Can you call yourself "green" and still be chowing down little animals?

Question

i don't get it..farm animals are putting more greenhouse gasses in the air than all the cars and trucks put together..

Answer 1

But so are farmlands for crops.

The only truly green are the hunter/gatherers, living in a cave.

I'm all for it. If we could only get the 2 billion Live Earthers to TOTALLY get off the grid, sell all their belongings and chip in a little to help them buy South America, we wall off the continent at the Panama Canal. They are relegated to a truly carbon neutral life, with NO use of Petroleum or coal, no product created through the use of fossil resources We won't bother them, they won't bother us.

Both civilizations might feel they were living in paradise...

Answer 2

No, you can't.

And forget about greenhouse gases, factory farms destroy the earth at the most basic levels. They pollute the air, water, soil. Farm animals ingest more food than they produce and millions of animals are just wasted because they get so pumped full of horomones that they keel over before slaughter time. Not to mention the energy costs of keeping a farm running. Plus factory farming is downright cruel. Those animals look like zombies and many are slaughtered alive. Anyone who claims they are for the environment and still chomps down on decaying animal flesh is a hypocrite of the worst kind. And Weird Al Gore didn't even mention any of this in that stupid "documentary"....know why? He just likes to eat his cheeseburgers and not feel bad about it. Sad, isn't it?

Omg...someone just said they were selling meat products at Live Earth! Is this true? That is horrible.

Edit: Why would anyone make an argument that land for crop production does the same thing? What do you think they are feeding those animals you eat? A cow can eat as much as any vegetarian.

Answer 3

Can you call yourself "green"
I say, change your name to what ever you want.
But remember to tell your friends and family.

Even when chewing the animal fat Green is still a good name.

Personally I cant claim to have ever followed farm animals around while sniffing their bums, but I have found myself at the back end of a car or two and breathed in their gas.

Exactly how many farm animals would you need to stand behind to get the same amount of gas as even a small car.

If you wanted to kill someone, home many farm animals would you need to lock in their garage so that you could gas the person to death.

Personally I think the pro car group are pulling your leg a little when they speak about animals and deadly gas.

Sure animals (as do we humans) release gas but thats what we need to do.

At the rate we humans are killing animals all over the planet there are no where near the numbers today as there was 1000 years ago, If the gas they make today is a problem why was it no problem 1000 years ago.

Answer 4

I don't know that farm animals are putting out MORE greenhouse gasses than cars and trucks (I’d actually like to see that statistic and know where it came from) but farms and ranches do produce a lot of emissions. What is great though is that they now have the technology to recycle the gases that farms and ranches produce to renewable energy. They can even collect the methane gases from cow manure (or any animal feces) and alter it into energy to operate their facilities. So if all of the farms throughout the country used this technology not only would they save money on their utilities and reduce greenhouse gas emissions they are generating their own energy and can sell it to other people. Also all this would in turn produce MORE jobs. It’s just a win/win situation all around if we could only get every farm out there to do it by giving government support.

Answer 5

Do some research on the different isotopes of CO2, and their reactions in the environment, and you'll see why Co2 generated by living organisms isn't the biggest threat.

Methane created by farm animals hasn't increased in concentration in our atmosphere since 1990, and most of it can be utilized to make energy, since it comes from the decay of the waste material from farms. This situation, is relatively simple to deal with, as it can be used to produce power. there just needs to be a movement to better utilize these types of resources that are being wasted. But people want to argue so much about whether or not global warming is occuring, that the real problems and real solutions are being ignored in the battle.

Answer 6

Thank you for bringing up an important point that is so often neglected. People who consume animals could *call* themselves green, profess to love animals or claim to be concerned about world hunger. Similarly, I could call myself Barney Rubble.
The relationship between the meat industry and global warming seems to be a dirty little secret, even among many so-called environmentalists. The taste of flesh is apparently so addictive that users refuse to see the facts in front of them (denial is an instrumental part of so many addictions). People joke about cow farts, insist that "food" animals would go extinct if humans didn't continue to raise them (?) find other ways of totally missing the point.
*Maybe* if a family raises their own food animals, or hunts them locally, they could consider themselves green, provided that they do this with as much environmental conscientiousness as possible. It may still be better if they ate a plant-based diet, but @ least they wouldn't be supporting factory farms.
I stopped eating meat 20 years ago, out of concern for animals & frequently learn of additional reasons to be vegetarian. World hunger, global warming, e coli-- and we know where it was *before* it got into the spinach.

Answer 7

Being "green" is not a black and white issue. It's all a sliding scale that depends on what you chose to do in your life. Sure, eating meat that has been raised in a factory farm isn't environmentally friendly...but perhaps said individuals are making an impact in another area of their lives.

Answer 8

1. Human beings are omnivores that require a varied diet, vegetarianism is not healthy for at least the vast majority of people. Look at your teeth people, not herbivores... okay?

2. Vegetarians love putting out false claims about how bad killing animals for meat is. Makes me wonder if any of them would survive in the wild.

3. The twisted, non evidence based, emotive "logic" being used to justify these claims only helps the global warming deniers in their attempts to avoid stopping pollution. Saying things like 'but cows are causing most of the greenhouse gases' is not only wrong but discredits the whole reality of climate change making it easier to disregard.

4. Therefore vegetarians pushing this no meat for anyone agenda (because it's just sooooooooooo carooooooooooooooouuuuul) are actually doing more harm than good for the environment.

5. You could do more good for the environment by supporting the use of geothermal power than by giving up eating 'cuuute lil animals' to be honest with you - animals have always existed and the biosystem is more than accounted for by naturally existing balances. The deforestation is more of a worry and agricultural practices do need improvement but industry is more of a worry in terms of it's power generation because this is not a part of the natural cycle, it's digging up stored carbon and releasing it in truly massive amounts. This extra carbon dioxide is not being accounted for in the balance that has evolved so the balance is shifting.

With geothermal power we could create cheap, sustainable, emissionless power that doesn't produce nuclear waste and that uses currently available technology. Concentrating on non-issues that don't make sense (are you saying to get rid of all animals if they have such a great greenhouse effect? I for one find that cruel ;) just wastes your energy and time and detracts from real efforts to make a difference.

PS Also Hitler was a vegetarian, tee totalling, non-smoker. Not accusing y'all.... m'just sayin' ;)

*edit* Michael H, that's kinda deceptive since methane and nitrous oxide don't form anything like the majority of greenhouse gases and don't contribute anything like as much to global climate change overall. Yes they do have more of an effect molecule for molecule but overall there is a hell of a lot more carbon dioxide being released than methane or nitrous oxide - the effect those two combined are having is essentially negligble compared to the effect that burning massive amounts of fossil fuels is having.

Answer 9

No scare mongering from me, just facts:

From UK goverment statistics ( June 2007 edition of Farming Week ):

Methane, which has a global warming potential 23 times that of cardon dioxide is produced during the anearobic fermentation in the digestive sytems of cattle, sheep and other ruminants, as well as from manure. In the UK, 37% of total methane emissions came from the agicultural sector in 2005

Nitrogen in livestock manure and urine is another important cause of polution. Nitrous oxide, with a global warming potential 296 ( yes 296 ) times that of cardon dioxide, may also be emitted from livestock housing, during manure storage, following applications to land and from grazing pastures. Like methane, nitrous oxide makes a major contribution to glabal warming, with 67 % of the UK's nitrous oxide emissions coming from the farming sector in 2005

If meat-eaters can't see, and take responsibility for, the damage in those figures them we are all lost.

Answer 10

cars are actually the leading CO2 pollutants but cows aren't too far behind
but this isn't something where you can easily sort green/not green
for example someone might eat meat but they dont drive only ride a bike and they rely only on solar panels and wind turbines i wouldn't hesitate to call them green but then if someone was to only
not eat meat and eat only locally grown foods i would call them green too mabye not as devoted as the guy that payed thousands to install solar panels but still green
so it really depends