The most recent IPCC special report is on "desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems". The video at Lorne's post does a nice summary, and Climate and Capitalism has a thorough run-down, but Mound's has more flavour to it. GlobalEcoGuy has some good graphs as well as commentary: "Imagine that: Electricity generation and land us and agriculture are basically equal in terms of their global impact on climate change, yet addressing emissions from electricity gets far more attention and funding."
But although it suggests we have to reduce meat consumption and production, in the Guardian, George Monbiot critiqued the report as irresponsibly understating "the true carbon cost of our meat and dairy habits." The problem is in how the report calculates the land use. They've added up the impact of tractors and fertilizer and so on, but a study in Nature, instead, compares the land used for cattle to land that could be forested to show a much more dire result: "One kilo of beef protein has a carbon opportunity cost of 1,250kg: that, incredibly, is roughly equal to driving a new car for a year, or to one passenger flying from London to New York and back."
BUT, in other land-related news, in Australia, the government bought up an entire suburb and returned the land to little penguins that lived there. This is the ultimate in rewilding. The population of penguins has almost tripled since. Imagine if we were required to keep a certain percentage of our land 'wild' and completely uncommodifiable!
But although it suggests we have to reduce meat consumption and production, in the Guardian, George Monbiot critiqued the report as irresponsibly understating "the true carbon cost of our meat and dairy habits." The problem is in how the report calculates the land use. They've added up the impact of tractors and fertilizer and so on, but a study in Nature, instead, compares the land used for cattle to land that could be forested to show a much more dire result: "One kilo of beef protein has a carbon opportunity cost of 1,250kg: that, incredibly, is roughly equal to driving a new car for a year, or to one passenger flying from London to New York and back."
"If our grazing land was allowed to revert to natural ecosystems, and the land currently used to grow feed for livestock was used for grains, beans, fruit, nuts and vegetables for humans, this switch would allow the UK to absorb an astonishing quantity of carbon. This would be equivalent, altogether, the paper estimates, to absorbing nine years of our total current emissions. And farming in this country could then feed everyone, without the need for imports."That actually sounds hopeful, except I'm losing faith in anybody actually sacrificing anything in their lives, particularly steak.
BUT, in other land-related news, in Australia, the government bought up an entire suburb and returned the land to little penguins that lived there. This is the ultimate in rewilding. The population of penguins has almost tripled since. Imagine if we were required to keep a certain percentage of our land 'wild' and completely uncommodifiable!
No comments:
Post a Comment