Corn-based meat and ethanol: burning the planet to a crisp
Tom Philpott, Grist
What do industrially produced meat and corn-based ethanol have in common?
Well, they both thrive on the assumption that it’s good idea to devote vast swaths of land to an incredibly resource-intensive crop—corn—and then run that crop through an energy-sucking process to create a product of dubious value.
And … they both got tagged as major drivers of climate change this past week.
Ethanol took the harder blow of the two, I think. It came wrapped in the Oct. 23 issue of Science. In a concise and devastating “policy forum” piece, a team of authors led by University of Minnesota researcher Tim Searchinger fingered a gaping defect in existing European and pending U.S. climate policy: biofuel gets treated as carbon-neutral, ignoring carbon emissions from land-use change. According to the paper ($ub req’d), the Kyoto Protocol, the European Union’s cap-and-trade law, and the final version of Waxman-Markey (the House climate bill that passed over the summer) all contain the a “far-reaching but fixable flaw”:
[They] does not count CO2 emitted from tailpipes and smokestacks when bioenergy is being used, but it also does not count changes in emissions from land use when biomass for energy is harvested or grown. This accounting erroneously treats all bioenergy as carbon neutral regardless of the source of the biomass, which may cause large differences in net emissions. For example, the clearing of long-established forests to burn wood or to grow energy crops is counted as a 100% reduction in energy emissions despite causing large releases of carbon.
…As for meat, get this: two researchers associated with the World Bank claim in a new World Watch piece (PDF) that meat production is responsible for more than half of global greenhouse gas emissions. Previously, the most widely cited estimate came from the FAO, which reckoned meat contributes an already-stunning 18 percent.
So why the difference in assessments? The biggest factor is respiration—the breathing out of C02—by livestock. According to the authors, livestock respiration adds massive carbon to the atmosphere—that factor alone, they claim, is equal to 13 percent of global annual GHG emissions.
…However, I agree that meat production is deeply implicated in climate change—and must be cut dramatically. But I find these authors’ conclusion stunning: They want to replace industrially raised meat with industrially raised soy. In place of a chicken in every pot, they want to see a “chicken” in every pot. They call on the food industry to dramatically scale up the production of highly processed fake meat—and even offer marketing advice. They declare:
A successful campaign would avoid negative themes and stress positive ones. For instance, recommending that meat not be eaten one day per week suggests deprivation. Instead, the campaign should pitch the theme of eating all week long a line of food products that is tasty, easy to prepare, and includes a “superfood,” such as soy, that will enrich their lives.
They also express enthusiasm for “artificial meat cultivated in laboratories from cells originating from livestock, sometimes called ‘in vitro’ meat.”
Sorry, but given ideas like that, I’m not ready to let a couple of World Bank guys dictate the future of cuisine. Getting a carnivorous culture to reduce meat consumption is going to be tricky no matter what. Rather than push folks to embrace soy weenies and test-tube “shmeat,” I’d rather see a revival of minimally processed rice and beans, a move toward meat as a side dish, and a return to diversified farming that uses manageable amounts of manure to nourish cropland. Let’s ban the CAFO—but not eviscerate what’s left of our palates.
(23 Oct 2009)
Earth matters – Tackling the climate crisis from the ground up
Grain
For many, soil is a mix of dirt and dust. But in reality soils are one of Earth’s most amazing living ecosystems. Millions of plants, bacteria, fungi, insects and other living organisms – most of them invisible to the naked human eye – are in a constantly evolving process of creating, composing and decomposing organic living matter. They are also the unavoidable starting point for anyone who wants to grow food.
Soils also contain enormous amounts of carbon, mostly in the form of organic matter. On a global scale soils hold more than twice as much carbon as is contained in terrestrial vegetation. The rise of industrial agriculture in the past century, however, has provoked, through its reliance on chemical fertilisers, a general disrespect for soil fertility and a massive loss of organic matter from the soil. Much of this lost organic matter has ended up in the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2) – the most important greenhouse gas.
The way that industrial agriculture has treated soils has been a key factor in provoking the current climate crisis. But soils can also be a part of the solution, to a much greater extent than is commonly acknowledged. According to our calculations, if we could manage to put back into the world’s agricultural soils the organic matter that we have been losing because of industrial agriculture, we would capture at least one third of the current excessive CO2 in the atmosphere. If, once we had done that, we were to continue rebuilding the soils, we would, after about 50 years, have captured about two thirds of the excess CO2 in the atmosphere. In the process, we would be constructing healthier and more productive soils and we would be able to do away with the use of chemical fertilisers, which are another potent producer of climate change gases.
Via Campesina has argued that agriculture based on small-scale farming, using agro-ecological production methods and oriented towards local markets, can cool the planet and feed the population (see Box 1). They are right, and the reasons lie largely in the soil….
(October 2009)
Extracted from a long article on the topic that is also available in PDF form
Loophole Deja Vu: Senate Climate Bill’s Agriculture Offsets Include Polluter Giveaway
Don Carr, EWG
Hearings began in the Senate last week on the Kerry-Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act. This bill, the companion legislation to the Waxman-Markey climate change bill passed by the House, aims for a 20 percent cut in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.
After a reading of the Senate bill’s agriculture offset provisions, however, Environmental Working Group’s Craig Cox warned that, “The Kerry-Boxer climate bill simply borrows the agriculture offset provisions in the House bill, and if those provisions remain in place, it opens a loophole big enough to let 67 of the dirtiest power plants off the hook for their emissions.”
Cox, EWG’s Midwest vice-president, manages our office in Ames, Iowa, and co-authored an analysis of the House version. He found that polluters could take credit for meeting their required pollution reductions by paying farmers simply to keep on doing what they were already doing — and without putting any new conservation practices in place. This could allow the equivalent of over 67 of the dirtiest power plants to avoid any controls on greenhouse gas emissions while missing the opportunity to encourage farmers to do more to protect the climate and our food supply.
Additionally, the Kerry-Boxer bill, like the House version, doesn’t do enough to guarantee that key conservation practices that generate credits for polluters will actually stay in place over the long-term. The so-called ‘permanence’ issue, a big concern for carbon conservation practices, raises the question…
…Go here for the full analysis of the House climate bill’s agriculture provisions
(2 November 2009)
Study claims meat creates half of all greenhouse gases
Martin Hickman, The Independent
Climate change emissions from meat production are far higher than currently estimated, according to a controversial new study that will fuel the debate on whether people should eat fewer animal products to help the environment.
In a paper published by a respected US thinktank, the Worldwatch Institute, two World Bank environmental advisers claim that instead of 18 per cent of global emissions being caused by meat, the true figure is 51 per cent.
They claim that United Nation’s figures have severely underestimated the greenhouse gases caused by tens of billions of cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry and other animals in three main areas: methane, land use and respiration.
Their findings – which are likely to prompt fierce debate among academics – come amid increasing from climate change experts calls for people to eat less meat.
In the 19-page report, Robert Goodland, a former lead environmental adviser to the World Bank, and Jeff Anhang, a current adviser, suggest that domesticated animals cause 32 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), more than the combined impact of industry and energy. The accepted figure is 18 per cent, taken from a landmark UN report in 2006, Livestock’s Long Shadow.
…Lord Stern of Brentford, author of the 2006 review into the economic consequences of global warming, added his name to the call last week, telling a newspaper interviewer: “Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources.”
…One leading expert on climate change and food, Tara Garnett, welcomed Goodland and Anhang’s calculations on methane, which she said had credibility, but she questioned other aspects of their work, saying she had no reason to dispute the UN’s position on CO2 caused by breathing. She also pointed out that they had changed scientific assumptions for livestock but not for other sources of methane, skewing the figures.
She said: “We are increasingly becoming aware that livestock farming at current scales is a major problem, and that they contribute significantly to greenhouse gases. But livestock farming also yields benefits – there are some areas of land that can’t be used for food crop production. Livestock manure can also contribute to soil fertility, and farm animals provide us with non food goods, such as leather and wool, which would need to be produced by another means, if it wasn’t a byproduct from animal farming.”
(1 Nov 2009)
You can access the report here
