This should help you struggling farmers...not!!!
"Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said people should have one meat-free day to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The economist, who is vegetarian, said diet change was important in reducing environmental problems associated with rearing cattle and other animals.

Dr Pachauri is due to give a speech in London on Monday under the title: "Global Warning: the impact of meat production and consumption on climate change".

The IPCC evaluates climate data for the world’s government and last year earned a joint share of the Nobel peace prize.

“Give up meat for one day (per week) initially, and decrease it from there," he told the Observer.

"In terms of immediacy of action and the feasibility of bringing about reductions in a short period of time, it clearly is the most attractive opportunity."

Other small-scale lifestyle changes would also help to combat climate change.

Dr Pachauri said 18 per cent of all greenhouse emissions was due to animal production.

He said small changes in lifestyle would make a difference to global emissions, but called for Governments to act to reduce the number of livestock reared.

But the move has been criticised by farmers and the meat industry.

The National Farmers Union said "simplistic measures" to reduce meat consumption would "create more problems than they solve".

A spokeswoman said: "The NFU is committed to ensuring farming is part of the solution to climate change, rather than being part of the problem."

Stuart Roberts, director of the British Meat Processors Association, said he was "disappointed" by the comments.

He said: "The British meat industry already takes its environmental responsibilities very seriously and I believe methane levels on UK farms are actually falling already.

"We have been working closely with the NFU to reduce emissions in our process. It's important this is all kept in context."

Joyce D'Silva, Ambassador for Compassion in World Farming called on Britons to reduced their meat intake.

"If we continue to consume meat and dairy at the current rate both animals and the planet will suffer.

“Factory farming is unsustainable and inhumane. The best thing people can do is eat less meat and dairy and eat only higher welfare - organic and free-range."
Eat Less Meat!!!

Being a vegetarian she wouldn't have an agenda to push would she...

<===puts on best hippy voice...

Plants have feeling too man....salad is murder!

sorry...i couldent resist..ill get back in my box now...

Meat?
We should be cutting down on baked beans to help with global warming.

"Stop eating meat' a misguided approach to climate change

Monday, 08/09/2008

Australian farmers and researchers say comments from one of the world's top scientists, that people should stop eating red meat, are misguided.

The chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pacchauri says consumers must reject red meat, because methane emissions from beef and sheep are making a big contribution to climate change.

Australian scientists say food supplements and breeding could reduce livestock emissions in cattle by 30 per cent within a few years.

Melbourne University researcher Dr Richard Eckhart says Governments must wait for the science to catch up, before calling for people to stop eating meat.

"Not all the land that is currently under grazing is suitable for any other form of agriculture," he says.

"And so you can't have it both ways; you can't have a world which needs more food and then say we need to cut the emissions from food production"

(PS. After eating a large bean salad recently I must agree Rainbird!)

hahaha omg!

Give me strength :rolleyes:

When the great Pachauri says 'You can't eat meat again!'
We go (fart) Heil! (fart) Heil! and say 'Go breathe methane'!

Lets have a look at some other foods as well.
Pachauri should demand the that the production and consumption of rice should cease as well.
Rice paddies are estimated to produce between 50 and 100 million tonnes of methane each year.
Methane is about 20 times as potent a green house gas as CO2.

The fact that a few million or so people could starve to death if the political class was to follow the more extreme dictates of the stop global warming at all costs section of the AGW ideologists shouldn't and so far does'nt seemed to have worried the global warmers in the least when they are making so many of their crazy demands.

Perhaps the problem now is the total disconnect and complete loss of understanding by the cities as to where their seemingly never ending supply of cheap food comes from.
As an illustration of this, I have taken the liberty of quoting from an article on today's American "Agriculture on Line" site which really illustrates how even highly educated city people are so ignorant about how the world food production and supply systems operate and by implication do not have a clue as to where their own food comes from.

Quote;
This failure to understand the differences between the needs of agriculture and other sectors was made clear to us a month ago in a conversation we had on a flight to a meeting we were attending. On this particular flight our seatmate turned out to be an MBA student from a major university. As a part of the usual chitchat, he asked what we do and we told him about our work in agricultural policy.

The discussion turned to high grain and oilseed prices and we explained that if the US or some other country had maintained reserve stocks of grains and oilseeds, the release of these stocks would have moderated the level of price increases we are seeing in the markets.

His response was "But, with world trade we don't need to maintain reserves. If a country runs short, it can just import it from somewhere else in the world."
In a perfect world, he might be right about the balancing role of trade.

This perfect world would need to have a significant number of countries involved in the production of exportable surpluses of the various grains and oilseeds. In addition the carryover stocks would need to be balanced among a number of countries as well. As some Enron employees found out, when you have all of your eggs in one basket, your risk rises dramatically.

For six grains (barley, corn, oats, rice, sorghum, and wheat), just two countries, the U.S. and China, have held an average of nearly 58% of the world's ending stocks over the last ten years (1998-2007).

To make things more risky, the difference between the high and low stocks of these two countries, 239 million tonnes, is greater than the highest level of carryover of the rest of the countries in the world, 217 million tonnes in 2001. Most of the world's carryover stocks are in two baskets -- the U.S.and China.

To read the full article go to the Ag-on-Line article.

In the end it is the stupidity of statements from highly placed people in the AGW camp who have made some quite extraordinarily ignorant statements, as Pachauri has so aptly done, will go a long way towards towards the destruction of the crumbling edifice of the AGW theory.

Some of you smarter chaps than myself might be able to answer a small question that has been floating inside my head for awhile.
Is methane or other greenhouse gases produced when grass decomposes and if so is this taken into account when the figures are done.
Cheers

Though not quite specific on grass decomposition,
there is some information regarding methene production in plants. Grasses are plants too, belonging to the classification 'Liliopsida'

Here's a good link:

http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0111-mpg.html

I hope this helps.

Thanks rainbird. Interesting article.

From what I have been able to find on a quick Google search methane breaks down in the atmosphere into two main components which are carbon dioxide and water. Mind you the time to make this change varies from 6 to 8 years but it does breakdown eventually. Methane collectors have been implemented in rubbish dumps in Perth for a number of years and the gas is burn to produce electricty. I know it is a piddlingly small amount but it is a start.


I didn't spend the last 1,000,000 evolving to become the top of the food chain to start grazing like a cow. There is always a place for meat on my plate and that is right next to the potatos.

Thing is, if you remove all meat from humanities diets what's going to replace it? For hear half the world's population I'm going to guess rice and guess what rice fields produce plenty of?

:cheers: Will

Meat is the main source of protein in the developed world and amongst the better off in the less developed countries.
The poorer people make do with the pulses, ie; peas, beans, chickpeas lentils and etc for their protein.
Red meat is also a source of iron which is needed to counter anemia of the blood circulation system.
The lack of Iron is a significant dietary deficiency amongst a large number of the rice eating nations as the iron content is very low in rice which in turn leads to severe long term health problems amongst the poor who cannot afford a wide ranging diet.
To counter this, a few years ago rice was modified using GM technology to have a much higher content of iron.
This is the so called Golden Rice due to it's colour.
Sadly because the Golden Rice was genetically modified, the fanatical and anti GM crazy deep greens have done everything in their power to prevent and completely stop the release of Golden Rice varieties.
The fact that this GM rice can prevent illness and improve health and prevent premature death amongst millions of the poorest people on earth just does not alter one bit the greens such as greenpeace's opposition to the release of this rice.
The lives of millions does not count to these anti GM fanatics.
If people die well too bad but we can't allow that terrible GM rice to get out into the market.
Somebody might get ill from consuming it.

Over the years there are other examples like this from the greens.
Sorry folks! I just can't hide my complete and utter contempt and derision for the death dealing double standards of this comfortably off fanatical green rabble that are prepared to let others much poorer than themselves suffer ill health or death rather than see their own fanatical anti GM beliefs challenged.

If you are interested in just how much and what we do eat as GM additives in our food from the home of the anti GM foods movement, ie; Europe, then try this EU funded web site GMO Compass

LOL ROM, don't hold back!! But I have to say I agree with you 100%, and yes I do have vested interest in people eating meat as we do breed beef cattle.

The hypocrisy of the green movement never ceases to amaze me, on one hand everything has to be pesticide and residue free because of all the nasty cancer causing chems that get sprayed on our food and when scientists actually develop varieties of crop that deal with pests without having to resort to, or not having to use as much of pesticide, well that is bad too. I think the reason I've heard bandied around is that if you have plants that are resistant to attack from various insects and diseases that they will proliferate in areas where they aren't wanted. I guess it is theoretically possible but I am yet to see a crop variety grow completely out of control, I know our cattle are pretty quick to find any soya bean seedlings from the fella next door, hope this counts as me doing something green!!

I was doing a few extra jobs over the xmas holidays about 20 years ago at one of the meatworks here in Townsville. Bagging blood and bone. Great job (for building upper body strength) when you got past the smell but one afternoon we where invaded by some so called animal rights nutters.

They where whining about cruelty to animals etc and carrying on like the fwits that they can be when I casually pointed out that the female leader was wearing a pair of suede ankle boots, had a leather belt and handbag. She claimed that suede was man made and the leather belt and hand bag was made out of fake leather. Not a chance it was chrome treated (gives it a lovely greenish tinge) and when i pointed out that suede comes from pig skin she threw up on the spot.
Never heard a peep out of the rest of them as they took off at a great rate.

Boss slipped me a couple of scotch fillets for my efforts. Sweet.

I read this on another forum..the winning entry from an annual contest at Texas A&M University calling for the most appropriate definition of a contemporary term (Political Correctness):

"Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."

Speaks for itself. Next thing you'll hear will be that someone has been awarded a PhD for researching the molecular construction of the clean end of methane-emitting bovine orifices.

Thanks Keith I have added that to my Memorable Quotes document and I will trot it out when ever I am able to.

Of course we could always just shoot the greenies and save the planet that way. having witnessed first hand the Greenies efforts in protecting a north queensland rain forrest by attempting to cover it in human waste, sanitarty napkins, tampons, condoms, broken bongs, shopping bags and dried tubes of glue and disposable nappies I would gladly help bulldoze a few dozen for the planet.