Livestock account for 51% of annual worldwide greenhouse gas emissions

All photos and text by Sally Kneidel, PhD, of sallykneidel.com and veggierevolution.blogspot.com

  Photo by Sally Kneidel, PhD

I read an article today that blew my socks off - it may be the most significant article I've ever read.  It's online and in the Nov/Dec 2009 print issue of Worldwatch, a publication of Worldwatch Institute - a widely respected think-tank and environmental advocacy organization. The article is entitled "Livestock and Climate Change" (see "Sources" at end of this post).

I've spoken widely, written numerous articles and two books on the subject of the environmental impact of raising and transporting livestock. (See a list my books and blog posts on this topic, below.)  Three or four years ago, I was very excited when the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization published "Livestock's Long Shadow" - a scientific document whose authors demonstrated that the livestock sector contributes at least 18% of  greenhouse-gas emissions. They concluded that livestock contribute more to climate change than even the transportation sector does.  I can't count how many times I've quoted that publication, more than 400 pages long, and available on the internet.

This new study goes beyond “Livestock’s Long Shadow”
But this article from Worldwatch Institute goes way beyond the UN's FAO article, and very creditably so. The authors, Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang, examined the FAO data carefully and explain why their own measurements are more comprehensive and more current than those of the FAO authors. I see no weak spots in these new calculations, they are merely updates to account for the passage of time and our growing population and growing global meat consumption, as well as corrections of omissions in the older FAO article. I have good faith in their carefully detailed figures. I hope to God they're right in their suggestions for solutions.

I'm not going to recount all the new calculations and corrections here, but I will give a couple of examples. First, the FAO's calculations are based on 2002 data, but the tonnage of livestock products between 2002 and 2009 has increased 12%, with a proportionate increase in greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).  Secondly, "Livestock's Long Shadow" reports that 33 million tons of poultry were produced worldwide in 2002, but the FAO's "Food Outlook" corrected that figure, which was actually 72.9 million tons of poultry produced  in 2002.  The authors of the new article describe several underestimates in "Livestock's Long Shadow" such as these, which have a cumulative effect.

As mentioned above, the new Worldwatch document also points out numerous omissions from the original FAO publication, "Livestock's Long Shadow".  For example, the FAO failed to include GHG emissions from
(1) the disposal of livestock waste (feces, urine, bone, fat, spoiled products) all of which emit high amounts of GHG, and (2) fluorocarbons (used for cooling livestock products more than alternatives) which have a global warming potential up to several thousand times higher than that of CO2.  Those are just a couple of examples.

Noting governments' failures, Worldwatch proposes new solutions

I liked that the article ended with several pages of solutions. The authors pointed out that governments have been largely ineffective in developing renewable energy and energy efficiency. GHG emissions have actually increased since the Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1992, and climate change has since that time accelerated. The authors Goodland and Anhang offer suggestions that would achieve at least a 25% reduction in livestock products worldwide between now and 2017. This would yield a minimum 12.5 % reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, which would by itself be almost as much as is generally expected to be negotiated at the U.N.'s climate conference in Copenhagen in December 2009.

Analogs are tasty!  Who needs flesh?

The suggestions of Goodland and Anhang (for Worldwatch) focus on businesses rather governments. They point out that consumers listening to food marketing are listening for words that evoke "comfort, familiarity, happiness, ease, speed, low price, and popularity." Based on that, the authors outline a marketing plan whereby food companies can succeed by marketing "meat and dairy analogs" alongside traditional animal products in grocery stores. Analogs are products such soy- and seitan (wheat gluten) imitation beef, chicken and pork products, as well as soy- and rice milk, cheese, yogurt, and ice cream.  "Analogs are less expensive, less wasteful, easier to cook, and healthier than livestock products," they write. Meat and dairy analogs can be positioned in stores, and through marketing, as "clearly superior to livestock products, thus appealing to the same consumer urges that drive purchases of other analog products, such as Rolex knockoffs".  By replacing livestock products with analogs, "consumers can take a powerful action collectively to mitigate most GHGs worldwide.  Labeling analogs with certified claims of GHGs averted can give them a significant edge."

Sounds good to me! Since Ken and I both work, and I have two jobs, we consume a fair amount of pre-made "analogs" such as Morningstar Farms "chik" patties and chik nuggets and Tofurkey sausage or kielbasa, as well as soy milk, soy yogurt, using ground flax seeds to replace eggs in baking, and so on. We've been doing this for years and I never ever miss meat. I did eat one real chicken nugget a few years ago to test the difference, and found it disgustingly greasy and and containing recognizable animal tissues such as little veins and connective tissue.  After years of eating yummy soy-based imitation chicken patties, the real thing was akin to eating  road-kill.

 Photo by Sally Kneidel, PhD

I encourage you to read Goodland's and Anhang's article from Worldwatch, available on the internet. To me, their proposal sounds clearly like the easiest and most realistic scheme yet for quickly and drastically reducing the world's GHG emissions, and possibly averting dramatic climate change. Should that change continue unabated as it is now, new climate patterns will destroy wildlife habitat the world over, destroy essential agricultural areas by altering rainfall, cause famine and create climate refuges from developing nations, raise sea levels, and lead to mass wildlife extinctions that humans have never before witnessed.

Roll the article up with a ribbon for the perfect holiday gift!

Read this important Worldwatch article and forward it to your friends. Or print it out and tack it on the bulletin board at work. Include it in your holiday greeting cards!  Or make a nice little cover for it, and give as a holiday gift to those whose future matters most to you.

by Sally Kneidel, PhD

Sources:
Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang. "Livestock and Climate Change: What if the key factors in climate change are cows, pigs, and chickens?" Worldwatch 22(6):10-19. Nov/Dec 2009.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. "Livestock's Long Shadow: Environmental issues and options." Rome, 2006.

My books on this topic:
Veggie Revolution: Smart Choices for a Healthy Body and a Healthy Planet. 2005. Sally and Sadie Kneidel. Fulcrum Books.

Going Green: A Wise Consumer's Guide to a Shrinking Planet. 2008. Sally and Sadie Kneidel. Fulcrum Books.

Some of my prior posts on this topic:
"New study: meat impacts climate more than buying local"  May 23, 2008 on Veggie Revolution blog

"Less meat....smaller footprint"  Feb 6, 2009 on Veggie Revolution blog 

"Is local food the greenest choice?  New study says no"  May 14, 2009 on Veggie Revolution blog

"Earth Day: 3 things you can do"  April 22, 2007 on Veggie Revolution blog

"An apple? Bran muffin? or cold cereal?  Top ten sources of easy fiber" Sept 14, 2007on Veggie Revolution blog

"10 hot tips for a green and energy-efficient holiday." Oct 10, 2008 on Veggie Revolution blog


"Obama to fight consolidation of farms: good news for small farms and consumers"  Aug 21, 2009 on Veggie Revolution blog

"Smithfield blamed for swine flu by Mexican press"  April 29, 2009 on Veggie Revolution blog

"The virus is a swine flu and has its roots in North Carolina, the land of Smithfield"  May 2, 2009 on Veggie Revolution blog

"Tyson and Smithfield drooling over untapped profits abroad" March 20, 2006 on Veggie Revolution blog

"Working in a turkey insemination factory"  Nov 20, 2008 on Veggie Revolution blog

"A tasty vegan meat substitute: Tofurkey kielbasa" June 10, 2009 on Veggie Revolution blog

Key words:: climate change livestock and climate change Worldwatch Institute 51% of climate change Robert Goodland Jeff Anhang

Is local food the greenest choice? New study says no

Dairy cows' rear-ends: bad news for our climate.
Photo by Sally Kneidel

"Local" is the mantra in sustainable food these days. But should it be? Is eating locally-produced food the most powerful thing we can do to reduce our ecological "foodprint?"

A new study from Worldwatch Institute says no indeed. I love Worldwatch. They crank out study after study with lots of hard data, evaluating the environmental impact of various consumer choices. So useful! So fun to quote!

Don't get me wrong - I'm all in favor of local food. We definitely should support small-scale farmers in our own communities who are growing food organically and sustainably. For years now, I've been writing and speaking in support of them, on this blog and in our books and at various conferences.

There's no question that, all other things being equal, buying food grown nearby is better than buying food that's been trucked for long distances. Less transported food means fewer emissions and a smaller carbon footprint. But as Sarah DeWeerdt points out in this new Worldwatch article, we need to look at the whole production picture - not just how far food was transported from producer to market.

As it turns out, when we look at life-cycle analysis, a "cradle-to-grave perspective" on food products, food miles are "a relatively small slice of the greenhouse-gas pie," says DeWeerdt. In fact, according to a comprehensive analysis last year by Christopher Weber and H. Scott Matthews of Carnegie Mellon University, final delivery from the producer or processor to the retailer accounts for only 4% of the U.S. food system's greenhouse-gas emissions! Materials required for cultivation and processing must be transported too; this transport is considered part of the "upstream" miles and emissions. Such materials include fertilizer, pesticides, animal feed, etc. But the transport of these items, together with transport to market, still accounts for only 11% of the food system's emissions.

What's the source of all the other greenhouse gases associated with agriculture? Production. Primarily, production of livestock. Weber and Matthews from Carnegie Mellon found that a whopping 83% of food-related emissions occur before the food leaves the farm. Tara Garnett, in a recent analysis of a U.K. food system reached similar conclusions.

What you eat may matter more than where it came from

Numerous studies reviewed by DeWeerdt have found that livestock production generates a much higher volume of greenhouse gases than does plant production. Beef and dairy cattle are the worst culprits; DeWeerdt calls them "agriculture's overwhelming 'hotspots' " in terms of greenhouse-gas emissions. A group of Swedish researchers has calculated that meat and dairy account for 58% of that country's total food emissions. In Garnett's study, meat and dairy accounted for half of the U.K. food system's greenhouse gases. Garnett writes, "Broadly speaking, eating fewer meat and dairy products and consuming more plant foods in their place is probably the single most helpful behavioral shift one can make" to reduce food-related greenhouse gases. Weber and Matthews reached a similar conclusion: "No matter how it is measured, on average red meat is more GHG-intensive than all other forms of food. " The dairy industry, in their study, was the second-biggest contributor to greenhouse-gas emissions.

A large proportion of emissions associated with beef cattle and dairy cows are the greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide. Methane is 23 times more potent at trapping solar heat than is carbon dioxide; nitrous oxide is 296 times more potent (molecule per molecule). Methane comes from the rear-ends of ruminants such as cows. Both methane and nitrous oxide come from manure, especially the vast, open "waste lagoons" associated with factory farms.

Well then, just how much does food contribute to the planet's overall carbon footprint? I reported on that in a previous post. In 2006, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization published a live-wire of a paper entitled "Livestock's Long Shadow." According to that research document, livestock account for 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. And here's the kicker - that's more than all forms of transportation combined! You can easily google that document for yourself. Just read the 3-page Executive Summary in Part I, which summarizes the the whole 400 page report.

After concluding that red meat and dairy are emissions hot-spots, DeWeerdt does go on to review the merits of buying local food. One clear advantage, which Sadie and I talk about in our presentations, is that local food is in general grown by small-scale farmers who are openly accountable for their treatment of the environment and their livestock. The farmers I know who sell food to their own communities welcome visitors to inspect their methods. This is a far cry from industrial producers who keep their exploitive and often abusive operations shielded from public view.

So buy local. But, if you want to contribute to a liveable planet for your grandchildren, eat low on the food chain too. And join me in a tip of the hat to Worldwatch for another fine study.

by Sally Kneidel, PhD

Sources:
Sarah DeWeerdt. Is Local Food Better? Worldwatch Institute. Accessed May 15, 2009.

Livestock's Long Shadow. United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Rome, 2006.

To see my primary post about Livestock's Long Shadow and about Weber & Matthews' research, click here

To see all my, Ken's, and Sadie's posts that mention Livestock's Long Shadow, click here

To see my favorite Worldwatch Institute document, Happier Meals: Rethinking the Global Meat Industry by Danielle Nierenberg, click here

Key words:: Worldwatch Livestock's Long Shadow meat industry local food red meat cattle dairy livestock greenhouse gases carbon emissions food carbon footprint foodprint Sarah DeWeerdt Weber and Matthews Matthews and Weber Carnegie Mellon

New study: meat impacts climate change more than "buying local"

Buying local is the current mantra for earth-friendly foods. Since writer Sage Van Wing coined the term "locavore" three years ago, many environmentalists consider "food-miles" (the distance traveled from farm to fork) as the best measure of food's impact on climate change.

No doubt about it, buying local is good for more reasons than one. It keeps your dollars in your own community, supports family farmers who use sustainable methods, and generates fewer emissions from cross-country trucks. But it turns out that buying local is not the "greenest" diet choice you can make. According to a new study just published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, the amount of red meat and dairy you consume has a far greater impact on greenhouse gases than the distance your food traveled.

Using data from the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Agriculture and Transportation and other sources, authors Christopher Weber and Scott Matthews of Carnegie Mellon University calculated the total greenhouse-gas emissions generated in making and transporting a variety of foods. They concluded that red meat and dairy are responsible for nearly half of all greenhouse gas emissions from food for an average U.S. household. (See pie diagram above by Christopher Weber/Rhonda Saunders, from Env. Sci. and Tech.) That's because the production of red meat and dairy generates much more greenhouse gases than the production of any other kind of food, and much more greenhouse gases than all food-related transportation.

The emissions start with the clearing of land for grazing or for raising animals' feed-crops (clearing often involves burning and thus releases carbon dioxide). The chemical fertilizers used for livestock feed-crops are converted to nitrous oxide, another greenhouse gas, by soil bacteria. Cows' burps and the storage of manure in open "lagoons" both release large amounts of methane, another greenhouse gas that traps about 20 times more solar radiation molecule per molecule than carbon dioxide does. "There is more greenhouse-gas impact from methane and nitrous oxide than from all the carbon dioxide in the supply chain [for all our foods]," Weber says. In large part, he adds, this is because nitrous oxide and methane emission in the production of red meat "blows away CO₂".

Much of this information is not entirely new. Researchers with the United Nations' Food and Agricuture Organization published a landmark paper last year detailing the environmental impact of the world's growing numbers of livestock. If you're interested in the environmental damage caused by livestock, this document ("Livestock's Long Shadow") is one you don't want to miss. It's loaded with great information. Although it's long and detailed, the Executive Summary within the document is only 3 pages and hits all the high points.

The authors of the new study from Carnegie Mellon calculated that shifting your diet one day per week from red meat and dairy to chicken or fish or vegetables will reduce greenhouse gas emissions more than your buying all local foods all the time.

They didn't go into the environmental impact of fish farms, overharvesting of wild fish, or factory farms of poultry. But we cover all that and more in our new book Going Green: A Wise Consumer's Guide to a Shrinking Planet (May 2008).

If you really want to help the planet, eat vegan. And it pains me to say it, because I love cheese. I really really love pepper-jack cheese melted on rosemary olive-oil bread. Oh-my-God, what bliss and comfort. That's the last vestige of animal products in my diet. But with this new study, I don't know that I can keep rationalizing it. Maybe I can find some soy cheese that sort of tastes like cheese. Can any readers recommend a good brand? I have to try.

Sources:
Christopher Weber and H. Scott Matthews. "Food-miles and the relative climate impacts of food choices in the United States." Environmental Science and Technology, 42 (10), 3508–3513.2008.

Erika Engelhaupt. "Do food miles matter?" Environmental Science and Technology. April 16, 2008. [Pie diagram above is from this article.]

Rachel Ehrenberg. "It's the meat not the miles." Science News. May 1, 2008.

United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization. "Livestock's Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options." 2007

SEE THIS POST NOW ON REUTERS

Earth Day: 3 things you can do

The Earth's most serious and menacing problem is global warming, a problem that will grow in coming decades.

Global warming is due to the accumulation of greenhouse gases, and the United States creates more of these gases by far than any other nation.

So here are 3 big things you can do to reduce our production of greenhouse gases.

1) Reduce fossil-fuel use with your travel. Specifically, drive a car that gets good gas mileage, or use public transportation or a bicycle, or car pool.

2) Change all the light bulbs in your house to compact fluorescent bulbs, which use about 10% of the electricity of an incandescent bulb and last for several years. Using less electricity means making less demand on coal-fired power plants, which are one of our biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions and other air pollution. These bulbs are available at Home Depot. They cost more than regular bulbs, but the longevity of the bulbs makes them less expensive in the long run. We changed all of our bulbs and it made about a 30% difference in our utility bill! For more information about this, watch the movie "Kilowatt Ours" by Jeff Barrie.

3) Eat fewer animal products. According to a recent report from the U.N. ("Livestock's Long Shadow"), the livestock sector is one of the top 2 or 3 biggest sources of greenhouse gases. And Americans eat way more meat than any other nation, per capita - a whopping 248 pounds per year per person, compared to only 176 pounds per year per person in other industrialized nations, and only 66 pounds per person per year in developing nations (from a Worldwatch Institute document available online, "Happier Meals" by Danielle Nierenburg).

The U.N. document "Livestock's Long Shadow" is available online - just google the title.

Keywords:: Earth Day 3 things you can do 3 biggest things you can do what you can do greenhouse gases global warming fluorescent bulbs eat less meat fossil fuels

An Apple? Bran Muffin? Or Cold Cereal? Top Ten Sources of Easy Fiber

What's the easiest source of daily fiber?

I walked into a co-worker's office the other day, and saw his little bag of Fiber One lying on his desk. I recognized the little plastic bag that comes inside the cereal box. "Hey" I said "I eat that too!" He explained that his cholesterol was high and his doctor had him eating it as part of his low-fat, high fiber heart-healthy diet. And we all know fiber's good for our digestive systems.

Most Americans eat only half the recommended daily amount of fiber. The American Dietary Association recommends 25 to 35 grams of fiber every day. If you pay attention to your fiber intake, you know that 35 grams is a lot. It's a real challenge to eat that much.

Animal products don't have any fiber. It's all from plant sources. The best sources are beans, whole grains, fruits and vegetables. But I've found some shortcuts that are really helpful. I have a job right now that has me working about 12 hours a day - I don't have time to whip up whole grains and stir-fries. I wish I did but I don't.

I used to eat whole-grain oatmeal with 2 tbsp ground flax seeds, raisins, and walnuts for breakfast every day. But I abandoned that right quick when a doctor friend told me about 3 cold cereals that have a lot more fiber than that. The best one for me has been Fiber One. It has more fiber than any other cereal, hot or cold. And it tastes better than All Bran, which is a close second in terms of fiber.

Here are the top cereals with a high fiber content:

General Mills Fiber One has 14 grams of fiber in only 1/2 cup (and only 60 calories).

Kelloggs All Bran Extra Fiber has 13 grams of fiber in 1/2 cup (and only 50 calories).

Kelloggs All Bran Bran Buds have 13 grams of fiber in 1/3 cup, with 70 calories.

Kashi Good Friend has 12 grams of fiber in 1 cup, but with a lot more calories...170.

Weetabix Organic Crispy Flakes & Fiber has 11 grams of fiber, with 170 calories in 5/4 cup.

Weight Watchers Banana Almond Medley has 10 grams of fiber, 170 calories, in 3/4 cup.

In case you're curious about how these numbers relate to other sources of fiber...

1 medium sized apple has 3.5 grams.
1 large pear has 6 grams.
Oatmeal has 4 grams per cup, cooked.
Kidney beans have 7.3 grams per 1/2 cup, cooked.
Navy beans have 6 grams per 1/2 cup, cooked.
Bran Flakes and Raisin Bran both have 4 grams per 3/4 cup.
A bran muffin has 2.5 grams.
Brown rice has 2 grams per cup, cooked.

These are all great sources of fiber and other nutrients, and are earth-friendly foods, too, because they're all plants. According to a recent United Nations report, "Livestock's Long Shadow," the world's "livestock sector" is the second or third biggest cause of all the world's major environmental problems. That includes meat, eggs, and dairy - all livestock. ( Fiber One tastes great with soymilk, so no dairy needed.) By the way, you can google the title of that U.N. document to read the whole thing.

We explore the topic of consumer impacts on our fragile planet in our new book, Going Green: A Wise Consumer's Guide to a Shrinking Planet. Due out in April 2008 from Fulcrum.




One more little tip: fruit juices have very little fiber. Orange juice has only 1 gram per cup, apple juice only 0.8 grams per cup. Better to eat the whole orange and eat the whole apple. Would love to hear more ideas about easy ways of eating fiber.

Keywords:: top ten sources of fiber, plant foods, Livestock's Long Shadow, Going Green, Kneidel, Veggie Revolution, fiber cereal, heart healthy, low cholesterol, high fiber diet, easy sources of fiber, vegetarian, vegan, soy milk

Less meat...smaller footprint

photo by Sally Kneidel

Sally often says, when speaking to others about the impact of eating less meat, that what you eat is more important than what you drive. The UN document "Livestock's Long Shadow" says that our diet choices impact climate change more than transportation. I shared that with my Biology class and sensed some disbelief, so I decided to use www.myfootprint.org, a website where you can caluclate your ecological footprint, as a way to convince them that this is true. Your footprint tells you how many worlds it would take to support the human population if everyone in the world lived just like you.

I worked through the footprint questions, choosing all of the default or "average" values as answers. The only answer that I intentially set away from the average, was my diet. First, I chose "top of the food chain - I eat meat, seafood, or dairy at almost every meal" as a description of what I eat. This trial resulted in a footprint of 7.04 worlds. I then repeated the questionnaire, changing only one thing - my diet from "top of the food chain" to "vegan". The footprint dropped to 5.24, a 26% reduction. Impressive!

I then repeated the footprint two times. Both times I let my diet description stay at "omnivore", the default setting, so food choice didn't vary. What I did change was the car I drive. Both times I chose 20,000 miles as the amount that I drive each year, but in one run I chose a "truck or SUV" as my car (this resulted in 7.34 worlds), and the other I swtiched to a hybrid (resulting in 5.99 worlds). The reduction this time was 18%.

Looks like the UN report is right! (Or, more likely, the footprint modelers used the report in writing their computer model.) I know I could have had my students read the report (it's on-line), but this was a much simpler way to get the point across. They had already calculated their footprint, so it was a result they could easily grasp. Most of the students had calculated their footprints to be in the 5-7 range. They were distressed and felt trapped a bit. As teenagers they couldn't easily change the house they live in or the cars their family drives. But they do have control over what they eat. Eating less meat offers an easy way to lower one's environmental impact.

By Ken Kneidel, PhD

Keywords:: ecological footprint effect of meat on environment environmental effect of meat livestock's long shadow impact of animal products

Sweet potato casserole, courtesy of FatFree Vegan Kitchen

10 Hot Tips for an Green and Energy-efficient Holiday

1. Buy fewer presents!
You'll save the energy you would normally expend shopping and every item not purchased means less energy going into the production, packaging and shipping of that item.

2. Buy rechargeable batteries!
Over 40% of battery sales are made during the holidays according to the California Energy Commission. Using and reusing rechargeable batteries will reduce your trips to the store to buy batteries, and reduce the energy that goes into mining the metals, manufacturing the batteries, and shipping.

3. Buy local gifts!
Giving movie tickets, restaurant certificates, a babysitting promise, etc., uses fewer resources and less transportation. Other local items could include locally produced food, crafts, and jewelry.

4. Recycle that wrapping paper!
Buy recycled gift-wraps, which use 60% less energy to produce than virgin paper (and generate 95% less air pollution) according to Earth911.com. Or get creative and make your own gift wrap using comic pages, ribbons and other items that you have on hand. And after the holiday, reuse or recycle the paper, gift bags and ribbons on the gifts you receive.

5. Use LED holiday lights!
LED holiday lights are not widely available and reduce energy consumption by 80-90%. Turn your decorative lights off overnight. 6:00-10:00 PM are the prime visibility hours.

6. Eat fewer animal products for your holiday meal!
The meal doesn't have to be centered around turkey or ham. Make it a potluck, with a couple of people bringing veggie or bean casseroles. Or feature a pumpkin or broccoli sour as your entree. With a salad, savory bread, a scrumptious desert, who needs flesh? According to the United Nations document "Livestock's Long Shadow", livestock production generates more greenhouse gases than does transportation.

7. Keep the oven door shut!
Resist the temptation to open the oven door and check the casserole - even opening it once can reduce the temperature by 25 degrees. Consider baking several dishes at once, and use the right size for your stovetop burner, which can reduce energy waste by as much as 40%.

8. Turn the heat down when crowds are in the house!
With more warm bodies, you can set the thermostat lower and stay just as comfortable. The EPA recommends no higher than 68 degrees for the most economical and comfortable thermostat setting.

9. Stay home for the holidays!
A round trip flight from New York to Los Angeles produces 1, 436 lbs of CO2 according to Terra Pass. If you can stay home, you'll save energy. If not, buy carbon credits from Terra Pass or a similar company, to offset the greenhouse gases spewed out by your jet. Click here to read our review of the highest-rated companies that sell carbon offsets for plane travel.

10. Make your own holiday cards from recycled paper or send E-cards instead!

Source: The list above is adapted from a list by Gretchen, of Kilowatt Ours Community

For more cool ideas, see our 3 previous posts on green & socially-conscious gift-giving:
1) Six Great Tips for Earth-friendly No-shopping Gifts! Click here
2) Great Tips for Socially-conscious Gifts Like Fair-trade Chocolates! Click here
3) More Green Ideas forSustainable Holiday Gifts. Click here

Keywords:: tips for a green holiday tips for a green christmas energy efficient holiday energy efficient christmas earth-friendly gifts socially conscious gifts

Top 5 ways livestock are wrecking the planet

Photo: Sally Kneidel

Helping the environment is just one reason for dumping animal products from your diet. But it's a big one. It may be the most powerful choice you can make to help our ailing planet.

If your family gives you a hard time during the upcoming holidays for rejecting that turkey leg, tell them some of these surprising eco-facts about the havoc wrought by livestock.

1. LIVESTOCK DRIVE CLIMATE CHANGE
The livestock sector is responsible for at least half of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions. That's according to two environmental-assessment specialists employed by the World Bank Group, Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang. Their meticulous analysis is reported in their landmark Worldwatch article "Livestock and Climate Change". Check out this short summary of Goodland's and Anhang's work. See also "Diet for a low-carbon planet" by Alan Miller, for the same conclusion. How can livestock generate such a volume of GHG? Fermentation in the guts of livestock creates 37% of human-induced methane; methane is much more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2. Deforestation to graze livestock or to grow their feed is another major source of emissions. Goodland and Anhang also assess the carbon in livestock respiration. "Livestock (like automobiles) are a human invention and convenience, not part of pre-human times, and a molecule of CO2 exhaled by livestock is no more natural than one from an auto tailpipe."

2. LIVESTOCK WORSEN WATER SHORTAGES
Nearly half of all the water used in the United States goes to raising animals for the dinner table, according to calculations by author John Robbins. Water usage is a major environmental concern, given that water shortages are cropping up all over the planet these days. Droughts due to climate change, and the booming human population, contribute to the problem. But the livestock sector is responsible too - using vast quantities of water to irrigate feed crops for livestock. One pound of beef requires 2,400 gallons of water to produce, while one pound of wheat requires only 25 to 108 gallons. Notice, that's the water for just one pound of beef. A typical "2 sides of beef" from one steer weigh 700 lbs when arriving at the grocery. You do the math.

3. LIVESTOCK DOMINATE ARABLE LAND
Livestock production accounts for 70% of all agricultural land on the planet, and 30% of the land surface of the planet. Consider this in relation to the fact that the world's human population has expanded from 6 billion to 7 billion in just the last 12 years - more and more people needing to be fed. Expansion of livestock production is a key factor in deforestation, especially in Latin America. 70% of previously forested land in the Amazon is occupied by pastures, and livestock feedcrops cover a large part of the remainder. In addition to deforestation, about 70% of grasslands in dry areas have been degraded by overgrazing, compaction, and erosion by livestock. These facts are all reported in "Livestock's Long Shadow," a 2006 research document from the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization.

4. LIVESTOCK POLLUTE
Livestock is the world's largest source of water pollution, according to the United Nations' FAO. Major sources of pollution from livestock production include animal waste, antibiotics and hormones, fertilizers and pesticides used on their feedcrops, and sediments from eroded pastures or trampled streams. In the U.S., livestock are responsible for 55% of erosion and sediment, 37% of pesticide use, and a third of all N and Ph pollution of freshwater.

5. BIODIVERSITY SLAMMED BY LIVESTOCK
A third of all mammal species are in danger of becoming extinct. A full 40% of the planet's mammals are victims of habitat loss and degradation. So reported the 2008 conference of the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), a group that includes more than 1,000 government agencies and NGOs, conservation groups, and 11,000 scientists in 160 countries. And it's going to get a lot worse before the century is over. The causes of habitat loss and degradation? Livestock is a big one. Conservation International has identified 35 global hotspots for biodiversity, defined by species richness and high levels of habitat loss. Of those, 23 are affected by livestock production. Of 825 terrestrial eco-regions identified by the Worldwide Fund for Nature, 306 are threatened by livestock.

WANT TO HELP?
Choose plant-based foods, and explain why to everyone you know.
Average Americans eat between 216 and 246 lbs of meat per year, far more than residents of any other country. In the U.S., around 60% of our grain goes to livestock, a very inefficient use of our agricultural lands. Feeding the grain to people directly could feed up to 10 times more people than feeding the meat to people. Or, another way of looking at it - we could stop converting natural lands to agricultural lands if we made more efficient use of the farms we have now. What can you do? Simply eating less meat can help. Even a couple of meatless days a week will reduce your ecological footprint. Going vegetarian or vegan is even better. Check out the recipes and new vegan cookbooks reviewed on this site.

Coming up in 2 later posts:

Top 5 Health Reasons to Bypass Animal Products
Top 5 Humane Reasons to Choose a Plant-based Diet

Keywords: livestock Livestock and Climate Change Jeff Anhang Robert Goodland climate change water shortage water pollution land usage biodiversity impact of livestock impacts of livestock bad effects of livestock livestock and land degradation

New food book slams it home: "Healthy Eating, Healthy World"

Young hogs on a N.C. factory farm.  Photo: Sally Kneidel

I was recently asked to review the book Healthy Eating Healthy World. Imagining it to be a cookbook, I readily agreed. But when the book arrived in my mailbox, I was surprised to find not a cookbook but an impressive and comprehensive volume as to why humans must stop consuming animal products, and fast. I already have a number of books about the damage and suffering caused by the meat industry and the ingestion of flesh, eggs, and dairy. Consider Diet for a New America, Food Revolution, The Way We Eat, Forks Over Knives, Eating Animals, Animal Factory, The China Study, my own Veggie Revolution, among others. Why would anyone need another book on the subject?  Is this one special?

A go-to source for all the evidence
It is special. Healthy Eating, Healthy World by J. Morris Hicks is one of the very few books that cover just about every major argument that can be made for choosing a plant-based diet. The information in the book is documented by scientific studies, cited in Hicks' 306 footnotes. The book contains few if any brand-new revelations; rather, its merit lies in its tying together scads of information from disparate angles and sources. Hicks has painted the big picture - how livestock are no longer compatible with a viable future for a planet with shrinking resources and a mushrooming population. Nor are animal products improving our personal health and longevity.

Vegan diet reduces chance of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, assorted cancers
The first part of the book reviews the considerable health benefits of a plant-derived diet. Hicks summarizes the findings of Dr. T. Colin Campbell, co-author of The China Study, and the medical research of Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, whose prescribed plant-based diet actually reverses heart damage in his patients. These specific health benefits of vegan dining have been described elsewhere, in the documentary Planeat for example, but warrant inclusion in Hicks' book as well. A plant-derived diet has been shown to reduce the likelihood of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, various cancers, and other ailments. Citing research, Hicks also dispels common myths about vegan diets, such as difficulty in getting enough protein, calcium, Vitamin B12, omega-3 fatty acids, and so on.

Meat industry is a key driver of oil depletion
Since health is a prime motivator among those who shun animal products, health was a good place for Hicks to begin his exposition. But the next part of the book is the dearest to my own heart - the section on how the meat and dairy industry impact our fragile planet. The most "special" aspect of Hicks' book to me is his description of how the livestock sector is accelerating the oncoming freight-train that will entirely derail modern society - the ominous but inevitable "end of oil."  From the oil-based fertilizers for feedcrops to the refrigerated trucks that transport packaged loins and rump roasts, the animal-product industries consistently slurp down 30% of the oil used on the planet. Your switching to an animal-free diet will do more to protect our oil reserves than switching to a hybrid car.

Greenhouse gases, deforestation, pollution...
Hicks of course addresses the standard environmental complaints about the meat industry - deforestation for grazing and the cultivation of feedcrops, pollution from the 9 truckloads of livestock waste per year per person in the U.S., and the volume of greenhouse gases resulting from the creation and distribution of animal-products.

Hell on earth
Hicks also has a chapter entitled "Hell on Earth" that reports on the unrelenting misery of animals raised on factory farms, a well-documented fact by now, which I photographed and wrote about myself (with my co-author) in Veggie Revolution and Going Green. This suffering has been going on since animal production began to be industrialized in the mid-1900s. Peter Singer and Jim Mason first detailed the heinous and hidden operations of CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) in their landmark 1980 book Animal Factories.

What to do
The last part of Hicks' book is about solutions and his prescription for change, which is worth reading. For the individual, the change is simple. Buy some vegan cookbooks, or look for vegan meal plans on the internet, and stop eating animal products.

Be a shopping-cart activist
I enthusiastically recommend this book, because changing the way we eat is perhaps the most powerful action we can take to improve the future prospects of our trampled planet, our civilization, and our health. Anyone can easily do it, with so many wholesome and tasty plant-based options in markets these days.

A strong educational tool
Hicks' book is a great resource for anyone interested in health, animal welfare, wildlife, the environment, climate change, and the end of oil. The book is an especially useful tool for educators - to inform their own lessons, or to assign as student-reading. It's also especially useful for parents because they're shaping the future pilots of spaceship Earth - and frightfully few people, at present, understand the heavy repercussions of our diet choices.

Should have included...
I wish Hicks had written more about climate change and the mass wildlife extinctions that will result from climate change and are underway right now. I wish he had referenced the so-important work of Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang, two World Bank scientists who documented that the livestock sector is responsible for half of the world's greenhouse gases. Their paper "Livestock and Climate Change," published by Worldwatch Institute, is in my view one of the most important papers published in the last decade. Instead, Hicks referenced "Livestock's Long Shadow" by U.N. scientists, which is a valuable analysis, but is outdated by the work of Goodland and Anhang.

For a deeper and more thorough coverage, read Lester Brown's work
In spite of these shortcomings, Healthy Eating Healthy World is among the most useful current volumes to review most ramifications of our diet choices. For those who want more in-depth coverage of our environmental crisis including the role of livestock, I strongly recommend Lester R. Brown's Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization. Lester Brown is founder of Worldwatch Institute, founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute, and author or co-author of more than 50 books on global environmental issues. He has been honored with multiple prizes worldwide.

More books about the end-of-oil, and sustainability solutions
I also recommend these four books on the over-exploitation of the planet and what we can do about it: The Long Emergency, The Post Carbon Reader, The End of Growth, and Deep Green Resistance (or other books by Derrick Jensen).

Some of my other recent reviews of books and DVDs about food:
My review of vegan cookbook "Blissful Bites: Food bytes from an inspired chef"
Urban gardening in offbeat settings: My review of DVD "Truck Farm"
My review of new vegetarian cookbook: "Veggiyana: The Dharma of Cooking"
My review of documentary "PLANEAT: Nothing changes the planet as much as the way we eat"
The Happy Herbivore: Best, most versatile cookbook since Moosewood
My review of new food film: "What's on YOUR plate?"

Keywords: Healthy Eating Healthy World J. Morris Hicks food book review Lester Brown Lester R. Brown Derrick Jensen end of oil climate change livestock sector Jeff Anhang Robert Goodland meat industry sustainability vegan diet

Campus "Meatless Day" raises environmental awareness

Our school is considering a "meatless day" campuswide this spring, to increase awareness of the environmental damage caused by livestock around the globe. The food service that operates our school cafeteria has agreed to facilitate our meatless day. My husband Ken, a biology teacher, has written this summary for students and faculty, to explain the impact of livestock on the world environment:

Eating meat is an inefficient use of our diminishing natural resources: land, water, and clean air. We could feed the human population with much less agricultural land if we ate the grains that we presently feed our livestock. For example, it takes 7 lbs of grain to produce a 1 lb weight gain in a steer. A hog needs more than 3 lbs of grain for a 1 lb weight gain. For poultry and herbivorous species of farmed fish, 2 lbs of feed is needed for a 1 lb weight gain (Brown, 2008). Stated another way, we consume fewer natural resources when we ourselves eat the plant-based foods that we feed livestock, rather than running them through animal bodies first.

A closer look at our soybean harvest, as an example, illuminates how this inefficiency makes switching to a vegetarian lifestyle a wise choice. In 2007, the world grew 222 million tons of soybeans, only 20 million of which was consumed directly as tofu, soy milk, veggie burgers, etc. Thirty-seven million tons were used in making soybean oil; the remaining 165 million tons were fed to cattle, pigs, chicken, and fish (Brown, 2008). Averaging the inefficiencies mentioned in the previous paragraph gives roughly 4 pounds of feed needed to produce 1 pounds of meat, a ratio of four to one. This means that the 165 million tons of soybeans we feed to livestock yields only 41 million tons of meat. If we replace this 41 million tons of meat in our diet with 41 million tons of soybean products (eating them directly rather than feeding them to livestock), that would make the remaining 124 million tons of soybeans we grow unnecessary. The same argument can be made for other crops we feed to livestock as well – most of the corn and oats we grow are fed to livestock rather than eaten directly by humans. As shown below, every acre of land not used for farming in the world would act in many ways to improve the health of our planet.

Right now 70% of the agricultural land on earth (and 30% of the earth’s land surface) is set aside for livestock pastures or growing food for livestock (Steinfeld et al., 2006). Every acre that we free up and return to its natural state would reduce our demand for water, expand forests and other natural habitats, and lower the volume of pesticides, herbicides, and antibiotics we release into the environment.

Pasture that was once forest (photo courtesy of www.biology.duke.edu)

Since much of the feed we grow for livestock is irrigated, raising livestock consumes an enormous amount of water. Worldwide, the livestock sector accounts for 8% of water used for human activities. Raising one steer, for example, requires 1.2 million gallons of water, considering the irrigation of the steer’s feedcrops. Producing one pound of ground beef requires 5214 gallons, while one pound of either lettuce, potatoes, tomatoes, or wheat, requires only 23 to 25 gallons (Robbins and Ornish, 2001)

As an example of how the livestock industry impacts habitat destruction and deforestation, consider our loss of tropical rain forests. Thus far, roughly 20% of the Amazon rainforest has been cleared either for cattle ranching or soybean farming (soybeans primarily for livestock feed). Tropical rain forests have been estimated to contain from one-third to one-half of the world’s species. As these forests are cut, our global biodiversity will plummet.

In contrast, livestock are so numerous that they account already for 20% of the total mass of all land animals on earth. They preempt 30% of the earth’s land surface from occupation by wildlife. Besides driving deforestation, the livestock industry is one of the main factors behind land degradation, overfishing, sedimentation of coastal areas, and facilitation of invasions by alien species (Steinfeld et al., 2006).

What about the atmosphere and climate change? The livestock sector is responsible for 18% of global greenhouse-gas production. It has a larger impact on climate change than transportation, making eating less meat just as important, if not more so, than buying a hybrid vehicle, switching to fluorescent lights, or buying Energy Star appliances, etc. The livestock industry accounts for 9% of our CO₂ emissions, 37% of methane, and 65% of nitrous oxide (all are greenhouse gases). The latter two are more important than many people realize. Methane has 23 times the global warming potential as CO₂, molecule per molecule, while nitrous oxide has 296 times.

Livestock is also responsible for 64% of our ammonia production, which contributes significantly to acid rain and acidification of ecosystems (Steinfeld et al., 2006). The loss of trees due to acid rain reduces the earth's ability to absorb CO₂ through photosynthesis, and impacts climate directly by altering weather patterns. A tropical forest cools the air around it while cropland heats it; forest loss affects climate around the world.

The livestock industry is also a major water polluter. Livestock produce 291 billion pounds of manure per year in the US – six times the amount of human sewage (1 steer produces 50-60 lbs of manure a day, one dairy cow 120 lbs (Robbins and Ornish, 2001)). None of this waste is sent to a treatment plant; instead it’s sprayed over cropland or housed in lagoons that leak. This waste matter ultimately works its way into our water supply. Nitrate concentrations under hog-waste lagoons have been measured at 10 times safe levels set by the EPA (Kneidel and Kneidel, 2005).

On a factory farm, hog waste pours from automated hog sheds into a "waste lagoon"

Our environment is also becoming polluted with antibiotics as a result of their use in the livestock industry. Every year, approximately 25 million pounds of antibiotics and related drugs are administered to animals in sub-therapeutic purposes, primarily for the purpose of boosting growth rates. This is more than eight times the amount used to treat disease in humans (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2003). Livestock typically shed in their feces up to 90% of the antibiotics fed to them, leading to antibiotic resistance in soil bacteria. Research has shown that using manure to fertilize soils also leads to the incorporation of unaltered antibiotics into plant matter, and therefore into our diet (Kumar et al., 2005).

Americans lead the way by far in per capita meat consumption. The average American eats 246 pounds of meat per year (74.4 billion pounds for 300 million people); other industrialized nations eat an average of 176 pounds per person per year; 66 pounds pp per year in developing nations (Nierenberg, 2005). Unfortunately the amount of meat being eaten across the globe is increasing. World meat consumption has more than doubled between 1950 and 2005. Consumption of milk and eggs has also risen. In every country where incomes have risen, meat consumption has too (Brown, 2008).

With our population projected to increase from 6.6 billion to 9.2 billion by 2050, it’s clear that we just can’t go on eating as much meat as we’re eating today. Change is easy. One day at a time. We can all start with one meatless day per week.

Photo courtesy of www.nytimes.com

Sources:

Brown, L.R. Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization. New York, N.Y.: W.W. Norton & Co, 2008.

Kneidel, S., and S.K. Kneidel. Veggie Revolution: Smart Choices for a Healthy Body and a Healthy Planet. Fulcrum Publishing, 2005. http://veggierevolution.blogspot.com

Kumar, K., S.C. Gupta, S.K. Baidoo, Y. Chander, and C.J. Rosen. 2005. “Antibiotic uptake by plants from soil fertilized with animal manure”. Journal of Environmental Quality, 2005, 34:2082-2085.

Nierenberg, D. “Worldwatch Paper #171: Happier Meals: Rethinking the Global Meat Industry.” Worldwatch Institute, 2005. http://www.wellfedworld.org/PDF/WorldWatch%20Happier%20Meals.pdf

Robbins, J., and D. Ornish. The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and the World. Berkeley, Calif.: Conari Press, 2001.

Steinfeld, H., P. Gerber, T. Wassenaar, V. Castel, M Rosales, and C. de Haan. “Livestock’s long shadow: environmental issues and options”. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2006. http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.htm

Union of Concerned Scientists. “Food and Environment: Antibiotic Resistance”. October 2003.

Keywords:: campus meatless day environmental impact of meat