Post by Patrick on May 16, 2009 9:43:08 GMT
A small town in Belgium has gone meat-free one day a week. A sign of things to come, says one food historian
For decades, environmental arguments against eating meat have been largely the preserve of vegetarian websites and magazines. Just two years ago it seemed inconceivable that significant numbers of western Europeans would be ready to down their steak knives and graze on vegetation for the sake of the planet. The rapidity with which this situation has changed is astonishing.
The breakthrough came in 2006 when the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) published a study, Livestock's Long Shadow, showing that the livestock industry is responsible for a staggering 18% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. This is only the beginning of the story. In 2008, Brazil announced that in the 12 months to July it had lost 12,000 sq km (3m acres) of the Amazon rainforest, mainly to cattle ranchers and soy producers supplying European markets with animal feed. There is water scarcity in large parts of the world, yet livestock-rearing can use up to 200 times more water a kilogram (2.2lbs) of meat produced than is used in growing wheat. Given the volatile global food prices, it seems foolhardy to divert 1.2bn tonnes of fodder – including cereals – to fuel global meat consumption, which has increased by more than two and half times since 1970.
Surely another way would be to strip back food production and import and export to it's bare essentials and start again?
After all here are figures from a New Economics Foundation Study about what the UK imports and exports:
* In 2004, the UK exported 1,500 tonnes of fresh potatoes to Germany, and imported 1,500 tonnes of the same product from the same country
* Imported 465 tonnes of gingerbread, but exported 460 tonnes of the same produce
* Sent 10,200 tonnes of milk and cream to France, yet imported 9,900 tonnes of the dairy goods from France.
I expect that would probably produce quite a bit of CO2
Why not deal with the cause of the problem rather than just try and mop up the effect? Make countries "Self Sufficient" in the commodities that they are capable of being self sufficient in?
There are other ways!
For decades, environmental arguments against eating meat have been largely the preserve of vegetarian websites and magazines. Just two years ago it seemed inconceivable that significant numbers of western Europeans would be ready to down their steak knives and graze on vegetation for the sake of the planet. The rapidity with which this situation has changed is astonishing.
The breakthrough came in 2006 when the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) published a study, Livestock's Long Shadow, showing that the livestock industry is responsible for a staggering 18% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. This is only the beginning of the story. In 2008, Brazil announced that in the 12 months to July it had lost 12,000 sq km (3m acres) of the Amazon rainforest, mainly to cattle ranchers and soy producers supplying European markets with animal feed. There is water scarcity in large parts of the world, yet livestock-rearing can use up to 200 times more water a kilogram (2.2lbs) of meat produced than is used in growing wheat. Given the volatile global food prices, it seems foolhardy to divert 1.2bn tonnes of fodder – including cereals – to fuel global meat consumption, which has increased by more than two and half times since 1970.
Surely another way would be to strip back food production and import and export to it's bare essentials and start again?
After all here are figures from a New Economics Foundation Study about what the UK imports and exports:
* In 2004, the UK exported 1,500 tonnes of fresh potatoes to Germany, and imported 1,500 tonnes of the same product from the same country
* Imported 465 tonnes of gingerbread, but exported 460 tonnes of the same produce
* Sent 10,200 tonnes of milk and cream to France, yet imported 9,900 tonnes of the dairy goods from France.
I expect that would probably produce quite a bit of CO2
Why not deal with the cause of the problem rather than just try and mop up the effect? Make countries "Self Sufficient" in the commodities that they are capable of being self sufficient in?
There are other ways!
A.P.P.S
S C 
