The Planet Or Your Plate: mitigate climate change by going meatless by beach-babe-in-fl

Many thanks Beach Babe for adding this! Great topic. If you get a chance it would be super to see some measure of the impacts of meat and where they come from. (Has the FAO's new work on the topic been published?) Could deforestation from livestock be stopped by starting to shrink meat demand? How much emissions is due to intensive rearing where the manure makes methane? Which kinds of meat should be particularly avoided? Any other tactics for cutting short-lived gases? Not many people know that piling up grass mowings makes methane, or how easy it is to compost them instead. Maybe the biochar proposal is allied, since this would phase out forest burning, bonfires and old-fashioned (GHG intensive) charcoal-making? The Fix the System proposal would make (methane intensive) landfills obsolete. If you fit your meat proposal into a wider picture of climate solutions (just mention what else you suggest should happen) then you could have a go at running the 'actions and impacts' model. Then go to the admin tab and mark your proposal as an entry. You can continue to edit afterwards right up to the deadline. Help pages on this is here, https://www.climatecolab.org/web/guest/resources/-/wiki/Main/Proposals+help Let me know if any help is needed. James

Veggie lifestyle is surely the most effective way to improve public health and curb global warming.

This is response to Chaowee who sent this to my email: Overall, livestock including cattle, sheep, pig, poultry, fish farms and dairy accounts for at least 51% of annual worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. – Based on a new report released in October 2009 by Former lead environmental adviser at the World Bank Group Robert Goodland and World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation research officer and environmental specialist Jeff Anhang, which builds on the widely cited 2006 report by UN FAO report Livestock’s Long Shadow. - http://www.worldwatch.org/files/pdf/Livestock%20and%20Climate%20Change.pdf ---------- Thanks Chaowee for your support and comment...Yes, I am familiar with this study which stresses that the FAO was conservative in it's assessment of 18% of global GHG being attributable to livestock production. The evidence is overwhelming that we can not mitigate climate change without reforming our livestock/agriculture practices and I encourage all to read this study. Thanks again http://www.worldwatch.org/files/pdf/Livestock%20and%20Climate%20Change

Overall assessment: This will be an important issue in the future, especially as people in the developing world seek to add meat to their diets, and the team may want to expand the proposal’s reach to take that reality into account. Be careful about claiming too much about the impact the proposed actions on short-lived greenhouse gases. The team may also want to consider soot. A snappier and more directly descriptive title could help. Specific comments and suggestions for improvement: - Promotion of reduction of meat diet through a host of non-profit entities. Climate impact modest but discernible. It is concrete and well thought-through; however, it is clearly not comprehensive. - Not a new idea, but one that hasn't been pushed. I'm torn between thinking this is something we need to do, and wondering whether it's utterly unrealistic and taking an approach to meat-eating that's largely symbolic. And it doesn't acknowledge that as other nations get wealthier, folks will want more meat.

Meat eating is not a sustainable option anymore. How much longer can we continue to grow crops to intensively feed over 60billion livestock to feed the omnivores when there are millions starving in third world countries. Much better solution is forthe 6billion humans to gain healthful benefits by consuming the crops firsthand rather than through a secondary source which not only contributes to many of the worlds major diseases but impacts hugely on the environment in a destructive way. The other connection we are failing to make is the karmic one, by causing mass suffering and extinction of our innocent animal species, we are in fact advancing the onset of human extinction. Have we forgotten the very valuable commandment 'do unto others as you would do unto yourselves'. Vegan option is the the way forward in every aspect.

From the link in #5: "Today, tens of billions more livestock are exhaling CO2 than in preindustrial days, while Earth’s photosynthetic capacity (its capacity to keep carbon out of the atmosphere by absorbing it in plant mass) has declined sharply as forest has been cleared." Let's not go overboard here...all the carbon that farm animals breathe out was recently pulled from the atmosphere by the plants they ate. I do agree that agriculture is a big issue, due to deforestation, methane and nitrous oxide emissions, and topsoil depeletion. Also, if you're arguing that we should collect the plants and convert them to biochar, that changes the equation.

Yes, I agree re the effectiveness of reducing short-lived climate forcers. Gerard Wedderburn-Bisshop, senior scientist for The World Preservation Foundation will be part of our team as will Nancy A. Heitzeg. I will shortly be updating our proposal with the paper from WPF which has been submitted to The International Journal of Climate Change. Thank you all for your interest. We are all on the same team trying to mitigate the urgent problem of climate change.

Reducing Methane is just the only quick solution we have. Green technologies are just to costly and to slow to put in place to be quickly effective. And yes, it also improves public health and reduces health related costs.

A sad bit of news, if correct: France is now requiring meat in all meals served by hospitals, schools, and nursing homes: http://oneworldday.blogspot.com/2011/10/french-ban-vegetarian-and-vegan-meals.html

The news from France does show that they are threatened by the success of meat reducing campaigns.

Thanks for your comment constantino, Unfortunately 70% of deforestation in the Amazon is tied to livestock production; either for grazing or to grow soy for livestock feed. The only way to reduce that is to reduce demand for meat. Again, unfortunately there is no ecological way to raise beef. Just addressing the water use shows raising meat is unsustainable as nearly half of all water in the US goes to raising livestock for consumption whether as water for drinking by the animals or as water for irrigation for the immense amount of food they eat. It takes more than 2,400 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat, while growing 1 pound of wheat only requires 25 gallons. You save more water by not eating a pound of meat than you do by not showering for six months! A totally vegan diet requires only 300 gallons of water per day, while a typical meat-eating diet requires more than 4,000 gallons of water per day. http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/meat-wastes-natural-resources.aspx Clearly, there is no ecological way to raise livestock for human consumption. A healthier food pyramide would be one without meat and no or very little dairy.

Thanks for comment Blindspotter, Definitely agree we need a price on carbon should have done that 30 years ago and for the same reasons you cite. And I also have supported the non-exploitive relationship between people and nature..that is at the base of our problem. We need to do these things. Trouble is they will not address the worse effects of climate change unless they focus on reducing meat consumption because they mainly address C02 emissions which as stated in my proposal can remain in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. We need to address the short lived climate forcers such as Black carbon(soot),Methane and ground level ozone if we are to gain some control over the worse effects of the warming. As livestock is the greatest contributor to all these forces and literally everyone on Earth can participate we need massive education. I think the education needs to be focused on industrialized countries and industrialized animal production until we can get enough reduction in production to be manageable. There are many ways to try to influence government reduction of subsidies etc. but we know how difficult this has been. We should work that angle of course but, a reduction of meat consumption due to massive education can influence the market perhaps more rapidly. We are running out of time.

Carbon pricing hasn't taken off because policy people approached it directly rather than as part of a non-exploitive economic model (which would price carbon and other resource flows too). Such a model would shift culture as well as prices, so for example cruel livestock practices would no longer be tolerated. I wonder if culture can be used also in meat-issue education by for example associating big-meat-lump meals with lack of effort and skill in cooking?

As we hear about the record high GHG emissions http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/04/greenhouse-gases-rise-record-levels?intcmp=122 much higher than the worse case scenario we need to realize that long term solutions will not apply. We need fast solutions now and this proposal to reduce short-lived warming gases addresses that problem.

Im curious why this proposal got more votes than the sky trans proposal. This is not a plausible solution as cultures around the globe will not make this transition. We need a solution that mitigates our energy intensive lifestyles that has a possibility of being implemented.

“Faustian Bargain” Legacy 2011:11:05 Terry Floyd “Faustian Bargain” Legacy Lets not wait for a nuclear cloud from another LWR Plant problem or a detonation of WNGN(Weapons Grade Nuclear Waste) by terrorist to convince us we desperately need to pursue the work Dr Weinberg started in the 1950s at Oak Ridge on LFTRs.Dr. Alvin Weinberg (patent holder on the LWR {TMI, Chernobyl, and Fukushima type}) spent 20 years prototyping LFTR at Oak Ridge as director. Earlier, he was involved with the Manhattan Project with Fermi in Chicago, he signed the petition requesting not to use the nuclear device without prior demonstration before Hiroshima. Dr Weinberg cautioned using LWR for civilian electrical power as a “Faustian Bargain” in 1972. At that time he knew molten salt reactors where viable. In 1973 Dr Weinberg was removed as director of Oak Ridge because of his concern with LWR safety issues. The uranium solid fueled LWR burns only 5% of the uranium leaving tons of radioactive toxic waste which needs storage for 1000s of years (Yucca Mnt.). Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor consumes 96% of several different fuels, natural thorium, LWR nuclear waste, and even Weapon Grade Nuclear Waste with a minuscule of waste requiring 500 years of storage while producing clean electric power with no CO2 or mercury(no Yucca Mnt.). The Earth Mother is sending a big giant hint and GIFT! REE (Rare Earth Elements) so necessary for all those wonderful Earth Friendly Technologies, wind mills, electric cars, etc., are buried in mounds of THORIUM! Thorium removal and separation is a high cost in REE mining. Thorium the fuel used in Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor(LFTR)s! LFTRs consume nuclear waste as fuel producing electric power with miniscule residue requiring three hundred years not thousands of years of storage. {NO YUCCA MOUNTAIN, THANK YOU}. Thorium is now green “Imagine an element that when used in a nuclear reactor is so safe that it may never lead to the possibility of the type of catastrophic meltdown that threatened the reactors in Japan. Picture one ton of such an element producing as much energy as 200 tons of uranium or 3,500,000 tons of coal. Imagine an element that right now is trapped in 3,200 metric tons of nuclear waste waiting for final disposition at the Nevada National Security Site.” http://www.lanl.gov/science/NSS/issue2_2011/story6full.shtml Read Dr. Hansen's letter to President Obama http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2008/20081121_Obama.pdf http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOoBTufkEog http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2vzotsvvkw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4 http://www.gardengirltv.com/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/newsinc/landing_page.html?vid=10555196&sitesection=huffingtonpost http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_321544&src_vid=0wTfQiGFAKE&v=SBONp01U7Fk Paul Stamets' TED 2008 talk, "6 Ways Mushrooms Can Save the World http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_can_save_the_world.html www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/7970619/Obama-could-kill-fossil-fuels-overnight-with-a-nuclear-dash-for-thorium.html

There's no conflict between comments 31 and 32. An individual can't build a thorium reactor. Hansen strongly advocates advocates nuclear power in his book, especially advanced designs.

There is a symbiotic relationship here. To support dense populations a sustainable clean source of energy is required. Only LFTRs can deliver. Electrically powered Hydroponics are the only way to feed large populations and veggie food is the most productive. Paul Stamets' TED 2008 talk, "6 Ways Mushrooms Can Save the World http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_can_save_the_world.html

Nuclear power would not be practical in a world experiencing the worse effects of climate change. The severe and unpredictable weather would make it too expensive and dangerous. There is a nuclear plant in my state which is vulnerable to hurricanes and rising water and there is serious discussion of 'improving' it. There would be more earthquakes and floods. I think we have to mitigate the worse effects of climate change before considering nuclear.

What I want to talk about is mitigating the worst effects of climate change. If we don't do that and soon we will be left with an unrecognizable landscape. Looks like we have about 5 years to do that http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/09/fossil-fuel-infrastructure-climate-change What I want to talk about is eliminating extreme earthquakes,rising water and hurricanes. That is where we need to concentrate our energies.

Stamets is awesome...how does his work relate? Well mushrooms are veggies, and seems Mr. Stamets has pioneered these growing techniques that can make our lives healthy and richer????? Dali Lama recognize nuclear power's role in defeating climate change. http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2011/11/07/dalai-lama-a-role-for-nuclear-power-in-development-process/

I like this

Hi Beach Babe, This is a great proposal, as food is indeed a considerable element of our individual carbon emission footprints. I'd like to know if your team has encountered any cultural issues surrounding reduction of meat consumption, namely in the up-and-coming economies your proposal mentions you'd like to target in your education scheme. Perhaps this is trivial, but it seems like there may be some negative push back from people who, even if educated regarding the social responsibility, etc of reducing meat consumption, would still find it culturally necessary to keep meat as a significant percentage of their diet. I guess what I am ultimately wondering is: what is the realistic feasibility of going "meatless"? Even with extensive education programs, the issue of meat consumption is inextricable from cultural context. Responsible sourcing of meat (grass-fed, local), reduction of meat consumption overall (meatless mondays, etc), or less carbon-heavy meat sources (poultry vs beef) is definitely a step in the right direction, though. I very much like your idea of lobbying for reduction of subsidies in the corn industry. I think that full-cost pricing--allowing the consumer to pay for the entire cost of the meat they are buying, including all the costs incurred in raising the meat, sans corn aka feed subsidies--would be a strongly motivating factor in reduction of meat consumption. Good luck, Vicki

Some good news as looks like there will be an opening for influencing of the 2012 Farm Bill in US. For a time the US senate agriculture committee has had closed door negotiations which was heavily influenced by Big Agriculture industry lobbyists but the result of those negotiations has been dropped. So looks like we will have open congressional debate over subsidies and issues relating to US food and agriculture. An excellent opportunity to influence our food supply, factory farms, and food assistance programs for the next 5 years.

Thanks Dennis, I actually used that link in my proposal. And from team member Gerard Bisshop's video he stressed that the only practical and cost effective way to reduce legacy emissions is forest regrowth in areas that have previously been cleared for livestock grazing and feed production. http://youtu.be/HFkwdNxiQWU Reducing meat consumption is the only fast, low cost and safe way to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. In fact, I believe it's the only way to avoid the worst effects of climate change due to it's ability to reduce the short lived climate forces.