Diet for a Warm Planet
The secret to cutting carbon? A dieting support group.
In 1985 i interviewed James Hansen at his nasa office in New York City about a problem called the greenhouse effect that few outside of science had heard of and fewer would take seriously for another 20 years. He was thoughtful and smart, only 44 years old, though he looked haggard from the battle behind him, as well as the battle he knew lay ahead—one man versus endless rounds of pundits, zealots, oilmen, politicians, journalists, scientists, naysayers, and fools.
The fight that would keep him on the ropes had begun in 1981, when Hansen proposed that the effects of global warming might show up in the real world, instead of just climate models, by 1990—not much later, as many in science were expecting. This early prophecy included uncanny predictions of droughts in North America, melting Antarctic ice sheets, and the opening of the Northwest Passage. More than two decades of bruising battles later, this past spring, Hansen delivered an urgent warning that we must trim atmospheric CO2 concentrations from 385 parts per million to 350 ppm—right now. (See "The Most Important Number on Earth.")
Hansen's number presents a staggering challenge. It insists we dramatically reduce emissions at a time when we're still increasing them by 2 ppm per year, and when little or nothing is happening on the political front. It demands the biggest collaborative effort in the history of our species.
So what can you and I do to set an example for the men who lead the world? How to jump from the Age of Exploitation to the Age of Sustainability and drag the corporate-military-agroindustrial machinery along with us? The path seems paradoxically disconnected—like the business plan of the South Park underpants gnomes: Step One, steal underpants...Step Three, get rich.
Step Two: Embark upon a fossil fuel diet. We need to tighten up, get fit, get agile, smart, and quick. We need to develop a boxer's stamina if we want to outlast the well-funded heavyweights who will fight us to the death before the referee Nature calls the fight.
In the world of birds, there's a long-distance traveler without equal, the 15-inch-long bar-tailed godwit. It's classified as a shorebird, one of those sandpiper species typically found along coastlines. Yet the bar-tailed godwit has a far more impressive curriculum vitae. It manages its hectic calendar and limited resources with a lithe professionalism that enables it to do what no other animal on earth can do—that is, to leave Alaskan shores and strike out over open water to fly nonstop for eight days and 7,200 miles without feeding or drinking before touching down in another hemisphere (New Zealand) during a different season (spring). Six months later, it repeats the feat in reverse, with a five-week feeding stop in China, for an annual round-trip of 16,500 miles. Each bird makes its first migration only three months after hatching, often in flocks composed solely of first-timers.
We don't know exactly how these pocket Herculeses manage such phenomenal labors. Their skill set includes some form of built-in gps and a meteorological aptitude that enables them to forecast low-pressure fronts a thousand miles away, and then launch in time to intercept their 60 mph tailwinds days later.
We do know that in every stage of their lives these birds are masters of energy management. They breed on the Alaskan tundra, harvesting berries (including, initially, last year's withered remnants) and seasonal blooms of insects. When their chicks fledge, they move to the shore and overhaul their diet entirely, probing tidal mudflats along Alaskan river deltas, where they transmute marine worms and clams into godwit. Eating is their primary work during these endless summer days, and by the time they launch south they are clinically obese, literally wobbling when they walk, with as much as 55 percent of their 1.5-pound bodies weighing in as fat—the heaviest fat loads recorded in any birds to date.
Yet once airborne they're sleek and efficient fliers. Somehow, just prior to flight, they shrink their digestive organs, while increasing their heart and breast muscles. They follow intelligent pathways through the air, hopping into the slipstream of useful weather systems, slingshotting around counterproductive ones, often clocking along at speeds of 60 mph. They regulate their energy by optimizing altitude, frequenting the cold, dry air at 15,000 feet in order to minimize energy loss through heat and water loss through evaporative cooling. They probably sleep half of their brains at a time, like migrating mallards.
By the time they arrive on New Zealand's tidal estuaries, they're down to half their starting weight, exhausted, bedraggled, and hungry—but just in time for the Southern Hemisphere's spring bounty. They've completed their epic flight without ingesting or combusting a drop of fuel.
They are what we need to be: small of footprint, capable of the long haul.
Our migration from the Profligate to the Sustainable Hemisphere requires us to trim atmospheric CO2 concentrations from 385 to 350 ppm, which we can do by cutting emissions by the same 10 percent. Right? Not quite. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations are rife with long-term feedbacks, both positive and negative, and our current saturation level reflects 250 years of anthropogenic emissions, not just last year's.
So how do we come up with a goal? I'm not a PhD in atmospheric sciences, and neither are you, probably, so this is more in the realm of the hypothetical diet, designed to make a qualitative difference while convincing the world's leaders that we're serious about forcing them to join us in the fight. The United States emits 13.1 trillion pounds of CO2 a year, 22 percent of the total annual global emissions—about 43,000 pounds per American. But before we start deconstructing the merits of fluorescent lightbulbs, let's consider the bigger picture. Yes, China is catching up and by some estimates has already surpassed us. Yet the vast majority of the 385 ppm clogging the atmosphere was emitted by us.
Since America is responsible for 22 percent of annual emissions, I suggest we set a target of shrinking our personal carbon footprint by 22 percent, or 9,606 pounds. If Americans all did this, it would mean we'd take a disproportionate chunk out of that 385 ppm—which China and India would fairly argue that we should. Twenty-two is a hefty number with an alliterative ring to it and is indicative of serious intentions. If enough of us pull it off, 22 percent has the power to fuel a movement our leaders will follow.
So what would a 22 percent diet look like? Step Two is all about losing weight.
Seriously. Body fat. My personal flab is not just a private matter between me and my coronary arteries. Nineteen percent of US energy usage—about as much as is used to fuel our cars—is spent growing and delivering food to the average American who consumes 2,200 pounds of food a year. That's a whopping 3,747 calories a day—or 1,200 to 1,700 more than needed for personal or planetary health. The skinny truth is that as much as 7.6 percent of total energy in the United States today is used to grow human fat, fat that translates to 3,300 pounds of carbon per person.
Sure, liposuction is an untapped fuel source—and New Zealander Pete Bethune extracted 3.38 ounces of his own fat to add to the biofuel powering his carbon-neutral boat, Earthrace. But a more sustainable strategy would be to avoid growing the fat in the first place. A comprehensive Cornell University study found that we could cut our food energy usage in half by simply eating less, cutting back on meat and junk food, and considering the source of our food.
For starters, half of our food energy use comes from producing and delivering meat and dairy. If we gave up just meat, we could maintain that hefty 3,747-calorie intake but consume 33 percent less in fossil fuels doing it. If Americans cut just one serving of meat a week, it would equal taking 5 million cars off the road.
One-third of those 3,747 daily calories comes from junk food—potato chips, soda, etc. We can save on fossil fuel costs in this area by installing more efficient lighting, heating, and cooling in the plants that make the stuff and by using less packaging materials. But we'd save a lot more if you and I simply bought less of it. A can of diet soda, for instance, delivers only 1 calorie of food energy at a cost of 2,100 calories to make the drink and the can. Transporting the components and the finished product costs even more, and shipping processed food and its packaging accounts for much of the problem of America's food averaging 1,500 travel miles before it's eaten.
Ideally, we'd eat our recommended 2,000 to 2,500 daily calories from food grown on smaller, traditional, and organic farms—particularly for dairy and meat, which are extremely energy intensive in their nonorganic forms. To make this work, though, we also need to buy locally, since organic can be grown halfway around the world, and that's hardly sustainable. True, local produce could find its way to your table via too many polluting pickup trucks, but buying locally from sustainable farms generally produces a smaller carbon footprint than factory farms with their fuel-heavy pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and travel miles.
But wait, you say, it's too expensive to buy all that local, organic, boutique food. Well, demand drives the market toward affordability. Today nearly 5,000 farmers markets across the US provide fresh neighborhood food to cities, suburbs, and rural areas. The number is growing (up 18 percent between 2004 and 2006) and the farmers are profiting ($1 billion in sales in 2005). The Agriculture Department now provides farmers market vouchers to low-income mothers and seniors—though not yet enough. The next big step in trimming fossil fuel costs is community-sponsored agriculture (csa), where paid subscriptions support a local small farmer, who supplies his subscribers with weekly deliveries of fresh, neighborhood food. There are now 2,000 csas nationwide. What begins as an elite market eventually becomes something common. But it only happens if you and I make it happen.
Our best friend in making it happen is higher fuel costs, which will eventually make some local food cheaper than distant food. Higher gas prices have already prompted Americans to cut back on driving over the last year by just under 5 percent. That's a bigger decline than during the gas crisis of the 1970s, and it was accomplished without too much pain.
To get to our goal we need more like a 25 percent decline in driving. That and one less 1,100-mile plane trip per person would save us each an estimated 2,365 pounds of carbon. Assuming we've saved 3,300 pounds of carbon by going on an actual diet, we've already gotten halfway to that 22 percent reduction in our carbon footprint without sweating. Closing the gap is easy. Even a middling hot water heater produces 3,000 lbs of carbon a year. So when the time comes to replace it, get an on-demand model that doesn't labor to keep 40 gallons of water hot round the clock. Until then, turn down the temperature to 120° F (carbon saved: 500 lbs). While you're at it, turn your thermostat down in winter and up in summer (2,000 lbs) and compensate with sweaters and solar shades or glazes. Hang your clothes to dry; you'll cut 1,440 pounds of carbon, plus gain a few meditative moments with your laundry. My personal favorite: Shop thrift stores. You get to be more of a recycler, less of a consumer, especially if you donate your stuff back when you're done with it. With almost every decision we make, there's a carbon way to look at it. (See "Where Carbon Comes From.") So do an audit. And share your goals with others. Diets work when we support each other. Just as no bar-tailed godwit can make it to New Zealand and back again on its own, neither can we. The secret to Step Two is to learn to flock. Any one of us changing out our lightbulbs is helpful. Many of us acting together becomes a force.
Before their migration, bar-tailed godwits gather on their staging areas to feed, but also to coordinate the group's intentions, demonstrating what we call migratory restlessness—the massed, circling, erratic flights, the constant kirRUC-kirRUC-kirRUC calls. Our advantage over the birds is that our voices carry beyond our bodies, allowing us to talk effortlessly across miles and languages.
Except that we don't. On life-and-death matters of sustainability, too many of us remain isolated and silent. A George Mason University study found that while a majority of American health department directors believe their region will suffer serious public health problems from climate change within 20 years, few have made any plans to detect, prevent, or adapt to these health threats—in part because they fear they don't know enough to speak. The authors conclude that Americans continue to erroneously view climate change as a threat only to species other than our own in part because health professionals remain silent.
When I blogged about this story, angry commenters, some identifying themselves as doctors, complained that health professionals could hardly be expected to solve global warming. That's not the point. Every one of us has a voice, and every one of us is an expert with our own authority to speak. Since when did we give our power away? A doctor can speak of the troubles in sight from increased heat stress, dehydration, migrating diseases. A mental health professional can speak of the post-traumatic stresses that shadow natural disasters. A computer programmer can speak authoritatively of the need to focus our technological skills on life-saving solutions. Parents can speak of the rights of their children to a functioning planet. Children can speak of their fear and anger at our silence. It's not about the right to speak, but the obligation.
But free speech is a free-for-all. How do we transition from clamor to consensus? Thomas Malone and Mark Klein of mit suggest we already have the power to harness computer technology and create a "collective intelligence" to address systemic problems, like climate change, that overwhelm our individual intelligence. They propose a Web-mediated discussion and decision-making forum called the Climate Collaboratium—"a kind of Wikipedia for controversial topics, a Sims game for the future of the planet, and an electronic democracy on steroids."
They suggest four intriguing—and increasingly sophisticated—means to move beyond argument to action: (1) Let online users vote on the issues and run daily simulations of the vote rankings; (2) let users vote within their areas of expertise (scientists within science), except in "values" choices where everyone has a vote, as in "How much economic sacrifice should we make now to reduce sea level rise for our great-grandchildren?"; (3) let users buy and sell predictions about uncertain future events, to be paid only if their predictions are correct; (4) create a "proxy democracy" whereby users could give their voting proxies to others—on scientific issues to the Union of Concerned Scientists, say, or on "values" issues to the Nature Conservancy. Within this cyberflock we might transform our most strident discussions into sound decisions and solid action.
The bar-tailed godwits massing on their staging grounds in Alaska swirl and bunch with elasticized precision. The collective brain of their bodies debates yes and no. On the day of departure, the deliberation rises to 1,500 feet to test the vote up there before descending to the mudflats again. When the decision is finalized, the flocks climb beyond sight, groups of 50 to 100 birds flying in echelons or V shapes, those masterpieces of aerodynamics and communications, each bird gaining lift from the upwash of wings ahead, each bird seeing unimpaired by what lies ahead, all listening to each other's calls.
"We have used up all slack in the schedule for actions needed to defuse the global warming time bomb," writes James Hansen, 20 years after telling Congress that climate change was already, certainly, under way. We're on the mudflats, the tide is rising, the sun is falling, the season is changing, we need to assess those weather systems a thousand miles away. Not one of us can escape the long trip. We still have time—just enough—Hansen says, to tighten up, get fit, get agile, smart, and quick, before the flock is scattered in catastrophic winds that not even the heavyweights will survive.
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This is non-scientific hogwash, and one more step toward blaming fat people for the world's demise.
Want to know why Americans weigh more than we did a generation ago? Because we're getting more calcium and protein and therefore our bones and muscles are denser. We're taller, on average, and have larger feet, hands and heads than our ancestors just 100 years ago.
I suppose we could all dedicate ourselves to a campaign of worldwide malnourishment, but to what end?
There are better ways to solve our very real climate problems than to continue to feed a diet and fitness industry that itself contributes to climate change by encouraging an international, large-scale epidemic of bulimia.
350 ppm
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It is clear by the number of informed, rational responses posted here that your readers are in the loop regarding climate change and the health epidemics of obesity and diabetes that the US suffers today and how they are linked. The health crisis in the US, of which I am intimately aware of as a healthcare provider, is fueled by cheap, non-nutrious food (the Earl Butz legacy), fast/fat food which is a very succesful strategy deliberately designed to make a larger consumer (Supersize Me), the sedentary lifestyle championed by the automotive culture and vacuous video/ OCB computer addictions. We spend 60% more time in our cars then we did 30 years ago and consequently are 40-50% fatter, childhood DM and obesity is epidemic and for the first time in US history we have seen the average lifespan fall. The research shows that eating less prolongs life. Eating well prolongs life and exercise prolongs life and brain function also. There is no more debate about these health issues then there is about the causes of climate change. Addiction is a terrible thing whether it be to an oil based economy or the consumption of illness creating comfort food.
A wonderful article! Thank you for the information Julia.
Unfortunatly the fact that I am the ONLY respondent so far speaks VOLUMES about how difficult it will be to alert the "ignorant masses" about the MOST IMPORTANT issue that faces our civilization since the dawn of humanity.
The safe amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is "350" parts per million. We are NOW at "387" parts per million! The time for debate and speculation is OVER. The time for ACTION is NOW! This is the most important legacy we will leave for our children and grandchildren. Let's make it a good and proper legacy!
THE MOST IMPORTANT NUMBER ON THE PLANET........."350"!
Go to www.350.org to find out why.
People probably need to lose weight anyway, but I heard that something like 50% of American food is simply thrown away. We simply grow too much food. Mainly corn. Which requires a lot of petroleum input to grow it the way we do. And is eaten by feedlot animals who produce methane, a greenhouse gas.
If we stopped subsidizing corn, and started subsidizing farmers with low-carbon output (organic/sustainable), it could really change things.
Wow...this was a really good article. Probably one of the best I've read on MJ.
Why are people so surprised by this article. I find it pathetic that people don't have the common sense to see the relationship between factory farming and global warming. It's sad that you have to be sat down and have it explained to you like a child. Stop being fat and lazy and start cooking your own meal, and stop eating meat.
I started bicycling to work 3 years ago. I became a fish vegetarian two years ago, and joined a CSA this year. I don't use the dryer. I just turned down my hot water heater to the maximim heat I need without mixing it with cold water, like most people do. I am down to one bag of garbage a month (outside of recylcing), and preparing to put in a garden, though I don't know how to garden. I am building a composter out of 2 by 4s, and right now throw compost directly onto the garden. I still eat 'fast' food at lunch, and those damn styrofoam containers, which I am trying to find a substitute for on the internet. If I made my lunch each day, then it would be something.
However, everything I do won't be enough unless other people do it. And most people have made only tiny changes in their habits, though this recession will spur more. But this will mean a contraction in the new products economy - and that is still good.
styrofoam
From the Washington State Dept of Ecology: Styrofoam takes over 50 years to biodegrade so maybe think twice about packing your lunch and save an aquatic organism at the same time. Check out www.mote.org for a comprehensive list of trash found in our oceans and the amount of time needed for each material to biodegrade. You will never look at a piece of trash the same again.
I'd love to see more articles about ways to save our global environment on MJ. I'm up to date, but lots of people aren't, or when they read articles about the damage being done to our planet, they don't want to believe it because it would mean a change in their life styles. The more people are presented with the facts, the more it will start to sink in. It will take time, considering how hard global corporations have been working for decades to convince people that environmetal issues aren't real. So please keep it up!
Excellent piece.
One thing I'd like to bring up is the difficulty I've had in the past in convincing climate skeptics that climate change is real. It seems to me that it's difficult to dislodge this delusional notion that it is a scam perpetrated by the "Left".
I wonder, what is the best way to begin to win over the stubborn (if ignorant) skeptics?
Hi JF, Watch this video. It
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Hi JF,
Watch this video. It will give you a bit of ammo to use when trying to win over those "stubborn (if ignorant) skeptics.
I'm in the middle of a sustainable management program right now, and this was one of the first things we had to watch.
It's worked really well for me so far. I hope it helps you out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ
Nice article-
I'm psyched to see that US carbon emissions appear poised to fall 2.5% this year! Here's hoping we can keep up the progress by signing a federal cap and trade system into law in 2009.
Onwards,
Dennis
www.setenergy.org
What you asked people to do doesn't register. It's like explaining why believing in gods is unhealthy. You just get a blank stare. As time goes on more and more people get it. There is hope.
I was responding to Chris 4:47:16 AM.
Excellent article--there have been many on the same subject but yours was succinct and evocative.
Given the near-inevitability of global warming, I think people should start planning in earnest for the conditions that are likely to exist.
For example, ground-level (tropospheric) ozone levels throughout the nation exceed both old and new standards set by EPA. But because of the laser-like focus on carbon footprints, that issue doesn't get as much attention. Not surprisingly, it's even more complicated to deal w/ than GHGs, because in addition to vehicle exhaust, a significant contributor to ozone formation is the lawncare industry--mowers, blowers, edgers, trimmers, etc. (another contributor is charcoal lighter fluid and the barbecues themselves, and paints.)
Locally, however, very few governments want to try to restrict someone's right to use a 2-stroke engine to move a pile of leaves to the curb where it will be picked up by a diesel-fueled particulate-emitting truck with attached vacuum. Or stop him or her from firing up the grill with Kingsford match-light cubes. Nasty stuff
Sustainability starts at home. Keep your leaves, people! But I digress
On a strict GHG basis, switching to electric equipment might not be the best way to go. But considering the gas-powered varieties' emissions of (ozone building blocks) NOx and VOCs, it would seem imperative that we do everything we can to lower ozone levels, which even at many ppb lower than the current federal standard can adversely affect seniors, children and people with asthma--a large percentage of most urban populations--
in my case, the metro DC area.
EPA has issued a new rule on small engines, which will force the very few manufacturers to come up with cleaner machines. It will take a few years for the new eqpt to be in use.
I'm concerned that the laserlike focus on carbon footprints will allow public officials to avoid taking action elsewhere.
Thank you for such an outstanding article. I'm sharing it with everyone I know. We are capable of 'flocking together' and bettering our existence, but must get beyond self. That's not on the corporate agenda.
Just saw an article on the brown clouds over Asia from China's Coal Industrial Complex-If China begins to experience the respiratory and asthma problems that caused the surge in our clean air thinking, it will be interesting to see a Communist Country crack down on Emissions-Total Government Control does have its good points!
Our best friend in making it
Our best friend in making it happen is higher fuel costs, which will eventually make some local food cheaper than distant food. Higher gas prices have already prompted Americans to cut back on driving over the last year by just under 5 percent. That's a bigger decline than during the gas crisis of the 1970s, and it was accomplished without too much pain.
Thank you for taking the time to inform us. I plan on circulating your article to friends and family. If we each do our small part, we can make a difference.
Where did they get this number for how many pounds consumed per year? Is this how many pounds we buy? If so, who says we're eating it all? And are we counting things like vinegar and baking soda and vegetable oils, which have other uses besides culinary?
Aside from that, can we quit with the fatphobia please? And why is more of this coming from so-called progressives than from anyone else?
Let me tell you something--that meat and dairy you think we should cut out of our diets? I gained the last fifty pounds of my obesity from eating--guess what--a vegan diet! Yep, I gain weight from eating too much starch! Ask around, actually SPEAK TO fat people instead of just talking garbage about us like you think the extra fat has subtracted IQ points and rendered us illiterate--you'll find quite a few stories like mine. The Pill and two pregnancies started it, and veganism did me in. And you don't have to go all the way vegan to have that happen--you just have to eat low-fat and base your diet on grains and pulses. That might be OK for a few freaks of nature, if you eat something like 1000 calories a day--but it doesn't work so great for the rest of us.
Furthermore, does anybody ever stop to think what kind of environmental damage is done by growing crops? No? Let me enlighten you. You know how eating beef is evil in global warming terms because cows fart? Cutting trees to grow a field of plant food is evil too, because termites eat fallen wood and termites fart. They put out easily as much methane as cattle do. And you can raise cattle under tree cover, and other meat animals as well--you can't grow grain there, though.
Can we have an honest discussion about this for once, please, instead of this echo chamber we've all been suffering for the past thirty years? You're supposed to be the big ol' muckrakers looking for the truth. Prove it.
In city traffic, just watch the idiots race from red light to red light. As soon as the light turns green, they floor it only to slam on the brakes at the next red light a few yards down the road. There they sit and wait only to repeat the insanity, millions and millions of times every day. Practically effortlessly, thousands of tons of pollutants could be saved by doing no more than easing up on the gas pedal and just coasting along, at the speed limit I might add. But as soon as I drive like this, the moron behind me starts tailgaiting and pushing and pushing, acting as ugly and nasty as he possibly can. Unless his egotism wouldn't tell him that he will damage his own vehicle by just driving over mine and get me out of the way, they would do it. God cannot possibly like what mankind has made of this world and he has a plan: he is going to drown all of us once more.
I should add that if you're ranting at fat people about how much we eat (and many of us DON'T eat that much food, myself included), because of the CO2 we're supposedly guilty of putting out there, but you're still driving a car and living in a house and flying in airplanes? You're a hypocrite. Just the fact of you being online right now is killing the planet, whether or not you're powered by solar or wind. The quickest cure for global warming is humanity's mass suicide. I know you can't face that, but at least be honest enough to not make scapegoats out of people who get harassed enough as it is.
Julia Whitty - may you fat deposites fuel marathons of more writing and film production - thank you for your work!!
Can we have an honest
Can we have an honest discussion about this for once, please, instead of this echo chamber we've all been suffering for the past thirty years? You're supposed to be the big ol' muckrakers looking for the truth. Prove it.
The following quotes, facts, figures and statistics are excerpted from Please Don't Eat the Animals (2007) by Jennifer Horsman and Jaime Flowers:
"A reduction in beef and other meat consumption is the most potent single act you can take to halt the destruction of our environment and preserve our natural resources. Our choices do matter: What's healthiest for each of us personally is also healthiest for the life support system of our precious, but wounded planet."
---John Robbins, author, Diet for a New America, and President, EarthSave Foundation
One study puts animal waste in the United States to between 2.4 trillion to 3.9 trillion pounds per year. The United states produces 15,000 pounds of manure per person. This is 130 times the amount of waste produced by the entire human population of the United States.
A 1,000-cow dairy can produce approximately 120,000 pounds of waste per day. This is the functional equivalent of the amount of sanitary waste produced by a city of 20,000 people.
A 20,000-chicken factory produces about 2.4 million pounds of manure a year. Poultry factories are one of the fastest growing industries throughout Asia.
One pig excretes nearly three gallons of waste per day, or 2.5 times the average human's daily total. One hog farm with 50,000 pigs in France produces more waste than the entire city of Los Angeles, and some pig farms are much larger.
Factory farm pollution is the primary source of damage to coastal waters in North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Scientists report that over sixty percent of the coastal waters in the United States are moderately to severely degraded from factory farm nutrient pollution. This pollution creates oxygen-depleted dead zones, which are huge areas of ocean devoid of aquatic life.
Meat production causes deforestation, which then contributes to global warming. Trees convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, and the destruction of forests around the globe to make room for grazing cattle furthers the greenhouse effect. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations reports that the annual rate of tropical deforestation has increased from 9 million hectares in 1980 to 16.8 million hectares in 1990, and unfortunately, this destruction has accelerated since then. By 1994, a staggering 200 million hectares of rainforest had been destroyed in South America just for cattle.
"The impact of countless hooves and mouths over the years has done more to alter the type of vegetation and land forms of the West than all the water projects, strip mines, power plants, freeways, and sub-division developments combined."
---Philip Fradkin, in Audubon, National Audubon Society, New York
Agricultural meat production generates air pollution. As manure decomposes, it releases over 400 volatile organic compounds, many of which are extremely harmful to human health. Nitrogen, a major by-product of animal wastes, changes to ammonia as it escapes into the air, and this is a major source of acid rain. Worldwide, livestock produce over 30 million tons of ammonia. Hydrogen sulfide, another chemical released from animal waste, can cause irreversible neurological damage, even at low levels.
The world Conservation Union lists over 1,000 different fish species that are threatened or endangered. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimate, over 60 percent of the world's fish species are either fully exploited or depleted. Commercial fish populations of cod, hake, haddock, and flounder have fallen by as much as 95 percent in the north Atlantic.
The United States and Europe lose several billion tons of topsoil each year from cropland and grazing land, and 84 percent of this erosion is caused by livestock agriculture. While this soil is theoretically a renewable resource, we are losing soil at a much faster rate than we are able to replace it. It takes 100 to 500 years to produce one inch of topsoil, but due to livestock grazing and feeding, farming areas can lose up to six inches of topsoil a year.
Livestock production affects a startling 70 to 85 percent of the land area of the United States, United Kingdom, and the European Union. That includes the public and private rangeland used for grazing, as well as the land used to produce the crops that feed the animals. By comparison, urbanization only affects 3 percent of the United States land area, slightly larger for the European Union and the United Kingdom. Meat production consumes the world's land resources.
Half of all fresh water worldwide is used for thirsty livestock. Producing eight ounces of beef requires an unimaginable 25,000 liters of water, or the water necessary for one pound of steak equals the water consumption of the average household for a year.
The United States government spends $10 million each year to kill an estimated 100,000 wild animals, including coyotes, foxes, bobcats, badgers, bears, and mountain lions just to placate ranchers who don't want these animals killing their livestock. The cost far outweighs the damage to livestock that these predators cause.
The Worldwatch Institute estimates one pound of steak from a steer raised in a feedlot costs: five pounds of grain, a whopping 2,500 gallons of water, the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline, and about 34 pounds of topsoil.
33 percent of our nation's raw materials and fossil fuels go into livestock destined for slaughter. In a vegan economy, only 2 percent of our resources will go to the production of food.
"It seems disingenuous for the intellectual elite of the first world to dwell on the subject of too many babies being born in the second- and third-world nations while virtually ignoring the overpopulation of cattle and the realities of a food chain that robs the poor of sustenance to feed the rich a steady diet of grain-fed meat."
---Jeremy Rifkin, author, Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture, and president of the Greenhouse Crisis Foundation
Lester Brown of the Overseas Development Council calculates that if Americans reduced their meat consumption by only 10 percent per year, it would free at least 12 million tons of grain for human consumption--or enough to feed 60 million people.
Thanks Dana for affirming my thoughts with the fatphobia issue. Obesity is a class issue... that's an area that MoJo has some cognitive dissonance with...
I'm just hoping that our next president will knock some sense into people's heads. And that the president after that isn't the opposite extreme again.
I'd like to hear some more concrete things we can do, though I know what you mean about just taking care of your own actions isn't enough.
I like compact fluorescents, vegetarian pizza every week and tepid temperature air to say the very least. I wish everybody would do that much.
article is very good- prompted great responses-small is beautiful though and that is why I believe that solutions, while required globally, will only work locally- we experience life at an immediate level and need to respond to it directly...everywhere....
great to read comments (well, most of them)
A 20,000-chicken factory
A 20,000-chicken factory produces about 2.4 million pounds of manure a year. Poultry factories are one of the fastest growing industries throughout Asia.
One pig excretes nearly three gallons of waste per day, or 2.5 times the average human's daily total. One hog farm with 50,000 pigs in France produces more waste than the entire city of Los Angeles, and some pig farms are much larger.
I am pleased to see that most of my family and I have been making most of these changes through the years. Which makes it a little more difficult to cut 22% more. We'll try.
Growing your own veggies is another step. Raised bed planters make it easier. We supplement our organic food buying this way.
I like the four steps. I am going to put that into a suggestion on Obama's website. www.change.gov
I'm also going to forward this article to my email list.
Change for the better IS possible now.
We have a local group called CLEAN AIR PLEASE to resist the developers and real estate people whose only concern is develop and more develop and increase their profits without regard to people's precious human lungs being affected by unregulated heavy smoke pollution in our little town, Middletown, 95461, in Lake County, CA, located north of San Francisco. Highway 28, which goes right through town, is also a source of vehicle emissions/ pollution. We're not going to be turned into a toxic soup town with airborne poisonous garbage (APGs), as I refer to our local air pollution. Thanks for this insightful article.
Like all diets, in nearly 90% of all cases diet and exercise do not effectively reduce and sustain weight loss.
Until there is an economic driver to force us off fossil fuel, we will not go off willingly.
Why diet when what Im doing now tastes so good and is cheap?
An interesting article. I too am very concerned about global warming, and as a physician am concerned too about the growing numbers of the obese. Most of what Julia has written makes sense, but there are a few things that I am not sure are substantiated by facts. Sometimes, the plans we favor instinctively, emotionally, don't turn out to be correct.
For example, I live in a somewhat rural part of PA, giving me the opportunity to support local farms and I do so when I can. But, it does not always follow that local food is cheaper. I suspect that local farmers are struggling as much as anyone else, and that as costs of shipping in food from California, or worse, Asia, rise, they will simply raise their prices to meet the market price. This is great news for small farmers but does not lower food costs. At my supermarket, local produce is not cheaper. At the farmers' market, in season local produce is similarly priced unless it is really close to going bad. However, it does taste better.
Next, the vegan argument. I love animals, do not want to hurt them and think they deserve to be treated humanely. There are a lot of arguments for not eating them. But, more efficient agriculture may not be one of them. Take a look at Michael Pollan's books - he argues that in grass rich parts of the world, cattle are actually efficient ways of getting calories out of land that would not support vegetables. That does not justify every mistreatment of animals, or the way the are currently raised on grain, or the amount of them we consume, but it did give me pause when I read it. Many folks don't feel well on vegetable only diets, and I have treated quite a few vegans with vitamin deficiency. Also, as Dana points out, vegan does not mean healthy. Some patients just go "carbotarian" and load up on starch, with calories about the same as on a meat diet.
Finally, like Dana, I have to point out that picking on the obese is not really fair. There are many endurance athletes out there who consume far more than their share of calories and are slender, while some obese people really do limit themselves to less than the 2000 calories per day you propose as a limit. Yes, if I put my obese patients on a vigorous diet and exercise program many would lose weight, but I doubt it would prevent global warming.
None of this should stop anyone from driving less, eating a bit less, insulating their home and inspiring others for change. But when we don't stick rigidly to the facts, we lose credibility.
love the article and will pass it on to friends, family and others. i find one glaring shortcoming -- and it has nothing to do with my fat butt -- what about the sad and terrifing fact of over population? seems to me that issue is core to many of the problems of the world. doesn't this go to the real heart of choosing what's best for our great-grandchildren? *choosing* to *NOT* have children is one of the most courageous choices and changes we can make!
dana, you need to retake nutrition 101.
veganism did not make you fat. eating an unbalanced diet made you fat. you said so yourself: too much starch. well, balance your diet then. i have followed a vegetarian diet for 16 years, 12 of those years as a vegan. i'm not fat. i balance my diet. just like anybody following any sort of diet, vegetarian or not, needs to do.
giving up meat and dairy is not the issue. reducing the amount that we eat from these food groups is. however, eating a healthy, balanced diet is necessary, no matter what your dietary choice.
as far as your fat phobia, i don't get it. fat people use more resources. end of story. it costs more in fuel to transport a fat person. it costs more to feed a fat person. where is the bias there? these are facts. not saying i don't sympathize with people who are overweight, etc., but that's not really the point. we each need to do our part to consume less.
man, i hope you're just a troll and not a real person, Dana.
here:
"Furthermore, does anybody ever stop to think what kind of environmental damage is done by growing crops? No? Let me enlighten you. You know how eating beef is evil in global warming terms because cows fart? Cutting trees to grow a field of plant food is evil too, because termites eat fallen wood and termites fart. They put out easily as much methane as cattle do. And you can raise cattle under tree cover, and other meat animals as well--you can't grow grain there, though."
so what you are saying here is that the majority of crops planted in the US and elsewhere are for growing food for people? really? i think you'll find that an overwhelming percentage of crops are grown to feed livestock. that livestock if for people to eat. raising animals in any other way in which you do not clear cut land and do not feed them these crops is not feasible given the high demand americans have created for meat and dairy products.
i've been trying to follow your thinking and trying really hard not to say anything nasty. it's really, really difficult for me.
The law of the land is too important to be left to the care of lawyers. ~Tinsley Grey Sammons
bastiatlaw@aol.com
What great research and composition Julia. Namaste!!! The best practical plan for individuals I've ever read that will allow for fast response by everyone on the planet. I shall do my part.
As Carl Sagan has implied,.."we need to learn humility",what good are "dollars" when we have created an unfit place to live. The age of selling ...."the sky, the water, and the earth, are done". Ah! If Black Elk were only alive!
Another environmentalist,....Chief Seattle. The Native Americans were way ahead of there time.
In 1854, the U.S. President made an offer for a large area of Indian land and promised a "reservation" for the Indian people. Chief Seattle's reply, published below, has been described as the most beautiful and profound statement on the environment ever made.
The Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land.
The Great Chief also sends us words of friendship and good will. This is kind of him, since we know he has little need of our friendship in return.
But we will consider your offer. for we know that if we do not sell, the white man may come with guns and take our land.
How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land ? This idea is strange to us.
If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water how can you buy them?
Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. The sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man.
The white man's dead forget the country of their birth when they go to walk among the stars. Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, for it is the mother of the red man. We are part of the earth and it is part of us.
The perfumed flowers are our sisters;
the deer, the horse, the great eagle,
these are our brothers.
The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows,the body heat of the pony, and man all belong to the same family
So, when the Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land, he asks much of us.
The Great Chief sends word he will reserve us a place so that we can live comfortably to ourselves. He will be our father and we will be his children.
So we will consider your offer to buy our land. But it will not be easy. For this land is sacred to us.
This shining waters that moves in our streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you land you must rememher that it is sacred and you must teach your children that it is sacred and that each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father.
The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst. The rivers carry our canoes and feed our children. If we sell you our land, you must remember, and teach your children, that the rivers are our brothers ó and yours, and you must henceforth give the rivers the kindness you would give any brother.
The red man has always retreated before the advancing white man, as the mist of the mountains runs before the morning sun. But the ashes of our fathers are sacred. Their graves are holy ground,and so these hills, these trees, this portion of the earth is consecrated to us. We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his father's graves behind, and he does not care. He kidnaps the earth from his children, he does not care. His fathers' graves and his children's birthright are forgotten. He treats his mother, the earth, and his brother, the sky, as things to be bought, plundered, sold like sheep or bright beads. His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert.
I do not know. Our ways are different from your ways. The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. But perhaps it is because the red man is a savage and does not understand.
There is no quiet place in the white man's cities. No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring, or the rustle of an insect's wings. But perhaps it is because I am a savage and I do not understand. The clatter only seems to insult the ears. And what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs around the pond at night. I am a red man and do not understand. The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of a pond, and the smell of the wind itself, cleaned by a midday rain, or scented with the pinon pine.
The air is precious to the red man, for all things share the same breath ó the beast, the tree, the man, they all share the same breath. The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes. Like a man dying for many days, he is numb to the stench. But if we sell you our land, you must remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh. And if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where even the white man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow's flowers.
So we will consider your offer to buy our land. If we decide to accept, I will make one condition: The white man must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers.
I am a savage and I do not understand any other way. I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie left by the white man who shot them from a passing train. I am a savage and I do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be more important than the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive.
What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected.
You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of your grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we taught our children, that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves!
This we know: the earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which connects one family. All things are connected.
Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man does not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
But we will consider your offer to go to the reservation you have for my people. We will live apart, and in peace. It matters little where we spend the rest of our days. Our children have seen their fathers humbled in defeat. Our warriors have felt shame, and after defeat they turn their days in idleness and contaminate their bodies with sweet foods and strong drink. It matters little where we spend the rest of our days. They are not many. A few more hours, a few more winters, andnone of the children of the great tribes that once lived on this earth or that roam now in small bands in the woods will be left to mourn the graves of a people once as powerful and hopeful as yours. But why should I mourn the passing of my people? Tribes are made of men, nothing more. Men come and go, like the waves of the sea.
Even the white man, whose God walks and talks with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all; we shall see. One thing we know, which the white man may one day discover ó our God is the same God. You may think now that you own Him, as you wish to own our land, but you cannot. He is the God of man and His compassion is equal for the red man and the white. This earth is precious to Him, and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on the Creator. The whites too shall pass. Perhaps sooner than all the other tribes.
But in your perishing you will shine brightly, fired by the strength of the God who brought you to this land and for some special purpose gave you dominion over this land and over the red man. That destiny is a mystery to us, for we do not understand when the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses are tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with scent of many men, and the view of the ripe hills blottted by talking wires.
Where is the thicket ? Gone. Where is the eagle ? Gone. And what is it to say goodbye to the swift pony and the hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival.
So we will consider your offer to buy our land. If we agree it will be to secure the reservation ou have promised. there, perhaps, we may live out our brief days as we wish. When the last red man has vanished from this earth, and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, those shores and forests will still hold the spirits of my people. For they love this earth as the new-born loves its mothers' heartbeat. So if we sell you our land, love it as we've loved it. Care for it as we've cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you take it. And with all your strength, with all your mind, with all your heart, perserve it for your children and love it as God loves us all.
One thing we know. Our God is the same God. This earth is precious to Him. Even the white man cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We shall see.
This holy man, and prophet was called a "savage". Someone please tell me, after all these years have gone by, tell me who is the savage?
Why would somebody do this?
Why would somebody do this? Mike from error smart review and panic away review guide.
To all the retards here,
To all the retards here, global warming isn't happening. Worldwide temperatures have dropped since 1998. CO2 is not the cause. If AGW and CO2 are such a detriment to the world, why have human populations increased from 1.6 billion to over 6 billion today in the past century? Has CO2 not been released in huge quantities during this time? Without energy and technology humanity would live much worse off. Yet to use this energy and technology CO2 is used. To whole-heartedly believe CO2 is a pollutant is the stupidist thing any numb-nut liberal could ever say. Without CO2 life would be impossible.
You sound like this goofy
You sound like this goofy fundamentalist I ran across back in the late nineties who insisted that there was no hole in the ozone layer because trees make ozone in the mountains.
No one is questioning that we need CO2 to live. The problem is that carbon is being put into the carbon cycle that hasn't been there in millions of years. Namely, the carbon we pump up out of the ground and spew into the air by way of power plants and automobiles. At the same time we're destroying the living things that take that carbon back out of the air and fix it so it's not trapping solar heat.
Anyone with a rudimentary science background, and I don't mean creationist claptrap, could understand this.
As for the original article, I second the first person who commented here: Stop it with the fatphobia. For your information, most people who become overweight do not do so because they eat giant amounts of food. Most fat people are malnourished, believe it or not, and most fat people eat the wrong things rather than too much.
The advice of several of the commenters here to "stop eating meat" is at the heart of the problem. Do we need to dump industrial animal husbandry? Undoubtedly--I wish all animals were fed their natural diets and raised and killed humanely. But to ask me to give up my omnivorous-leaning-to-carnivorous diet when the diet's not the problem to begin with is to ask me to permanently destroy my health for a future that I won't see anyway. I won't do that for you, or for anybody, especially if you're still getting your electrical power from coal and still driving a gasoline-engine car. (And no, you get no brownie points from driving a Prius.)
I'm overweight all right... guess what got me this way? Eating grain. In fact, part of what precipitated this last round of weight gain for me was eating vegan! Every time I see someone say "there are no fat vegans" I wonder if they've ever bothered looking. I'll never do that again. It almost destroyed me.
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