When are we going to pay attention?

In a recent article in Granville magazine and article by Tyee Bridge caught our attention.

"So far, we've heard the human population worldwide has doubled since 1960, and, in a multitude of ways, that social injustice and ecological desecration are increasing at exponential rates. According to a Harris poll of thousands of conservation biologists at the American Institute of Biological Sciences, we've been told that humans are responsible for the greatest species extinction since the dinosaurs. We have been such a disaster for other animals that the Holocene, our current 10,000 year epoch, is now being referred to as the Sixth Extinction. We've devoured 90 percent of large ocean fish, and 90 per cent of African lions and elephants have been lost to poaching or habitat destruction; every species of tiger on the planet is on the "absolute edge" of extinction. About 30 species of plants and animals go extinct every day. At current rates, in the 65 years from 1980 to 2045, humans will have extinguished more species than have disappeared in the past 65 million years."

Burgers are the Hummers of food

Published on Monday, February 16, 2009 by Agence France Presse

Hamburgers are the Hummers of Food in Global Warming: Scientists

by Agence France Presse

CHICAGO - When it comes to global warming, hamburgers are the Hummers of food, scientists say.

Simply switching from steak to salad could cut as much carbon as leaving the car at home a couple days a week.

That's because beef is such an incredibly inefficient food to produce and cows release so much harmful methane into the atmosphere, said Nathan Pelletier of Dalhousie University in Canada.

Pelletier is one of a growing number of scientists studying the environmental costs of food from field to plate.

By looking at everything from how much grain a cow eats before it is ready for slaughter to the emissions released by manure, they are getting a clearer idea of the true costs of food.

The livestock sector is estimated to account for 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and beef is the biggest culprit.

Even though beef only accounts for 30 percent of meat consumption in the developed world it's responsible for 78 percent of the emissions, Pelletier said Sunday at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

That's because a single kilogram of beef produces 16 kilograms carbon dioxide equivalent emissions: four times higher than pork and more than ten times as much as a kilogram of poultry, Pelletier said.

If people were to simply switch from beef to chicken, emissions would be cut by 70 percent, Pelletier said.

Another part of the problem is people are eating far more meat than they need to.

"Meat once was a luxury in our diet," Pelletier said. "We used to eat it once a week. Now we eat it every day."

If meat consumption in the developed world was cut from the current level of about 90 kilograms a year to the recommended level of 53 kilograms a year, livestock related emissions would fall by 44 percent.

"Given the projected doubling of (global) meat production by 2050, we're going to have to cut our emissions by half just to maintain current levels," Pelletier said.

"Technical improvements are not going to get us there."

That's why changing the kinds of food people eat is so important, said Chris Weber, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania.

Food is the third largest contributor to the average US household's carbon footprint after driving and utilities, and in Europe - where people drive less and have smaller homes - it has an even greater impact.

"Food is of particular importance to a consumer's impact because it's a daily choice that is, at least in theory, easy to change," Weber said.

"You make your choice every day about what to eat, but once you have a house and a car you're locked into that for a while."

The average US household contributes about five tons of carbon dioxide a year by driving and about 3.5 tons of equivalent emissions with what they eat, he said.

"Switching to no red meat and no dairy products is the equivalent of (cutting out) 8,100 miles driven in a car ... that gets 25 miles to the gallon," Weber said in an interview following the symposium.

Buying local meat and produce will not have nearly the same effect, he cautioned.

That's because only five percent of the emissions related to food come from transporting food to market.

"You can have a much bigger impact by shifting just one day a week from meat and dairy to anything else than going local every day of the year," Weber said.

For more information on how to eat a low carbon diet, visit www.eatlowcarbon.org.

Copyright © 2009 AFP.

Signs of early stage global warming.

From THE BOILING POINT, by Ross Gelbspan

One of the first signs of early-stage global warming is an increase in weather extremes - longer droughts, more heart waves, more severe storms, and much more intense, severe dumps of rain and snow. Today, extreme weather events constitute a much larger portion of news budgets than they did twenty years ago.

Global warming, even without the amplification of periodic El Ninos - is palpably changing the nature of our weather. It is almost as though nature is saying: "Look out the window. Time's up."