Does anyone know how can eating meats add to global warming?

Question

I understand there is a protest planned to say, "eating meat adds to global warming".

Do you believe this makes any sense? Surely we are not talking about voiding and flatulence, aren't beans worse for that?!?

Please explain it to me, and all the other yahoos who don't understand this 'mind bender' of a theory.

Answer 1

Dont listen too the moronic person below me...

Americans are increasingly aware of the health consequences of eating animal flesh, dairy products, and eggs, but most of us don’t ever think about the risks associated with working on or living near a factory farm. Unfortunately, people in rural communities often experience, firsthand, the devastating effects of factory-farm pollution.1

Factory farms pollute the air and the water for many miles in every direction, often spreading contamination and illness to the people who live and work nearby. A synopsis of a Senate Agricultural Committee report on farm pollution issued this warning about animal waste: “[I]t’s untreated and unsanitary, bubbling with chemicals and diseased organisms. … It goes onto the soil and into the water that many people will, ultimately, bathe in and wash their clothes with and drink. It is poisoning rivers and killing fish and making people sick. … Catastrophic cases of pollution, sickness, and death are occurring in areas where livestock operations are concentrated.”2

When factory farms move into communities, the pollution that they bring causes increased rates of neurological disorders, respiratory diseases, miscarriages, bacterial infections, diarrhea, and stomach ailments; sometimes, the contamination leaves people permanently disabled or even dead. An investigative report that recently appeared in The New York Times lists just a small sample of the suffering that follows the arrival of a factory farm: “Paul Isbell of Houston, Miss., began experiencing seizures after a hog farm moved in down the road. … Kevin Pearson of Meservey, Iowa, carried a towel in his car because he vomited five or six times a week on his way to work. Julie Jansen’s six children suffered flulike symptoms and diarrhea when farms moved into their neighborhood in Renville, Minn. One of Ms. Jansen’s daughters was found by Dr. Kilburn to have neurological damage.”3

Karen Hudson of the Illinois-based grassroots group Families Against Rural Messes, summed up the problem of animal factories’ need to dispose of millions of tons of feces: “[I]n order to get rid of it, they have to dump it. And who’s paying for it? It’s the communities—in water quality problems, air quality problems, and public-health problems.”4 In 2006, public-interest and environmental groups expressed shock and anger when the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a new loophole that would make it even easier for giant animal factories to pollute the water and air without any oversight. Ed Hopkins, director of the Sierra Club’s Environmental Quality Program, said that the new loophole “essentially means that these facilities are going to be able to continue to use our streams and rivers as sewers.”5

The government and the animal flesh and dairy industries are well aware of the health problems caused by factory farms—one recent government report by the California State Senate admits, “Studies have also shown that [animal waste] lagoons emit toxic airborne chemicals that can cause inflammatory, immune, irritation, and neurochemical problems in humans.”6 Yet, despite overwhelming scientific evidence that proves factory farms cause significant damage to Americans’ health, the federal government and state officials continue to do nothing while the animal flesh, egg, and dairy industries pollute our air and water

Answer 2

It does make sense, but it mainly applies to eating beef and less to other meats. Basically there are 2 main factors by which livestock farming contributes to global warming:

1) Directly via methane emissions.
2) Indirectly via land use changes.

The first is because cows are ruminant animals, which means they release methane when they burp (and in their manure). Methane is a pretty strong greenhouse gas, so this contributes to global warming.

The second is because cows require large pastures for grazing. The more beef we eat, the more cows are raised, and the more land is converted from say forest land to pasture.

I've got a couple of further discussions about the issue in the links below.

Answer 3

some human beings on earth have continually been farmers elevating the two vegetation and animals for an extraordinarily long term. u.s. has lost a stable deal of its farms because of the fact our government has made agriculture an undesirable existence-type. There are much less farms as we communicate than there grow to be 2 hundred years in the past and extra are dying off daily because of the fact they won't be able to discover the money for to function. provided that, i detect it complicated to have self assurance that the production of meat is the main suitable contributor to international warming whilst i know switching from a everyday motor vehicle to a hybrid will shrink down far extra CO2 emissions. provided that, i do no longer think of on the wide-unfold that is unethical to devour meat. i think of no rely if one chooses to or no longer is an argument of non-public decision.

Answer 4

While there may be truth to this meat-eating claim, it doesn't take into account many acres of farmland that are not good for crop growth which can be used for grazing livestock. No doubt, a similar claim could be made for North Americans just eating less, period. The amount we overeat adds a strain on our environment. One answer may lie in having the price of food reflect its cost to the environment. Then, you get into the issue of cheap food for needy families. Life is complicated.

Answer 5

I'm afraid that is what they're talking about. Yes it's sad, they're just running out of things to say. If you question this one, how did you feel about the earlier assertions that everyone who isn't an aggressive polluter is a communist driving around in an SUV or flying around in a private jet listening to Al Gore tapes while thinking up new ways to bribe all the scientists and all the governments of the world to lie to the public? This is almost rational by comparison.

Yes I agree that cows fart and that people have domesticated and bred them because some people like to eat their flesh, so that adds up to more farts. How much it matters compared to burning the rain forests or the millions of internal combustion engines or the tens of thousands of power plants burning fossil fuel so people can play their PlayStation's and watch Oprah probably isn't much. But then it's totally ignoring differences in scale that has lent them whatever slight credibility they have.

Answer 6

No, I don't believe global warming is not caused by eating veg or non-veg foods. It is caused by the earth's orbit getting closer to the sun. God allows it because He is fed up with the wickedness of mankind - everyone does what is right in his own eyes (Judges 21:25). This is the result of the godless teaching of evolution and all its ramifications. Human life is sacred in God's eyes but not in man's. Man equates animals with mankind. So for this reason the Lord is allowing the earth's orbit to get closer and closer to the sun as a foretaste of His fiery wrath that will burn up all wickedness and make way for a new earth. (2 Peter 3: 12-13).

Answer 7

RonL got this one right. However there are coal mine fires burning worldwide that contribute far more greenhouse gasses than all the other contributors combined. 200 million tons a year burn in China and 100 million tons a year in India. We would all be far better served by figuring out a way to put these fires out than focusing on every ones cars, lawnmowers and cows.

Answer 8

I heard it was because the cows crapped and there was something in their *waste* that contributed to global warming, therefore red meat is bad.

Answer 9

I think it makes you pass gas. Have you not heard the news story about the people killing the Moose in some parts of the country because they are passing too much gas. So be careful, and always, "Pass your gas in your on house" unless you want to end up on someone hit list. LOL.

Answer 10

Try to avoid believing all the global warming stuff, since it's a theory without sufficient evidence to support it. There are scientists who don't go with it.