August 22nd, 2009
"Meat has a carbon footprint?" This blogger must be ignorant!
One talkback on my locavore blog says; “Meat has a carbon footprint? I guess all the carbon in that cow comes from pixie dust, eh? Or maybe we drill oil out of the ground and grow cows out of it.”
Wow! Carbon footprint is a tough concept, I see. It has to do with all carbon dioxide emissions that can be traced to any process (like making cement), any creature (like a human or cow or parakeet), or any on-going system (like a railroad or factory). Thus an American cow, grown for burgerdom, has a huge carbon footprint. Hay and grain are grown using petroleum based fertliziers which are manufactured or processed in ways that use yet more pertroleum and electricity. CO2 emissions galore. Stuff is then hauled or trucked about using diesel power primarily. More CO2. The cow is fed many pounds of food before it is killed, much of it energy-eating corn. Producing corn: plenty of CO2. In arid parts of the West cattle require pumped water. More energy and more CO2 off-gassing unless the pumps are powered with renewable energy. Protein does not come cheaply in nature whether you’re measuring it in dollars or gallons of water, or energy and emissions. With four-footed proteins like cow or pig, you get the added delight of all that manure to ignore or deal with. That can also be energy intensive, even if you’re just pumping it or trucking it away.
Field trip suggestion: every carnivore needs to visit a working cattle operation. Watching one on TV doesn’t count. You need to see it and smell it and appreciate it.
The actual butchering, rendering, freezing, packaging, shipping, thawing, unpackaging, cooking, cleaning up is a tiny fraction of the carbon footprint of your burger, Mac.
Here’s the full talkback that exposed my horrid level of ignorance of “carbon footprint.”
And this is a greentech issue because greentech companies and researchers are working on sources of renewable energy so the corn and the cow don’t require so many barrels of irreplacable oil. They are working on ways to use the off-gassed methane from cow and manure. They’re working on cheaper, renewable energy for almost all the resources now needed to go from calf to burger.
A newsman since 1969, Harry Fuller has worked for CBS, ABC, CNBC Europe, CNET and was founding news director at TechTV. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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