In a recent publication titled “Native wildlife on rangelands to minimize methane and produce lower-emission meat: kangaroos versus livestock” George Wilson and Melanie Edwards argue that we should be eating Kangaroos not beef and lamb. They show that cattle and sheep produce 11% of Australias Green House Gases, while kangaroos produce negligible amounts. Basically they don’t belch or pass wind unlike most other livestock! They suggest the removal of 7 million cattle and 36 million sheep by 2020 and the increase of kangaroo numbers to 175 million to produce same amount of meat. This they say “would lower Australia’s GHG emissions by 16 megatonnes, or 3% of Australia’s annual emissions”.
The Australian wildlife protection council warns that “Australia has no culture for the eating of kangaroo meat. It was eaten during the starving tomes of early white settlement but was considered a poor substitute for beef, sheep meats, pork and chicken” another Australian, Corey Bradshaw, says” Beef is bad but skippy is better”.
The math adds up, but there’s no question it would be an uphill challenge to change the cultural and social standards of diet and livestock production. Nevertheless, trials are underway based on international experiences of managing free-ranging species to give farmers an option to reduce the contribution that livestock make to green house gas production.
Personally I hate the idea of eating Kangaroos, but I do eat meat. I also love Kangaroos (Skippy is tattooed on my brain) and doubt I could ever eat one.
What about you? Knowing the carbon benefits, what do you think about eating Kangaroo meat to save the planet?
1. Absolutely, I wish I”d known earlier, I’ll switch to roo in a minute
2. I’ve no objection, I’d eat it at least part of the time
3. I’m vaguely disgusted at the idea of eating Kangaroo and wouldn’t switch from beef/lamb/pork etc
4. I’d never eat a roo. Never! In fact, if there was no other choice I’d become a vegetarian
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Feb 28th Liza H USD 11.00
14 Comments
Oh for the love of god! Just stop eating animals – period. Because factory farming is factory farming, and eventually there’ll be the same environmental and cruelty problems with kangaroos as there are with the other land animals we torture and slaughter (in the U.S. it’s more than 10 billion per year).
Your animal eating habit is killing our planet.
This message brought to you by WLD’s resident vegan.
s.
S -
On the environmental argument for vegetarianism, you’re on thin ice. With devastation of the Amazon for soy and the razing of SE Asian rain forest for oil palm (insert any favourite example here of broad-scale farming), there’s little overt benefit to becoming vegetarian (or vegan). The simple fact is that if you have a mouth and an anus (I assume you do), you’re part of the problem. That problem is there are 6.7 billion of us, we all need to eat, and our population is still growing. A balanced diet consisting of mostly plant material, but a varied intake of meat from various species, has benefits over overt, American-style fast food, highly processed, high-volume carnivory, there is no question; however, stating that vegetarianism is the cure for our ills is naive.
I agree that the main problem is too many mouths to feed, but if you’re going to fill those mouths, it is much more efficient to do without using cattle meat. In the same acreage, you can feed many more times the amount of people by producing veggies or grain than you can with cattle. It also is important to know that no animal had to be tortured for your meal. Now I don’t know how bird farming stacks up, but red meat is the worst type of food production available to us.
Human overpopulation is our number one problem, but raising animals for meat with the same grain products we could be feeding people makes no sense at all.
Here’s what the U.N.’s 2006 report, “Livestock’s Long Shadow” says about about grain production: “… global production of meat is projected to more than double from 229×109 kg/year in 1999/2000 to 465×109 kg/year in 2050 (Steinfeld et al. 2006, FAO document). The bulk of growth will occur in developing countries through intensive production systems where economies of scale will cause a steady increase of the size of operations. It is expected that the future growth of livestock output will be based on similar growth rates for feed concentrate use.
“The total area occupied by livestock grazing is around 34×106 km2, which is equivalent to 26 percent of the land surface area of the planet (Steinfeld et al. 2006). The total area used for feedcrop production is about 4.7×106 km2, equivalent to 33 percent of all cropland. Most of this cropland is located in OECD countries, but some developing countries are rapidly expanding their feedcrop production, notably maize and soybean in South America, in particular Brazil. The total remaining area suitable for rain-fed production is estimated to be about 28×106 km2, of which 45 percent is forest area (12.6×106 km2) (Steinfeld et al. 2006). Livestock contribute about 9 percent of total carbon dioxide emissions, 37 percent of methane and 65 percent of nitrous oxide. In terms of CO2 equivalents the gaseous emissions from livestock production amounts to about 18 percent of the global warming effects. This is more than the contribution from the total transportation sector. Concerning polluting gaseous emissions not linked to climate change, livestock waste contributes 68 percent of total emissions of ammonia (30×109 kg/year) (Steinfeld et al. 2006). About 0.13×106 km2 of forest is lost per year and the majority is converted to agricultural land (Steinfeld et al. 2006).”
This next bit is from a DawnWatch Alert about an editorial written by George Monbiot of the UK Guardian.
” At 2.1bn tonnes, the global grain harvest broke all records last year – it beat the previous year’s by almost 5 percent. The crisis, in other words, has begun before world food supplies are hit by climate change. If hunger can strike now, what will happen if harvests decline?
“There is plenty of food. It is just not reaching human stomachs. Of the 2.13bn tonnes likely to be consumed this year, only 1.01bn, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, will feed people.”
Monbiot goes on to state that “While 100m tonnes of food will be diverted this year to feed cars, 760m tonnes will be snatched from the mouths of humans to feed animals – which could cover the global food deficit 14 times. If you care about hunger, eat less meat.”
Another aspect of global warming pollution and deforestation and the food crisis that is ALWAYS overlooked is the booming world population. We simply have to stop making so many human animals. We’re killing everything and eventually, we’ll die off, too. I’ve read estimates of 6.6 billion for the planet, of which 1.13 billion live in India, 1.3 billion in China, and 300 million in the U.S. Hmm … I wonder who eats the most meat?
The USDA reports that Americans, PER PERSON, eat 50.5 pounds of pork, 65 pounds of beef, and 85.4 pounds of poultry – EVERY YEAR. That’s 40 billion land animals tortured during their short lives for TASTE. It is abundantly clear that we do not need to eat animals for protein and yet this gluttony and complete disregard for non-human animal life or any horrible affects on the environment continues unabated.
In addition to the U.N. report, the University of Chicago in the same year released a report that states: “that feeding animals for meat, dairy, and egg production requires growing some 10 times as much crops as we’d need if we just ate pasta primavera, faux chicken nuggets, and other plant foods. On top of that, we have to transport the animals to slaughterhouses, slaughter them, refrigerate their carcasses, and distribute their flesh all across the country. Producing a calorie of meat protein means burning more than 10 times as much fossil fuels–and spewing more than 10 times as much heat-trapping carbon dioxide–as does a calorie of plant protein. The researchers found that, when it’s all added up, the average American does more to reduce global warming emissions by going vegetarian than by switching to a hybrid vehicle.
So, I respectfully disagree, Corey Bradshaw, that my belief that veganism could cure a host of the world’s ills is naive. It appears to be based in fact. There’s more on my blog.
s.
Paul, the information I posted includes all factory farming but there’s probably some info about bird farming in particular at http://www.factoryfarming.org or meat dot org. Ending the torture and suffering of farm animals is reason enough for me to practice a vegan lifestyle. Just because I have canine teeth, doesn’t make me a carnivore, as Capt. Paul Watson said at a recent event I attended. Humans are not top predators. When’s the last time you saw a human chase down his prey and rip and tear it with huge canines and powerful jaws? Capt. Watson said we’re more like vultures and jackals – necrovores – because we only eat what’s already dead.
s.
What is next … eat Bambi … the meat is cute!? … I can’t argue all the good points raised, but I can suggest two books for some perspective …
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, by Jared Diamond ( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393061310/ ) and
The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming, by Masanobu Fukuoka ( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0878572201/ ).
Unfortunately for many wildlife advocates, many tears will be shed for the slain wild animal who lived out in the open air and represented something worth protecting but incarcerate animals into warehouses or crowded feedlots for food, as long as they are hidden away from sight, that’s ok. These animals are no longer animals but “meat”. And they are no longer living things but commodities. The package on the shelf removes their animal-ness. The average mind is quite capable of burying its compassion and intelligence when it comes to convenience and desire.
I will just put forth some information from a good article I posted recently for get meat guzzlers to consider why eating roos might not be the answer:
If you want to feed the world, don’t start looking for another animal to replace cattle
Diet for a more-crowded planet: plants, July 18, 2008, Christian Science Monitor
Rising incomes raise appetite for meat. But how many can ‘eat like an American’?
by Moises Velasquez-Manoff
An excerpt…
The average American eats about 275 pounds of meat per year, says the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Each American, in effect, consumes 1,765 pounds of grain yearly, says Lester Brown, author of “Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.” Only 220 pounds of that is consumed directly in foodstuffs like bread, pasta, and breakfast cereal. The rest is through animal products.
If everyone consumed grain at this rate, says Mr. Brown, today’s 2 billion-ton world grain harvest would feed only 2.5 billion people – two-fifths of the world population. If the world ate the way Italians do – 882 pounds of grain per person yearly – we’d feed 5 billion people. And if we all ate the way largely vegetarian India does (11-1/2 pounds of meat per person yearly, or 440 pounds of grain), our grain supply could feed 10 billion.
For Brown, this exercise has serious implications. Moral issues aside, hungry people lead to social unrest. And that has consequences for everyone.
“How many failing states before we have a failing global civilization?” he asks.”
You can read the article at this link.
http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/07/18/diet-for-a-more-crowded-planet-plants/
Thanks for all these comments everyone, I guess the problem is far more complex than I initially thought but regardless of logic my gut (no pun intended) tells me that our culture and upbringing influences our tastes and changing this starts at infancy – yes I blame my parents for feeding me meat so early on! I tried to be a vegetarian but became obsessed with desire to eat meat after 2 years. It was dreadful because I ended up eating more and more vegetables, got quite fat, because I couldn’t satisfy my hunger! But I do try though not hard enough to be responsible about what I eat in terms of animal welfare and quantity of meat. Throughout most of Africa meat is raised on the range – its not competing with grain at all which couldn’t grow in those conditions. It also means that the cows/goats/sheep are totally free range and enjoy the great out doors for their (short) lives. Does that make it better/ok?
Paula, you could read The Omnivores’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. It’s an utterly fascinating book and written by an ex meat guzzler (by guzzler I mean the culture of meat every day almost every meal) who still eats meat but has changed his ways and brought along millions of meat guzzlers to this mantra: “eat food, don’t eat much, eat mostly plants.” He even shot a pig in the book so this isn’t someone who has problems with eating animals. He explores food in the book, all food.
While the factory farms he explored might mostly apply to European and North American animal products, the problem is as people become more affluent they eat more and then suddenly the sunshine/field thing doesn’t isn’t efficient and the factories begin. Meat Guzzling only began with the advent of factory farming. People would only eat it on friday nights in our cultures anyway or for a special occasion.
Pollan also notes now that with the advent of cheap meat thanks to factory farming, while the price dropped, the health care costs soared.
Guzzling industiral meats brings great risk to the next generation’s future. You’ll be reading about pigs and the MRSA superbug at some point in the mainstream news (very slow story to break aside from the NYTs) but giving most of the antibiotics we use to keep animals alive in their factories is already having a karmic retribution (superbugs) as are the 200 dead zones that the tons of fertilizers needed to grow crops for food created and all the destroyed ecosystems from farm waste runoff. The billions of sea creatures dead.
Michael Pollan no longer EVER eats meat UNLESS he knows the source intimately and he doesn’t eat in restaurants. That’s because this guy whose empathy has limits says IT’S JUST TOO BRUTAL. That’s a guy who loves meat and was raised on it every day (like the rest of us). I ate it practically every meal as a child and I still miss well, I only miss tandoori chicken now.
But I do know it’s a process.. so please keep trying and don’t just grab some convenient meat without knowing the source and eat far less of it. You can start trying meat-free days and you’ll be healthier for it too.
oh yes one more brief thought the culture of GOTTA EAT MEAT ALL THE TIME leads to all this poaching too
Could someone please moderate my comment #6? The links are to Amazon dot com! Thank You.
I’m going to add one more really good news story in line with Colleen’s comment: Rethinking the Meat Guzzler from the NYTimes.
Here’s an excerpt: “To put the energy-using demand of meat production into easy-to-understand terms, Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at the Bard Center, and Pamela A. Martin, an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago, calculated that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius. Similarly, a study last year by the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Japan estimated that 2.2 pounds of beef is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 155 miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days.”
Bittman also writes about the impact of our meat eating on world hunger: “Though some 800 million people on the planet now suffer from hunger or malnutrition, the majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds cattle, pigs and chickens. This despite the inherent inefficiencies: about two to five times more grain is required to produce the same amount of calories through livestock as through direct grain consumption, according to Rosamond Naylor, an associate professor of economics at Stanford University. It is as much as 10 times more in the case of grain-fed beef in the United States.”
s.
Thanks Sheryl. That was a great article AND written by a meat eater.
Thanks everyone – interesting debate – makes me want to work harder on climate issues through WildlifeDirect.