Vegetarianism comes to the world’s rescue

I’ve often contemplated going vegetarian. I really don’t eat all that much meat as it is, and I really don’t think I’d miss it all that much.

I tried it for a while a few years back, but it never stuck. I think I missed certain foods. Bacon, for example.

Daydreaming aside, I come from a family which doesn’t cook meat heavy meals. In fact, my mother could quite happily stop tomorrow. My girlfriend is a vegetarian so I’m being slowly being pushed into becoming a herbivore.

Now, if I am to live up to my eco-credentials (as aspirations of eco-friendliness), maybe it’s the only way forward.

Indeed, all this week, and in the run up to the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen, the BBC World Service is broadcasting a series called “The Climate Connection“.

The series follows five young people as they explore an issue they believe to be at the heart of the climate change debate. The participants come from all parts of the world and they look at potential solutions to the present crisis.

The series is in partnership with the Open University and their “Creative Climate” project. I’ll leave you to discover more about that if you wish. Just click here.

Tonight’s episode was titled “Does the World Need Meat” and followed a young American student from Columbia University in New York.

Together with the presenter she criss-crossed the United Sates in search of answers to that very question.

I thought it was a really interesting programme that took a very balanced approach and examined each side of the argument in equal measure. It did not try to impose a particular view on the listener in what can be a heated debate.

In fact, the “Climate Connection” series has so far been fair to all sides as it looks at quite contentious subject matters that divide opinion.

America and the beef obsession

Why America? Well, if there was ever an avid meat eating nation, this is it. This is the country that chomped its way through millions upon millions of bison, driving it close to extinction, and continues to worship the cow, especially when it is on their plates.

10 billion animals are killed every year in the United Sates in order to feed their voracious and ever growing appetite for all things sanguine.

Of course, unashamed meat consumption is not limited to the US. Such is the demand that one third of the planet is devoted to rearing livestock and demand is expected to double by 2050.

At present, livestock accounts for 18% of global emissions. In the US, that figure is 2.8%. If you have read one of my previous posts, cows et al burp methane and this causes global warming.

The level of burping has a lot to do with the synthetic grain they are fed. Indeed, if you modify their diet, the burps decrease.

Anyway, in the States, the vast majority of cattle are raised in pens and fed on corn. Makes for a tastier animal apparently. Grass just doesn’t cut it (no pun intended).

And there are estimated to be 9.5 million cattle in such pens, or feed lots as they are also known.

What was interesting was the range of views we got in the programme. We heard from both sides of the debate, starting with the staunch defenders of the meat industry. We heard from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the ‘voice’ of beef industry as their Chief Environmental Counsel described it. Keen to point out that livestock produce only 2.8% of the US emissions, she was defensive when the presenter put it to her that the intensive raising of cattle was unnatural.

The American Farm Bureau, the largest farm lobby group in the US, argued that the US is the most efficient food producer in the world and attempting to regulate the industry through stricter standards would only have the effect of moving production to other, less efficient, parts of the world with the net result that the methane footprint would invariably increase.

Their president declared that the war raging between the meat eaters and the herbivores in the US is a pointless one

We like our hamburgers. We like our steaks, We like our chicken. We like our bacon in the morning and I don’t see that changing in the near future

I am inclined to agree with the naysayers. Nevin Cohen, from the New School in New York, said that their is a fatal flaw in the lobbyists’ argument. They fail to account for the vast swathes of rainforest in South America that is destroyed to make way for the soy plantations that feed the cattle. This raises CO2 levels.

Transporting the grain to the US and elsewhere raises CO2 levels.

As a result, the meat industry has a carbon footprint of rather large proportions.

Changing habits

Perhaps we do, as consumers, need to change our eating habits. Perhaps policy makers need to change policies. Yet, as the economic situation of a country improves, so does its meat consumption.

Maybe Pedro Sanchez of the Earth Institute at Columbia University is right..the American way of producing beef is sick. Through unnatural practices, the US is producing fatty beef by feeding them grain after grain. The world needs meat, but we must do it right. We have to use intelligent farming practices.

The problems associated with large scale soy farming in South America are well known. It is saddening to see hundreds and hundreds of thousands of acres of forest being cut down to feed the world’s appetite for meat and other agricultural products.

In its drive to become an agricultural giant, Brazil is plowing one of its most precious resources – the Amazon. We are talking farms the size of large English counties. They are now the world’s largest supplier of soybean and the country could soon replace the American heartlands when it comes to food production.

National Geographic covered the problem in typically excellent fashion.

So, the environmental arguments against meat eating are quite plain to see.

Will the world wake up tomorrow and turn vegetarian? No. People love their meat and will not stop eating it.

Can we modify our farming practices? Perhaps. I leave that to the experts.

More importantly, could alternative methods meet the ever growing demand for meat. Maybe only intensive farming would satisfy it.

I do believe that governments would be reluctant to do away with existing practices, if only for economic reasons. As we have seen, cattle farming in the US is a gargantuan operation with powerful lobbyists supporting it all the way up the steps to Capitol Hill.

Likewise, as much as Brazil would like to increase their eco-standing in the world, soybean farming will continue regardless. Why stop? There is a worldwide demand for the commodity.

If you would like to listen to the programme, click on the link below.

P.S. If you have read this far, well done. Note to self: rant less and keep the posts short.

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Amazon deforestation at record low

Seven years ago, almost to the day, I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to spend some time in the Peruvian Amazon, near a place called Puerto Maldonado.

It was my gap year and I travelled to Peru to teach English with an organisation called Teaching and Projects Abroad.

As well as arranging teaching placements, TAPA also had ties to a jungle lodge where you could spend time volunteering to help catalogue the wildlife in the surrounding area and generally lend a hand to maintaining the property as well as caring for animals that they had rescued from poachers.

I’ve always been fascinated with nature and in particular rainforests. As a young boy, I remember watching David Attenborough explore some of the farthest reaches of the Amazon and immediately knew that I had to go and see it for myself. So when I found out I could travel out to the lodge once my teaching placement had finished, I jumped at the chance.

I still vividly remember flying into Puerto Maldonado, looking out the window and seeing the jungle unfold beneath me. Then there was the intense, wet heat that hit you as soon as you left the plane. It was very much like stepping into a greenhouse on a hot summer’s day – the humidity and the clamyness of the air.

And then there’s the rain. I was there at the beginning of the rainy season and it would pour at around four each day for about an hour. Always on time, never ever late. I remember the first time I was caught in one of the downpours. The rain was so warm. Like nothing I’d experienced before. Not at all like the spine chilling cold rain that we get in the UK. This stuff was like taking a shower.

When the rainy season really started to kick in it would rain and rain. In one afternoon, all it took was a couple of hours for the river to rise about a metre. After a particularly stormy night, we woke to see huge trees floating down the river, uprooted by the force of the rain.

Anyway, I spent a pretty interesting two weeks working out there and came away in love with the Amazon. The sights and the sounds. Seeing parrots fly overhead was a daily occurrence. Monkeys swinging from tree to tree each day…check. Caimen..check. Piranhas..check. The list goes on and on.

So, I’ve always found it to be very depressing opening up the papers to find yet another story about the deforestation and destruction of such an amazing and magical place. We are cutting down one of the planets most precious resources.

The ‘Lungs of the planet’, as people call the Amazon, it is home to countless animal and plant species making it the most diverse and bio-active natural phenomenon on the planet.

Yet each year we are losing an estimated 50,000 plant, animal and insect species. Rainforests used to cover 14% of the planet’s surface. This figure now stands at a mere 6%. 150 acres are lost every minute.

The rainforests are also home to a considerable number of medicinal plants. Currently, 25% of Western pharmaceuticals are derived from rain forest plants. Yet, it is estimated that scientists have tested a tiny 1% of tropical trees and plants. Scientists have identified 3000 plants that are active against cancer cells. 70% of these plants are found in the rain forest.

Add to this the impact deforestation has on tribal populations and you have a cultural and environmental genocide. There were around 10 million Indians living in the Amazonian rain forest five centuries ago. Today, there are fewer than 200,000.

It is agreed that by leaving the rainforests intact and harvesting it’s many nuts, oil-producing and medicinal plants, the rain forest has far greater economic value than if they are cut down to make way for grazing land or for timber.

So, news that deforestation is at a record low is extremely welcoming. Indeed, the BBC reported this week that the rate has dropped by 45% and is at its lowest since records began 21 years ago according to figures released by the Brazilian government. Just over 7,000 square kilometres was destroyed from July 2008 to August 2009. It must make President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva very proud. He has put green issues at the top of his government’s agenda as he seeks to boost his country’s eco-credentials. The government’s attempts to stem Amazonian deforestation are at the heart of their climate change strategy.

Lula da Silva’s government wants an 80% reduction in destruction by 2020 so these latest figures are a sign that the country is moving the right direction.

Next month, Copenhagen welcomes delegates to the climate change conference. It is thought that the event will see the Brazilians pledge a 38% to 42% voluntary reduction in their greenhouse gas emissions. Half of those cuts will come from the reduction in deforestation. Their chief of staff, Dilma Rousseff, says that this is about sending a political message. They want to press developed nations into making similar pledges. Will the pressure have an effect? So far, offers of greenhouse reduction fall well short of the required amount to have an impact on climate change. We shall see.

Anyway, back on topic. I have my doubts that the fall in deforestation is completely the result of Brazilian governmental efforts. I suspect that it is mostly, if entirely tied to the dismal economic climate which has seen world manufacturing and industrial output fall over the past year or so. Demands for raw materials has declined. I wouldn’t be surprised if the rate of deforestation was to rise again once we come out of the recession. Hopefully I’m wrong. Only time will tell.

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