Perhaps we need hybrid COWS?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(narcoossee @ Dec 13 2006, 06:25 PM) [snapback]361908[/snapback]</div>

I don't know if you're posting this to mock the basic idea, and I admit that I have not read the report. But if you understand the notion of "triangulation", in the sense of using several independent methods to gauge something, I'll add my two cents to suggest this is not an unreasonable finding.

I did a fairly serious audit of my family's energy use, including all consumables -- gasoline, home and water heating, electricity, and food -- where the food figure was based on published estimates of the fossil fuel calories required to generate each edible calorie, for the typical American diet. I converted each figure to the equivalent amout of gasoline.

Prior to the change in diet described below, the results showed that, of our annual fossil fuel use:
11% was gas for the cars.
14% was space heating/water heating with natural gas.
32% was for electricity
38% was for food.
There was a small residual category for other identifiable sources (e.g,. air travel)

So, for my family, the single largest fossil fuel use, among our consumables, was food.

Drilling down, within food, grain fed meat was by far the largest single source of fossil fuel use. Animal protien accounted for 25% of calories, but 75% of (implicit) fossil fuel use, for the basic reason that it takes a lot of grain to make a pound of meat. For beef, the usual estimate is 10 lbs of grain for each lb of beef. For other animals, less.

So what.

Well, since I figured this out, we switched to grass-fed beef, via a local (Shenandoah Valley) farmer who served our local farmers' market. Depending on the estimates I use, that saved the equivalent of hundreds of gallons of gasoline. Exactly how much depends on which set of fossil-fuel-calories-per-edible-calorie estimates I use.

IN other words, not even giving up meat, merely switching to a local, grass-fed meat source, saved about as much energy as if we had simply stopped driving our cars all together. At no hassle to us, with (probably) a modest dollar savings (by buying in bulk), and probably with health benefits (as the meat is leaner and has what the best available research would characterize as a better mix of fats).

So, I have come to believe in this analogy: grass-fed beef is to food, as compact fluorescents are to electrical use. They are the lowest of low-hanging fruit in terms of energy savings. They allow you to maintain your existing lifestyle at far lower fossil fuel cost.

In that context, without actually having read the report, based on my family's consumption patterns, I would not dismiss the notion that the raising and eating of grain-fed cattle is responsible for some significant share of GHGs being emittted. What exactt figure? Beats me. The point is that, with some modest effort, you can do something about it.

 

This is powerful. I, too, haven't read the report but i am aware from prior research that a meat laden diet is not typically environmentally sound. Not only do you have to take into account Chogan's points about the management of cattle with a grain fed diet, you have to take into consideration the clear-cutting of land, the water used for the irrigation of the grains that will be fed to the cattle and the fuel utilized for the harvesting of the grains.

Kudos to you Chogan for making such a positive impact.

 

We don't need hybrid cows, just exhaust gas recirculation to cut emissions. I think a piece of garden hose and some duct tape should do nicely. :blink:

Tom