Meat V. Cars: Global Warming's Sacred Cow

Carol Bengle Gilbert
Carol Bengle Gilbert, Yahoo! Contributor Network
Jan 31, 2011 "Share your voice on Yahoo! websites. Start Here."
Automobiles generate 13 percent of the world's greenhouse gases. Discussions of global warming tend to focus heavily on their contribution. We tout the improved gas economy of our hybrids and pour development money into electric cars and vehicles fueled with bio-diesels. We talk about alternatives to driving and call for better public transit and more bicycle lanes. What we rarely discuss is cows.

Cows get little attention in the global warming debate despite contributing 18 percent of greenhouse gases. With cows a more significant contributor than cars to global warming, do you wonder why cows don't get more attention?

While logic dictates that humans would turn to meat-free, and particularly beef-free, diets to combat global warming, that isn't close to happening. It's long been true that when affluence levels rise, meat consumption rises with it. And global meat and milk production are expected to double by 2050, according to a 2006 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report titled "Livestock's Long Shadow-Environmental Issues and Options."

So with cows not only a substantial but a growing part of the problem, why are governments fixated on cars when discussing climate change? Why wasn't the word "cow" in the Kyoto Protocol?

By the time of the Copenhagen Climate Conference in 2009, cows did make the climate change discussion agenda. But the cow discussion was about what is politely called cow emissions. Among other developments, the USDA committed to spending $90 million on cow emission research.

Cow emissions of methane are important to global warming because methane has 20 percent greater heat-trapping capacity than carbon dioxide. But reducing cow methane emissions alone won't fix the cow contribution to global warming. Livestock farming is responsible for 65 percent of human-related nitrous oxide, due mainly to manure. Nitrous oxide has 296 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. In total, the production of 2.2 lbs. of beef unleashes 76.28 lbs. of greenhouse gases. Production of other meats also contributes to global greenhouse gas emissions, but not as substantially.

What would reduce all of these emissions? The #1 change humans could make to reduce these emissions is dietary changes. Vegetarianism or even drastic cutbacks in meat consumption is one of the most rational steps humans could take to reduce global warming.

This is not news to people familiar with the costs of livestock farming and the benefits of vegetarian diets. As one of the great thinkers of the 20th century Albert Einstein once said, "Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."

Published by Carol Bengle Gilbert - Featured Contributor in Lifestyle

2010 Yahoo! Outstanding Contributor of the Year, Carol has consistently been designated a Top 100 Yahoo! Contributor Network writer. She received a 2008 People's Media Award for "Best Article." Carol’s pr...  View profile

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  • Jessica Rykowski3/1/2011

    People are forgetting that 90% of cows are not pasture fed! Yes if we let cows eat grass, 1 cow per acre, meat manufacturing would be fine for the environment. Cows could get their food from the field and their waste would cycle back into the ground as fertilizer. Feed lots contain no grass for the cow to eat. Corn is grown in other parts of the country then trucked in. Manute becomes sludge that needs to be trucked out. Super strains of E-coli run rampant.

  • Lorraine Yapps Cohen2/18/2011

    Isn't it just like the USDA to spend millions on cow emissions research. Anything goes to promote the hoax.

  • Orchiolum2/5/2011

    Good title and article.

  • Patricia Sicilia2/3/2011

    overturned assumptions about grazing goats and cattle. It’s been generally assumed that if you increase livestock numbers you get a rise in emissions of nitrous oxide. This is not the case,” he said. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7564682/Cows-absolved-of-causing-global-warming-with-nitrous-oxide.html

  • Patricia Sicilia2/3/2011

    This is just not true. " In the past environmentalists, from Lord Stern to Sir Paul McCartney, have urged people to stop eating meat because the methane produced by cattle causes global warming. However a new study found that cattle grazed on the grasslands of China actually reduce another greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide. …Klaus Butterbach-Bahl, of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, carried out the study in Inner Mongolia in China. He found that grassland produced more nitrous oxide during the spring thaw when sheep or cattle have not been grazing. This is because the greenhouse gas, also known as laughing gas, is released by microbes in the soil. When the grass is long snow settles keeping the microbes warm and providing water, however when the grass is cut short by animals the ground freezes and the microbes die. Dr Butterbach-Bahl said the study overturned assumptions about grazing goats and cattle. It’s been generally assumed that if you increase lives

  • Eric Hetvile2/1/2011

    Store the emissions and run our cars off them them.

  • Charlotte Kuchinsky2/1/2011

    Good one, Carol.

  • Nancy Tracy1/31/2011

    Or maybe we could get around on cows instead of cars? Seriously, nice work here :)

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