He found that west of a line running down the middle of Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, N. and S. Dakota, it is too try for traditional non-irrigated farming. (The eastern sections of these states are part of the breakbasket, and grains grow well in non-drought years).

In the arid parts of the great plains, large scale farming and ranching is kept alive through massive government subsidies and the drawing down of the massive Oolagah Aquifer for irrigation. It gets more and more expensive every year.

So the Poppers (two profs) proposed redirecting the federal subsidies and gradually turning that area into what it was, a grassland “Buffalo Commons,” and shifting the economic base to natural, grass fed Buffalo and tourism.

Now, Americans aren’t going to be able to eat meat every day based on Buffalo wandering the plains. But perhaps that and other things like it could feed them as much meat as they ought to have.

Perhaps the next President will have a Buffalo and Turkey (another native animal) bar-be-cue on the 4th of July.

I too would assume that razing forests for any agriculture is probably a negative carbon footprint, but reading this site and thinking about it, it seems that razing forests in the tropics versus utilizing natural grasslands to support livestock are very different contexts. In our temperate climate natural grass and forest lands can be managed in a way the support both animals (and humans) and the environment.

Also, in a temperate climate we are probably less likely to be razing land for cattle than for corn and soybeans- which has a negative effect on soil and its ability to sequester carbon.

Going even further the site says:

Increasing pasture land would help reduce global warming

The grasses and legumes found in pasture are highly effective at removing excess carbon dioxide from the air and storing it in the soil as carbon, a phenomenon known as “carbon sequestration.” Soils in the grazing land in the Great Plains have over 40 tons of carbon per acre, while cultivated soils have only 26. In recent years, land that had been planted in row crops was allowed to revert back to pasture as part of the US government’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). The pasture land gained an average of one-half ton of carbon per acre per year during the first 5 years after planting. This means that 18 million tons of carbon were removed from the atmosphere each year as a result of farmers putting over 36 million acres of land into the conservation program.

Environmental issues must be measured per market unit of meat, not per acre or other operational measure, because the mere use (read: razing) of land for grazing of any kind is highly destructive.

First, the authors evidently used a figure of around 16 lb of CO2 emitted per gallon of gasoline burned. (They don’t give their figure; I backed it out of their Table 1.) But the standard coefficient, easily derivable, is approximately 19.6 lb per gallon. Switching to the correct coefficient would add 22-23% to the “SUV” side of their comparison.

Second, the authors based their “SUV” calculations on average US per capita miles driven (8,332 miles/yr). The appropriate basis, in my view, would be the number of miles a typical motor vehicle is driven, which is around 12,000 (that’s the figure US EPA uses in its calculations of carbon impacts of driving). After all, switching from an SUV to a Camry would mean switching out 12,000 miles, not 8,332. Substituting the higher figure would add 44% to the “SUV” side of the comparison.

Making both changes simultaneously would increase the SUV emission figures by 75-77%, which pretty much invalidates the triumphalist statement by the Humane Society’s guy.

It wouldn’t surprise me if there are similar errors undermining the “food” side of the comparison. Maybe someone else will take a break from their seitan preparation and check it out.

And maybe the Humane Society and their allies can find ways of advancing the worthy cause of vegetarianism that don’t require belittling
SUV damages and Al Gore.

I also just read that row cropping soy destroys acres of habitat for wildlife, kills the soils and pollutes water systems, not to mention it promotes the development of GMOs…

…But again, it’s the industrialized monoculture model that is the problem, not the plants themselves.

So perhaps, bicycling is to driving an SUV as eating factory farmed beef is to eating grass fed, local beef.

Perhaps actually, the sustainable transportation movement can learn a lot from the local food systems/food security/food sovereignty movements. Rather than rigid, divisive, solution-driven, single issue advocacy that seems to dominate, we can look more at promoting and envisioning more localized, diversified transportation systems that are also healthy and pleasurable.

However, the ad is misleading by claiming that eating meat is worse than driving. World-wide, greenhouse gas emissions from meat production exceed ghg emissions from cars, because 80% of the people in the world don’t have cars.

But among Americans, driving is a much greater source of ghg emissions than meat consumption.

This ad will hurt attempts to slow global warming, if it convinces Americans that it is not very important to reduce the amount they drive, because driving is not as big a source of emissions as meat eating.

The inputs for industrial agriculture to support even a vegetarian diet are highly energy intensive, on top of the extra travel involved with the seasonal and climatic demands of a vegetarian diet. Many of our organic carrots come from Israel, our apples come from China and Washington State, etc

It needs to be made clear that it is the industrial agriculture methods of livestock management that are the problem not meat and animal products themselves. Just like it is our transportation system that is not working, not transportation itself. We need to support new local, sustainable transportation systems and well as local, sustainable food systems.

I agree that consuming factory farmed animal products is one of the more destructive environmental acts we take part in.

I also understand though that eating pasture raised, locally produced animal products can be one of the most positive environmental actions we can take. As I understand it, such livestock practices actually can contribute positively to energy systems, top soils and stream ecosystems. Small scale livestock farming is also a much more viable form of small scale farming economically (it is less labor intensive, more profitable and more appealing to young farmers) than production for a vegetarian diet.

By this logic, dollars spent towards supporting this kind of animal husbandry can perhaps make a larger positive environmental impact than spending on a vegetarian diet, while directly challenging the very destructive practice of factory farming.

Though some may still have issues with animal husbandry all together, it also seems that in these practices that the livestock lead quite fulfilling lives.

Obviously, it is also a land use issue and transportation issue, where if small farmers near cities become more viable, they are less likely to be developed for sprawl and there will be less transportation involved in delivering our food.

This form of agriculture needs lots of support and animal products (milk, beef, lamb, etc) that have been raised in on grass, rather than grain, have been proven to have nutritional qualities that actually fight off heart disease and other health related problems usually caused by consuming industrially raised animal products.

If you really want to get local, you can raise your own chickens in back yards in NYC, here’s how: http://www.justfood.org/cityfarms/chickens/

Perhaps they could have spend the money they shelled out for the SUV to lobby the congressional Agriculture and Farms Committee to include soy products in government feeding programs for schools and other institutions instead. Or lobbied to increase food options available to low-income families on food stamps so they’re not stuck eating fatty low-grade meat, highly processed carbohydrates, and canned vegetables.

Since most of the people live in the world’s cities, car-free major cities provide a disruptive change that is scale appropriate by affecting many millions of mostly affluent people at a time. It also showcases a serious commitment to dealing with the global warming emergency, and since there is a clear indication that car-free cities will be a lot nicer than conventional cities, they will provide a very positive window into a future created through sensible human behaviors.

There does not seem to any major leader or group serious advocating the kind of disruptive actions required by the climate change crisis and should be a major concern; even though Gore has suggested a 90% reduction in emissions there does not seem to be any immediate and appropriate action plan.

Al Gore says he cares so much about global warming (and he does seem genuine), so how can he ignore the science from the U.N., the Univ. of Chicago, and every other report that’s been done?

The U.N. report also says that eating meat is among the top three causes of every environmental problem, from the smallest to the largest, as detailed at http://www.GoVeg.com/eco.

Al and his pals could do a ton of good by encouraging people to adopt a vegetarian diet; it’s hard to understand how he can just keep ignoring this issue.

PETA is outfitting a Hummer with a driver in a chicken suit and a vinyl banner proclaiming meat as the top cause of global warming.

…

“You just cannot be a meat-eating environmentalist,” said Mr. Prescott.

Ah, but you can be a Hummer-driving environmentalist? I’ve heard plenty of complaints about PETA’s absolutism in the past, but this convinces me that they’re a bunch of crackpots. Or at least led by one.