Meat Consumption and Global Warming

eat more beets

A few months ago, Mark Bittman of the NYT wrote a fabulous op-ed on meat consumption, food miles, and global warming. Today's paper has a story of how farmers in the Netherlands are attempting to capture methane from animal waste and transform it into a viable source for energy. It's a fun read and describes how a test farm siphons off and burns the gas creating cleaner energy (the farm relies on 25% and then sells the rest back to the power grid) and still has plenty of remaining fertilizer to sell or spread. (The state requires farmers to have a stable source of fertilizer on hand at all times.)

The article also tackles the issue that most people overlook in the rush to lay the blame of global warming on transportation: agriculture and meat consumption release carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide at alarming rates--and those numbers will increase as meat consumption grows across the world. "The trillions of farm animals around the world generate 18% of the emissions that are raising global temperatures, according to the UN estimates, more even than from cars, buses and airplanes." [italics mine] Rallying behind attacks on cars--which are justified--is only part of the problem. If Americans earnestly want to lessen global warming, our consumption patterns must change and meat is right up there.

Robert Frank's 2007 Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class offers options for how Americans could alter consumption, but they are solutions that I fear many Americans would find unpalatable. Among several of his ideas, he suggests tax increases targeting consumption but also those that benefit public services and infrastructure. As an eminent economist at Cornell, he's no body's fool. But in a political climate where restoring Willy J. Clinton's tax rates is dubbed socialism, tax hikes in the US won't fly, especially with our current economic malaise. Frank presents his ideas clearly and in a non-esoteric manner and he addresses social issues and demonstrates economic connections. After skimming the book, however, I question its efficacy partly due to the reason I cited above. Well, that and I think his book is silly at points.