfrogs, etc. We aren't spending any energy to grow them...so let's make the most of them. Venison, it's what's for dinner. No need to go vegetarian.

[chogan2]

The Post article was right on the money.

Aside from the methane issue from ruminants, in the US economy, the production, processing, transport, and storage of food consumes as much fossil fuel as the entire transportation sector. So, in the aggregate, what we eat burns as much fuel as what we drive. Starting from that basis, it's pretty plausible that our choice of what we eat could easily have as much impact as our choice of what we drive.

Grain-fed beef has been widely acknowledged as the single largest contributor, in terms of energy required per unit times average units consumed. (Purely in terms of fossil fuel input per edible calorie, many foods are worse (e.g., coffee), but we eat a lot of beef in the US). This has been known for at least 20 years, and again, it's not hard to grasp. It takes 10 lbs of grain to make a pound of beef. Per-capita beef consumption in the US is about 65 lbs, so lurking behind that is the need to grow/process/ship just short of two pounds of grain per person per day, just for the beef. Actually, total US feed grain production per capita amounts to more than a ton per person per year, but that's for all animals and (at least historically) a significant fraction of that was for export. I think the figures are that 60 percent of US grain production (and something like 40 percent of worldwide grain production) is for cattle feed.

So, yeah, it's a big deal. Actually, once you know the economy-wide statistics, it's plausible enough without actually looking at the detailed estimates. Globally, I believe that something like 17% of GHG emissions are attributed to the raising of cattle (including the impacts of methane and forest clearing for pasture). This is what prompted the Secretary General of the UN to say that, by far, the simplest thing the advanced industrial nations could do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would be to eat less meat.

Don't trust the UN? OK, the Pentagon (or at least research hired by and released by the Pentagon) has figured out that global warming means more conflicts due to food and water issues. They didn't waffle, either: 'Once again, warfare would define human life.' So it's not like that's some kind of liberal plot. It's tough to find an organization in position of responsibility for the safety and welfare of a population that isn't officially concerned about this. And for good reason.

You can make a substantial difference without going vegan, because animal proteins differ substantially in their energy-intensiveness. Best estimate I've seen (Pimentel, Cornell U) is that the energy-intensiveness of chicken production is less than one-tenth that of beef. My family switched to grassfed beef and milk, and my calculation from the underlying data is that substituting that for our existing mix of animal-based protein reduced C02 emissions nearly as much as much as switching to a Prius.

We have an "ethical eating" movement at my church that's trying to get a few of these points across to people. Vegans have a leg up but it's not like they own this issue. The same guy (Pimentel) who did most of the original research on this pointed out that raising grass-fed cattle on marginal land (good only for pasture) is coming ahead. But you couldn't raise nearly as much beef as we do now with the current cow/calf/CAFO system. Or milk for that matter (80% of US milk production is from grain-fed cows.) So, sure, vegans have a lot of issues here, and I'm not disagreeing with them one bit. But from the standpoint of greenhouse gas emissions, it's really about the scale and mix of US meat consumption, not a black/white vegan versus carnivore contrast.

[ny biker]

I think one of the important points of this column (alluded to in the title of this thread) is that reducing consumption of meat can have a big impact, and it doesn't require an investment such as buying a new car. And merely cutting back one or two days a week can have a big effect, so everyone doesn't have to go vegan in order to see an impact.

I've been reading Ezra Klein's blog on washingtonpost.com lately, and I find it interesting. Most posts are on health care reform, but he discusses other topics too. It is an opinion blog, so not everyone will agree with him, but he's a reasonable person.

[Shawn Clark]

Originally Posted by chogan2

Aside from the methane issue from ruminants, in the US economy.

Methane is actually a non-issue from what I can gather. The number of cattle in the U.S. is roughly the same as the number of bison 200 years ago. Both are ruminants. I've had trouble finding an article that directly compares the methane production from each. If someone has a direct and objective source for that I would like to see it. I found a study of bison, but could only see the abstract and the units were unclear--appeared to be a ratio of liters produced to dry feed that would put individual methane production in the same range as cows. Unfortunately the abstract did not show cattle based methane production in the same units.

Methane production in ruminants is higher when grass (forage) fed than grain fed. From what I've seen once we had fewer cattle in the pastures, we ended up with a lot more deer...another methane producing ruminant. Granted, deer are smaller and produce far less.

I didn't think much of the methane claims when they were being pushed by industry, and I don't think more of them being pushed from the other side now.

As far as CO2 goes, the issue with meat appears to be more closely related to the method of growing crops, rather than actually feeding the crops to cattle and sending meat to market. So go after the source: the way grain is produced. This is not unlike a CAFE argument...the problem is with the price of the fuel. Better yet, ruminate on this: If you want to discourage grain fed cattle, you really want to increase the cost of the grain, and to do that you want to increase the price of fuel. Whoa! We just came full circle to the real issue now didn't we? Fuel is not priced at its actual long term cost. Re-price it properly and MANY things will adjust as a result.

[hyo silver]

Originally Posted by Shawn Clark

...Fuel is not priced at its actual long term cost. Re-price it properly and MANY things will adjust as a result.

Exactly. The sticker price on any item really has nothing to do with its full cost, and our entire economic system is completely out of whack as a result. But, using full cost pricing would change everything, which is why it'll never happen. Instead, we use the golden rule: those with the gold make the rules.