Giving Up Meat One Day A Week Could Help Climate

TIME:

Need another reason to feel guilty about feeding your children that Happy Meal -- aside from the fat, the calories and that voice in your head asking why you can't be bothered to actually cook a well-balanced meal now and then? Rajendra Pachauri would like to offer you one. The head of the U.N.'s Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Pachauri on Monday urged people around the world to cut back on meat in order to combat climate change. "Give up meat for one day [per week] at least initially, and decrease it from there," Pachauri told Britain's Observer newspaper. "In terms of immediacy of action and the feasibility of bringing about reductions in a short period of time, it clearly is the most attractive opportunity." So, that addiction to pork and beef isn't just clogging your arteries; it's flame-broiling the earth, too.

By the numbers, Pachauri is absolutely right. In a 2006 report, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) concluded that worldwide livestock farming generates 18% of the planet's greenhouse gas emissions -- by comparison, all the world's cars, trains, planes and boats account for a combined 13% of greenhouse gas emissions. Much of livestock's contribution to global warming come from deforestation, as the growing demand for meat results in trees being cut down to make space for pasture or farmland to grow animal feed. Livestock takes up a lot of space -- nearly one-third of the earth's entire landmass. In Latin America, the FAO estimates that some 70% of former forest cover has been converted for grazing. Lost forest cover heats the planet, because trees absorb CO2 while they're alive -- and when they're burned or cut down, the greenhouse gas is released back into the atmosphere.

Read the whole story: TIME

Comments

[JScott]

02:53 PM on 09/21/2008

Or humans could quit popping out so many babies, but no one wants to talk about that.

[DanSmith]

06:29 AM on 09/21/2008

Great News! We can finally solve global warming by having a real solution now. Eat less meat everyone! Or go veg.

[Swerinjer]

02:50 PM on 09/19/2008

But its so tasty.

Seriously I love PETA and the vegans. I was vegan for 2 years myself. But yo, check out the Weston A Price Foundation. They turned me around on the eating of meat. That's meat.

[marymansour]

11:02 AM on 09/18/2008

I have already given it up for the full seven.

[NL207]

10:08 AM on 09/18/2008

Then you are asserting that practicing Roman Catholics are Green?

[RightWingMarine]

11:14 AM on 09/16/2008

An overlooked solution to this is to slaughter all the cows until they are extinct. We would be eliminating 18% of the worlds greenhouse gas emissions.

[CrzyRussell]

11:39 PM on 09/16/2008

We could have one huge Texas BBQ! Yummy.

[Swerinjer]

02:51 PM on 09/19/2008

That's not even counting the secondary emissions from eating beef.

[FearlessFreep]

12:25 AM on 09/16/2008

It's been done before. In both World Wars they had meatless days to discourage excessive consumption.

[Pquilson]

07:55 PM on 09/15/2008

I am not a vegetarian, or vegan. I am an omnivore. I will continue to eat beef, poultry and fish, because that is how homo sapiens evolved, and because I like it.
By the way, CO2 is not a greenhouse gas.

[patianneb]

06:53 PM on 09/13/2008

For whatever it's worth, that Happy Meal doesn't come from a pastured animal but rather from a cow who has been milked almost to death in only 4-5 years and then is ground up for cheap hamburger, which makes the picture even worse.
Giving up meat one MORE day a week than people might already do is a fabulous idea for all of the reasons this article stated....even for non cow-huggers, the fact is the benefits to the planet and the individual's health are huge.
This is a great article; thanks for publishing it.

[motley2]

07:30 PM on 09/13/2008

What? The happy California cow thing isn't real? Bummer dude. Personally, I wish people in the US and Canada would give up beef because I've spent too much of my life trying to kill knapweed.

[johnnyjust]

04:28 PM on 09/13/2008

One day a week we should all stay in bed. No movement, no consuming, no energy usage.

And no exhaling.

[Swerinjer]

01:24 PM on 09/20/2008

Save water by pissing on your dishes.

[noneIn2008]

12:33 AM on 09/13/2008

The IPCC chairman now states that 18% of global warming is due to meat and only 13% is due to transportation. An interesting shell game? What is next?

[williamina]

12:46 PM on 09/11/2008

I want to do steak offsets. That carbon offset thing is a bonus and I think steak offsets will be too.

So, please, somebody not eat a steak this week and offset me?

[CrzyRussell]

07:11 PM on 09/12/2008

That's pretty good.

They can try to tell me what to drive.

They can try to tell me how to set my thermostat.

But they will NEVER take beef off of my plate.

[Swerinjer]

01:24 PM on 09/20/2008

shut up idiot.

[JScott]

10:38 AM on 09/11/2008

Cut down on the dairy too.
And stop with those food commercials that go heavy on the meaty cheesy bacony etc.

[jay1975]

09:15 AM on 09/11/2008

How about the morons who come out and say this stop breathing for one day? If everyone who advances these silly "fixes" would stop breathing, how much CO2 could be prevented from entering our atmosphere?

[Gasparilla]

10:45 PM on 09/12/2008

Smugness is not an argument. Why is it so silly to point out that meat production is contributing to global warming? We can also start working on the issue of overpopulation. In this country we can begin to address it by limiting immigration. That is the main reason our population is increasing so fast.

[mamacat]

06:42 AM on 09/11/2008

A very good suggestion. It is not necessary to become vegetarian, but it would be a good idea, for many reasons, to cut down on the amount of meat consumed.

[lbsaltzman]

08:49 AM on 09/11/2008

I am a vegetarian so this is easy for me, but if you eat meat there is a bigger issue. It is not how many times a week you eat meat, it is the kind of meat you eat. For your health and the health of the planet only buy locally grown organic meat that was grass and pasture feed, humanely raised, and slaughtered. You can find it if you really look for it. You can then eat meat as often as you can afford, though I don't think excess meat consumption is very healthy.

Read Michael Pallen's Omnivore'd Dilema and you will eagerly embrace the strategy I outlined, when you learn how the animals are raised and fed, and what the implications of that are for your health. Conventional meat is built on cruelty to animals, and is done in a manner designed to produce meat that will destroy your health, which I suppose is what some would call bad karma.

[LiberalBuzz]

05:14 PM on 09/11/2008

That's a pretty good idea. Wish someone would put up a website that directs everyone to stores that sell that sort of meat.

As for giving it up one day a week?

I generally give it up about 25 days a month. The occasional hamburger around 3 times a month and spaghetti with meatballs about 2 times a month. Otherwise it's chicken.