

The UN treats us to good news... and bad






Comments     Threshold


Bovine Flatulence
By Spyvie on 12/14/2006 12:51:41 PM , Rating: 2
All we need to do is genetically alter the livestock’s feed to include the active ingredient in Beano… problem solved.

Are there more cattle on the planet now than there were wild grazing animals 300 years ago? Do domestic cattle produce more methane head for head than a heard of buffalo?

RE: Bovine Flatulence
By Live on 12/15/2006 4:10:49 AM , Rating: 2
The thing is that free going animals contribute much less. Livestock is in many places, especially in the USA and Europe "power" feed with soybeans or similar food imported and transported from countries like Brazil. That means that the production of and transportation of the food the cow, chicken, pigs eat have consumed fossil fuels. The idea is to use cheap energy to quickly raise the animals for slaughter. This way is economical (at least with the current subsidies in US and Europe) but harmful to the environment. Meat from wild and free going animals contributes much less just because their food is not produced. But as mentioned in the report burning down forests to make land for cattle production isn’t really helpful either. So if you are going to eat meat eat wild animals like Deer and rabbits.

While I personally don’t have a problem not eating hamburgers I would find it very hard to give up Tacos and Kebab. But it is perfectly possible to produce food in a much less harmful way albeit more costly. We need to set a price on emissions so we would see local produced food be as competitive as it really is. If we combine that with taking away the subsidies who strongly favors large scale farming with high energy consumption, I will hopefully be able to continue to eat meat. Meat might be murder but its damn tasty.

