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Dis and Kolan drowning Polar Bears

Cal

Well-known member
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/27/opinion/27wed4.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fEditorials

Meat and the Planet


Published: December 27, 2006
When you think about the growth of human population over the last century or so, it is all too easy to imagine it merely as an increase in the number of humans. But as we multiply, so do all the things associated with us, including our livestock. At present, there are about 1.5 billion cattle and domestic buffalo and about 1.7 billion sheep and goats. With pigs and poultry, they form a critical part of our enormous biological footprint upon this planet.

Just how enormous was not really apparent until the publication of a new report, called “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Consider these numbers. Global livestock grazing and feed production use “30 percent of the land surface of the planet.” Livestock — which consume more food than they yield — also compete directly with humans for water. And the drive to expand grazing land destroys more biologically sensitive terrain, rain forests especially, than anything else.

But what is even more striking, and alarming, is that livestock are responsible for about 18 percent of the global warming effect, more than transportation’s contribution. The culprits are methane — the natural result of bovine digestion — and the nitrogen emitted by manure. Deforestation of grazing land adds to the effect.

There are no easy trade-offs when it comes to global warming — such as cutting back on cattle to make room for cars. The human passion for meat is certainly not about to end anytime soon. As “Livestock’s Long Shadow” makes clear, our health and the health of the planet depend on pushing livestock production in more sustainable directions.
 

andybob

Well-known member
I can only speak from my experience, but the majority of the forest clearing is either due to overpopulated communities felling native forest for fuel, and commercial clearing for cropping, livastock usually moves in after the soils are too denuded for cropping due to unsustainable horticultural methods.
The biomass of wildlife be it plains antelope and bovids, or forest aborial animals, exeeded the biomass of domestic animals now occupying these ecosystems, therefore the volume of methane must logically have been higher in the past. Untill we are more serious about a more holistic approach to managing our environment, be it farmland, national parks and even our towns and cities, we will continue to see increasing erosion, flooding and degredation of improperly managed ecosystems, especially those under government controll.
 

Cal

Well-known member
I only posted this article because I thought it was absurd and "Algorish". Don't want anyone to get the wrong idea.
 
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