Cow 'emissions' more
damaging to planet than CO2 from cars
[CSPP Note: And then there are all those sacred cows
in India that are never eaten. The Indian
farmer sees his cattle like members of the family, depending on the cattle for
their own livelihood. India cares for over 200 million cattle, producing over
800 million tons of manure per year. This accounts for one-fifth of the world's
cattle population.
Some
observers report that cattle are India's greatest natural resource. ÒThey eat
only grass --which grows everywhere--and generates more power than all of
India's generating plants. They also produce fuel, fertilizer, and nutrition in
abundance. India runs on bullock power. Some 15 million bullock carts move
approximately 15 billion tons of goods across the nation. Newer studies in
energetics have shown that bullocks do two-thirds of the work on the average
farm. Electricity and fossil fuels account for only 10%. Bullocks not only pull
heavy loads, but also grind the sugarcane and turn the linseed oil presses.
Converting from bullocks to machinery would cost an estimated $30 billion plus
maintenance and replacement costs.The biggest energy contribution from cows and
bulls is their dung. Most of the dung is used for fertilizer at no cost to the
farmer or to the world's fossil fuel reserves. The remainder is used for fuel.
It is odorless and burns without scorching, giving a slow, even heat. To
replace dung with coal would cost India $1.5 billion per year.Ó[1]]
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2062484.ece
By
Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Published: 10
December 2006
Meet the world's top
destroyer of the environment. It is not the car, or the plane,or even George
Bush: it is the cow.
A United Nations report
has identified the world's rapidly growing herds of cattle as the greatest
threat to the climate, forests and wildlife. And they are blamed for a host of
other environmental crimes, from acid rain to the introduction of alien
species, from producing deserts to creating dead zones in the oceans, from
poisoning rivers and drinking water to destroying coral reefs.
The 400-page report by
the Food and Agricultural Organisation, entitled Livestock's Long Shadow, also
surveys the damage done by sheep, chickens, pigs and goats. But in almost every
case, the world's 1.5 billion cattle are most to blame. Livestock are
responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming,
more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.
Burning fuel to produce
fertiliser to grow feed, to produce meat and to transport it - and clearing
vegetation for grazing - produces 9 per cent of all emissions of carbon
dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas. And their wind and manure emit more
than one third of emissions of another, methane, which warms the world 20 times
faster than carbon dioxide.
Livestock also produces
more than 100 other polluting gases, including more than two-thirds of the
world's emissions of ammonia, one of the main causes of acid rain.
Ranching, the report
adds, is "the major driver of deforestation" worldwide, and
overgrazing is turning a fifth of all pastures and ranges into desert. Cows
also soak up vast amounts of water: it takes a staggering 990 litres of water
to produce one litre of milk.
Wastes from feedlots and
fertilisers used to grow their feed over nourish water, causing weeds to choke
all other life. And the pesticides, antibiotics and hormones used to treat them
get into drinking water and endanger human health.
The pollution washes down
to the sea, killing coral reefs and creating "dead zones" devoid of
life. One is up to 21,000sqkm, in the Gulf of Mexico, where much of the waste
from US beef production is carried down the Mississippi.
The report concludes
that, unless drastic changes are made, the massive damage done by livestock
will more than double by 2050, as demand for meat increases.