Environment

This section contains posts to do with ecological issues, global warming, climate change, sustainable living etc

Green activists ‘are keeping Africa poor’

I’ve just read a very interesting article in yesterday’s Times newspaper, where the British former chief scientist, Professor Sir David King, states that Western ‘do-gooders’ (in this instance NGOs) are impoverishing Africa by promoting traditional organic farming methods at the expense of modern scientific agriculture.

The article states that NGOs from Europe and America are turning African countries against sophisticated farming methods, including GM crops (e.g. rice that resists flooding & drought), in favour of indigenous and organic approaches. These organic methods simply cannot deliver the continent’s much needed ‘Green Revolution’, and the end result is that millions of people are suffering unnecessarily.

“The problem is that the Western-world move toward organic farming – a lifestyle choice for a community with surplus food – and against agricultural technology in general and GM in particular, has been adopted across Africa, with the exception of South Africa, with devastating consequences.”

Full article at Times Online.

Shun meat, says UN climate chief

By, Richard Black, BBC News, September 7, 2008

People should consider eating less meat as a way of combating global warming, says the UN’s top climate scientist.

Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), will make the call at a speech in London on Monday evening.

UN figures suggest that meat production puts more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than transport.

But a spokeswoman for the UK’s National Farmers’ Union (NFU) said methane emissions from farms were declining.

Dr Pachauri has just been re-appointed for a second six-year term as chairman of the Nobel Prize-winning IPCC, the body that collates and evaluates climate data for the world’s governments.

“The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has estimated that direct emissions from meat production account for about 18% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions,” he told BBC News.

“So I want to highlight the fact that among options for mitigating climate change, changing diets is something one should consider.”

Climate of persuasion

The FAO figure of 18% includes greenhouse gases released in every part of the meat production cycle – clearing forested land, making and transporting fertiliser, burning fossil fuels in farm vehicles, and the front and rear end emissions of cattle and sheep.

The contributions of the three main greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide – are roughly equivalent, the FAO calculates.

Transport, by contrast, accounts for just 13% of humankind’s greenhouse gas footprint, according to the IPCC.

Dr Pachauri will be speaking at a meeting organised by Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), whose main reason for suggesting people lower their consumption of meat is to reduce the number of animals in factory farms.

CIWF’s ambassador Joyce D’Silva said that thinking about climate change could spur people to change their habits.

“The climate change angle could be quite persuasive,” she said.

“Surveys show people are anxious about their personal carbon footprints and cutting back on car journeys and so on; but they may not realise that changing what’s on their plate could have an even bigger effect.”

Side benefits

There are various possibilities for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions associated with farming animals.

They range from scientific approaches, such as genetically engineering strains of cattle that produce less methane flatus, to reducing the amount of transport involved through eating locally reared animals.

“The NFU is committed to ensuring farming is part of the solution to climate change, rather than being part of the problem,” an NFU spokeswoman told BBC News.

“We strongly support research aimed at reducing methane emissions from livestock farming by, for example, changing diets and using anaerobic digestion.”

Methane emissions from UK farms have fallen by 13% since 1990.

But the biggest source globally of carbon dioxide from meat production is land clearance, particularly of tropical forest, which is set to continue as long as demand for meat rises.

Ms D’Silva believes that governments negotiating a successor to the Kyoto Protocol ought to take these factors into account.

“I would like governments to set targets for reduction in meat production and consumption,” she said.

“That’s something that should probably happen at a global level as part of a negotiated climate change treaty, and it would be done fairly, so that people with little meat at the moment such as in sub-Saharan Africa would be able to eat more, and we in the west would eat less.”

Dr Pachauri, however, sees it more as an issue of personal choice.

“I’m not in favour of mandating things like this, but if there were a (global) price on carbon perhaps the price of meat would go up and people would eat less,” he said.

“But if we’re honest, less meat is also good for the health, and would also at the same time reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.”

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7600005.stm

Global hunger: The more meat we eat, the fewer people we can feed

There is more than enough food in the world to feed the entire human population. So why are more than 840 million people still going hungry?

The truth: The more meat we eat, the fewer people we can feed. If everyone on Earth received 25 percent of his or her calories from animal products, only 3.2 billion people would have food to eat. Dropping that figure to 15 percent would mean that 4.2 billion people could be fed. If the whole world became vegan, there would be plenty food to feed all of us"”more than 6.3 billion people. The World Watch Institute sums this up rightly, saying, “Meat consumption is an inefficient use of grain"”the grain is used more efficiently when consumed by humans. Continued growth in meat output is dependent on feeding grain to animals, creating competition for grain between affluent meat-eaters and the world’s poor.”

pig

It takes up to 16 pounds of grain to produce just 1 pound of edible animal flesh. According to the USDA and the United Nations, using an acre of land to raise cattle for slaughter yields 20 pounds of usable protein. That same acre would yield 356 pounds of protein if soybeans were grown instead"”more than 17 times as much!

Producing the grain that is used to feed farmed animals requires vast amounts of water. It takes about 300 gallons of water per day to produce food for a vegan, and more than 4,000 gallons of water per day to produce food for a meat-eater. You save more water by not eating a pound of beef than you do by not showering for an entire year.

It should be no surprise, then, that food for a vegan can be produced on only 1/6 of an acre of land, while it takes 3 1/4 acres of land to produce food for a meat-eater. If we added up all the arable land on the planet and divided it equally, every human would get 2/3 of an acre"”more than enough to sustain a vegetarian diet, but not nearly enough to sustain a meat-eater.

On top of this the industrial world is exporting grain to developing countries and importing the meat that is produced with it, and thus farmers who are trying to feed themselves are being driven off their land. Their efficient, plant-based agricultural model is being replaced with intensive livestock rearing, which also pollutes the air and water and renders the once-fertile land dead and barren.

If this trend continues, the developing world will never be able to produce enough food to feed itself, and global hunger will continue to plague hundreds of millions of people around the globe. There is only one solution to world hunger – A vegan diet is the only ethical response to what is arguably the world’s most urgent social justice issue.

So the less meat you eat – the more people we can feed! Think about it.

Stop miljø-hykleriet og gør noget for miljøet istedet!

Nye tal fra Energistyrelsen viser samtidig, at CO2-udslippet i Danmark sidste år voksede med 0,7 pct, mens energiforbruget steg med 0,5 pct.

Og det er tredje Ã¥r i træk, at forbruget stiger. Det skriver Ingeniøren.dk.

Men miljødebattens store akilleshæl er tilsyneladende, at den ikke formÃ¥r at gøre os borgere personligt ansvarligt for den forværrede miljøtilstand. Danskernes CO2-forbrug er alarmerende højt, men der er intet der tyder pÃ¥, at vi er klar til at omlægge vores forbrug. Det er meget paradoksalt, for samtidig har vi meget travlt med at begræde jordens tilstand og klage over, hvor grelt det ser ud.

Miljøprædikanter som Al Gore har formÃ¥et at dokumentere for den almindelige borger, hvor galt det faktisk stÃ¥r til med miljøet. Folk fÃ¥r et meget markant billede af miljøtruslen, og skaber for eksempel en sammenhæng imellem vejret og den globale opvarmning i ders egne bevidsthed. En slags dommedagseffekt.

Vi synes tilsyneladende at det er mere interessant at have noget at bekymre os om -end reelt set at gøre noget ved bekymringerne eller rettere for miljøet.

Gad vide hvorfor?