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Eating meat found to be environmentally destructiv


billcoe

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Can someone share this study with Pope and Dwayner, it appears that true environmental damage has been determined to not be caused by bolts but by them eating meat. (and the rest of us as well).

 

link

 

"Eating beef ' is less green than driving'

 

Last Updated: 2:59am BST 19/07/2007

 

Producing 2.2lb of beef generates as much greenhouse gas as driving a car non-stop for three hours, it was claimed yesterday.

 

Japanese scientists used a range of data to calculate the environmental impact of a single purchase of beef.

 

Taking into account all the processes involved, they said, four average sized steaks generated greenhouse gases with a warming potential equivalent to 80.25lb of carbon dioxide.

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This also consumed 169 megajoules of energy.

 

That means that 2.2lb of beef is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions which have the same effect as the carbon dioxide released by an ordinary car travelling at 50 miles per hour for 155 miles, a journey lasting three hours. The amount of energy consumed would light a 100-watt bulb for 20 days.

 

Most of the greenhouse gas emissions are in the form of methane released from the animals' digestive systems, New Scientist magazine reported.

 

But more than two thirds of the energy used goes towards producing and transporting cattle feed, said the study, which was led by Akifumi Ogino from the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Tsukuba, Japan.

 

Su Taylor, the press officer for the Vegetarian Society, told New Scientist: "Everybody is trying to come up with different ways to reduce carbon footprints, but one of the easiest things you can do is to stop eating meat."

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This doesn't even mention the other factor - how much water is wasted on irrigation to grow grain for the sole purpose of feeding livestock for meat production. And don't forget the chopping of millions of acres of rainforest so McDonalds can import cheap frozen beef... Unfortunately, there are many reasons why eating meat is terrible for the environment...

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the rainforests are being chopped for soy...more than for mcdonalds. or so i've heard. i havne't been there

 

The soy is used for cattle feed.

 

Also interesting, te USDA permits more pesticides to be sprayed on crops destined for livestock feed than that destined for human consumption. I'm no biologist, but doesn't alot of that end up concentrated in the fat of the animal which is then consumed as part of my hamburger? Not to mention all the steriods and antibiotics they pump into these cows to beef them up and protect from disease due to the fact they are raised in brutal, overcrowded conditions.

 

Also, raising livestock creates alot of pollution in the form of liquid waste that gets dumped into lakes, rivers and groundwater.

 

Wanna make a difference in global warming, pollution, your personal health and animal welfare all at the same time? Eat two vegetarian meals per week.

 

 

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This doesn't even mention the other factor - how much water is wasted on irrigation to grow grain for the sole purpose of feeding livestock for meat production. And don't forget the chopping of millions of acres of rainforest so McDonalds can import cheap frozen beef... Unfortunately, there are many reasons why eating meat is terrible for the environment...

 

What about grass?

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What about grass?

 

C'mon, cows don't eat grass anymore, they eat grain and other animal parts.

 

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/158359_feed28.html

 

"Cows are still allowed to eat feeds that can include parts of pigs, fish, chicken, horses, even cats or dogs. And some of those animals -- before being rendered and mixed up for cattle feed -- are raised on food containing the same cow parts now banned from cattle consumption.

 

And cattle can continue to consume pig and horse blood for protein, as well as tallow, a hard fat from rendered cattle parts, as a fattening source."

Edited by mythosgrl
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It seems like most things done to support a global population of this proportion has some sort of detrimental impact. We very well could be fucked.

 

This should be in the "State the obvious" thread. Here, we are talking about lessening our impact.

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