27 July 2014
Which Will Reduce Your Carbon Footprint More: Giving up Beef or Your Car?
Posted by Dan Satterfield
I listened to a fascinating interview on Science Friday from NPR Friday afternoon, and it’s good news for poultry producers/bad news for cattle ranchers. Giving up beef reduces your carbon footprint more than giving up your car! Click below to listen:
Poultry is a big industry here in Maryland, and they should be very happy about this. Poultry is an order of magnitude less carbon intensive than beef production.
Are they talking grain fed or free range beef?
Americans seem to assume the rest of the planet raises cows the same way they do.
i suspect they answer that question in the interview. Obviously grain fed is much more carbon intensive.
Actually, recent studies have shown that grass-fed (aka free-range) beef actually has a higher carbon and land-use footprint (See Nijdam et al. 2012, Food Policy and Ripple et al. 2014, Nature Climate Change). While grass-based livestock systems can certainly be better at the local level including more limited erosion and higher grassland biodiversity, just the fact that the cattle have longer lives to reach a similar weight as their grain-fed counterparts leads to more GHG emissions from enteric fermentation per kg protein. The jury is still out regarding whether soil carbon levels can increase in a grass-fed system, but the minimal increases shown in some studies is much smaller compared to the differences in methane production.
In my opinion, we should certainly reduce consumption of grain-fed beef for food security reasons…but we should also not kid ourselves about the ability of grass-fed beef to be a legitimate replacement. We just don’t have the land available and the ability to handle more GHG emissions.
Fascinating. I have not eaten beef in years, so my carbon footprint is well below average!
But do you use electicity? Do you travel in a veicle that uses electricity of fossil fuel? Do you buy products made of alumium or steel? In the U.S. coal fired electricity and petroleum powered vehicles contribute much more than agriculture sources. Electricity 32%, Transportation 28%, Industry 20%, Commercial & Residential 10%, Agricultural 10%.
This is a video of Frank Mitloehner speaking about how U.S. ranches and dairies are working to feed more people, more efficiently, with fewer animals. He speaks specifically about the efficiency of California dairy cows, and how developing countries could reduce the environmental impact of their livestock by making improvements similar to the United States dairy herd. At the end of the video there is a note that states: Following his challenge of “Livestocks Long Shadow” the U.N. Food & Agriculture Organization asked Mitloehner to serve on the steering committee to monitor livestock’s impact on the environment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDCb6ji0PTw
And grain fed beef produces less greenhouse gas because grain fed cattle grow faster and spend fewer days releasing methane gas.
Do consider, what was the effect of herds of wild bison on the atmosphere before their wanton destruction and replacement by cattle?
Also interesting is the use of nuts for chickens. I once worked collecting hazelnuts. They had a percentage of larvae inside and were broken and bagged and sold to a chicken farmer, for chicken feed. Nice to have the air refreshed from photosynthesis by air-cooling trees. I also enjoyed healthful nuts, reducing a hunger for meat.
Did you know that the majority of our CO2 emissions come from coal used to generate electricity and from petroleum fuel used for transportation? Or that in the U.S., 91.8% of greenhouse gas emissions come from sources that are not related to agriculture? Or that in the U.S., fossil fuels are responsible for 55 times the amount of CO2e produced by the U.S. beef herd. And globally, fossil fuels are responsible for 342 times the amount of CO2e produced by the U.S. beef herd. So, asking people to stop eating beef, or going meatless on Monday, is not going to be a solution for the global CO2e emissions problem.
http://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/articles/others/takapr08.html
If we are interested in reducing CO2 emissions, we’re going to have to reduce our electricity usage and petroleum fuel usage. This is going to be tough, because in today’s society everyone is expected to live a certain way. I don’t know of anyone who washes their clothes or dishes by hand anymore. Most people believe that it is too much work, or it takes too long. And most people don’t hang their clothes to dry on a clothes line anymore. Most Americans have homes that are cooled by an electric air conditioner, or heated by coal fired electricity, or fuel oil, or natural gas heat.
Among large nations, the U.S. is the worst offender per capita for CO2 emissions. Our government has not committed to setting a goal to reduce CO2e emissions. If we are going to reduce CO2 emissions, our government is going to have to guide the way. If automobile manufacturers were required to manufacture cars that get 100 mpg, we would all be driving a car that gets 100 mpg. If fossil fuels were taxed and renewable fuels were subsidized, we’d all be trying to find ways to use more renewable fuels. (And for the record, ethanol is not always a low CO2 fuel or a “green” alternative fuel. Ethanol may create a slight reduction in CO2 emissions versus gasoline. But, if the ethanol has been manufactured in a coal fired facility, more CO2 is produced manufacturing a gallon of ethanol than is produced from burning a gallon of gasoline.)
Here is some food for thought. In the past fifty (50) years, the U.S. beef herd has shrunk by 88%, to 29 Million today. In the same time, the U.S. population has grown by a 165% (to 317 Million), the number of registered highway vehicles in the U.S. has risen by 284% (to 245 Million), and the global population has grown by 222% (to 7.25 Billion, or 7,250 Million). At the same time that global population has been climbing, total CO2e emissions per person have been increasing as well. Atmospheric CO2 accumulations have been rising and accelerating. That does not sound sustainable to me.
If you think beef is bad for the environment, you need to realize that humans are far worse for the environment. Coal fired electricity is the worst offender, followed by petroleum fueled vehicles, then industry, then a tie for commercial/residential emissions and agricultural emissions.
Here Dr. Jude Capper discusses the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report that began the debate about cattle having more environmental impact than cars:
http://www.meatmythcrushers.com/myths/myth-livestock-have-a-greater-negative-environmental-impact-than-cars.html
And a graph of U.S. and global population growth, number or registered highway vehicles in the U.S., and the U.S. beef herd inventory. Which one do you think looks sutainable?
http://1drv.ms/1vH89qV
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organizations report, “Livestock’s Long Shadow” was the report that started the Beef vs. Cars debate. A PhD at the University of California at Davis disagreed with the reports finding:
UN admits flaw in report on meat and climate change
The UN has admitted a report linking livestock to global warming exaggerated the impact of eating meat on climate change.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7509978/UN-admits-flaw-in-report-on-meat-and-climate-change.html