Why is it that eating less meat or vegetarianism helps fight global warming?
Answer:
I am tree hugger, I just read an article about that. To me it sounds quite ridiculous. It is supposed to be because we will burp less. I really think that Imus have misunderstood the article though. I am all for going green. But that does not make sense. This is my way of answering. Hope it helps.
It doesn't. The only way it could help at all would be there would be less of a need for livestock and thus less methane.
Producing meat is much more energy intensive than producing plant based food. The animals eat much more food than they will every produce. This food they eat needs to be harvested and transported which takes up a lot of energy.
If people stopped eating meat & cows weren't needed, there would be less methane (from their farts) in the air. The methane mixes with other greenhouse gases and the mixture traps in heat.
http://www.show.me.uk/site/news/sto873.h...
One reason would be less demand for livestock, especially beef. The reason being is cows produce large amounts of methane which is a greenhouse gas and as we all know greenhouse gases effect global warming.
like mentioned above, the energy to produce food from livestock in immense compared to plants. afterall, you have to feed them plants matter which has to be grown and harvested just like the plants we use for food. Then all the machinery it takes to feed them, water them, milk or slaughter them, and you still have shipping on top of that.
then you have the methane that is created by their waste , when it degrades, and their digestion.
for 125 head of cattle milked a day, I feed 6-9 batches of feed each day. This feed has to be mixed in 1530 lb batches in a mixer that consumes more energy than all the appliances in your home combined. after it is mixed it is fed via conveyers to transport it to the feed bunks. that alone, take a huge amount of electrcity, and we haven't even discussed getting the stuff into the silos prior to mixing it for feed.
OK here's the theory as I know it: The production of livestock for food uses an enormous amount of fuel and water and land.
For example; one beef cow consumes hundreds of gallons of water and requires 3-4 acres of grazing area to bring it to market. Iowa is about 90% agricultural land, less than 5% of that land is used for growing human food. Most of the production is limited to corn & soybeans sold as animal feed. These crops are extremely energy intensive - one of the arguments against growing corn to produce ethanol is the fuel and petroleum bases fertilizers required to grow hybrid corn. This 'monocropping', as it's called, also promotes the emergence of opportunistic pests that require evermore poisonous insecticide applications or the genetic manipulation of plants for resistance.
So, the theory goes that if humans reduced their demand for meat protein, it would accomplish two results: lessening the demand and therefore the production of energy intensive crops like feed corn & soybeans, and free up more land for growing human food produce.
Also cows produce lots of Methane when they flatulate, which they do a lot.
A lot of good answers, but this pertains to modern meat production. Cattle do not require a high grain diet. We feed them grain to increase the yield of beef or dairy products. Cows normally graze on grasses like most other bovids. Producing grass and straw takes less resources than any crops for human consumption. But the practical fact is that we can't meet the beef and dairy demand of people today without grain-fed cattle.
Check out this video:
http://www.google.co.uk/group/fairair...
So, short answer is that eating less meat CAN help the environment.
As for all the manure/methane: manure is a great natural fertilizer, plus if we devise efficient ways of capturing this methane, it can be used as a renewable "bio-fuel".
Eating little or no meat uses a lot less resources and causes a lot less pollution. I read, in Fast Food Nation, that one steer gives 50 pounds of manure a day! It is stored in "lagoons." Don't want that stored anywhere near where I live. Think what would happen if there was a flood. Yuck! For the past several years I have avoided animal products including leather.
1. While methane is a more potent greenhouse gas (23 times more heat absorbed than carbon dioxide) than carbon dioxide, it is present in the atmosphere at far, far lower concentrations (about 220 times lower) and carbon dioxide is being added to more quickly than methane. It is not a significant problem compared to carbon dioxide as you can see and is responsible for 1 percent or less of the total increase in global average temperatures.
2. Increased energy usage isn't the problem, we will always need more and more energy and we simply don't have the option of relying on no energy. We need to switch to efficient processes of distributing and using energy and MOST importantly we need to switch methods of energy generation that will not cause global climate change. The most sensible answer is geothermal power - it doesn't cause emissions, is sustainable (for thousands of years, powering the entire world according to MIT studies done in 2006), isn't reliant on sunlight or wind so it doesn't require a backup power source, is cheaper than "clean" coal, wind, solar, nuclear or any other alternative power, it is water efficient unlike fossil fuel or nuclear power plants, doesn't create radioactive wastes, doesn't require mining and can easily be done with current technology. It can also be done on a much smaller scale than fossil fuel or nuclear power plants allowing for a partially distributed power system that would mean less loss of energy in transporting power to the location it needs to be used at. Using geothermal power and a more sensible approach to agriculture in general (I note that rainforests are being hacked into to grow coffee, palms for oils and plants for producing ethanol too - more so than to breed cows) would prevent this from being a problem.
3. Vegetarianism isn't likely to be that healthy long term - humans have evolved as omnivores and need a varied diet... sorry but every vegetarian I've ever personally met has relatively poor health.
The answers post by the user, for information only, FunQA.com does not guarantee the right.
More Questions and Answers: