UN downgrades man's impact on the climate

by daystar 15 Replies latest social current

• 

  daystar

  Old news, but...
• 

  BrentR

  The UN sounds just like another organization we all know.
• 

  Elsewhere

  This morning I read the article about cows are producing more greenhouse gasses than all of the cars and industry in the world. There is just one problem with that... Why are there so many cows? Answer: Man.

  In the end humans are still responsible for the cow emissions given that we are the reason there are so many cows. It doesn't matter if the emission come from a smoke stack, tail pipe or cow butt... the emissions are still there because of human activity.
• 

  daystar

  Else,

  I believe it's important to understand the details of an issue in order to resolve it. Why place so much attention upon clean autos when cow "emissions" is such a larger problem?

  I have seen a web site where people take photos of themselves flipping off people who drive Hummers. Where are the photos of people flipping off cows lazily chewing their cuds?

  Rather than placing blame, which is so much of the argument, why not simply accept where the cause is and work together to resolve it? I think it's much more popular to blame auto manufacturers and big oil than it is to blame the meat industry and people who eat beef, is it not? Yes, but it doesn't have the feel of being a rebel against some big bad corporate evil entity. And I think that that is a problem, that so many people are more interested in blindly following some popular "cause" they know little about.

  If cow "emissions" are more a culprit than autos and gas usage, why don't I hear about people boycotting beef and ranches? Because it's not as fun and popular perhaps. It's not as "cool".
• 

  Jourles

  Sounds like we need Babyface Nelson from Oh Brother, Where Art Thou to take care of a few cows for us...
• 

  dvw

  i'll bet the dinosaurs made a lot more farts than cows do. i'm happy those jerks arent around anymore.
• 

  SixofNine

  Daystar,

  I believe it's important to understand the details of an issue in order to resolve it. Why place so much attention upon clean autos when cow "emissions" is such a larger problem?

  Glad you didn't say "all of the details.. " The newspaper articles you posted are short on data, so it's hard to know how much of this is editorializing science to fit a headline... but I am aware that the danger of methane and other gases have been on science' radar screen, and with the understanding that methane is pound for pound many times more warming than C02. Anyway, I think cars get so much more attention for a variety of reasons:

  1. we've been aware of (rather obvious) problems presented by oil usage, quite apart from any discussion of global warming, for a very long time now.
  2. The automobile and oil usage issue is easily seen (rightly) as a national security issue, whereas global warming is not yet seen as such by most people (although it certainly is one, forward thinking wise).
  3. This info wrt globalwarming and cows is relatively new (the article I post below is from NASA and was written in July of 2005. Notice that it focuses on methane and other gases, but not primarily on cattle as the source).
  4. The idea that cattle/farming practices are actually the biggest part of the problem, is very new (and I'm not sure that's what the data says. The article only says "...report has identified the world's rapidly growing herds of cattle as the greatest threat to the climate, forests and wildlife".
  5. The oil/pollution/national security argument is largely something for "them" or "they" to fix. Giving up steak is all "me".
  6. The predicted growth rate for C02 has been studied in detail, and at least in recent history, has been thought to be much greater than other gases (perhaps these new studies show methane outperforming?).

  Rather than placing blame, which is so much of the argument, why not simply accept where the cause is and work together to resolve it?

  I'm not sure how you "accept where the cause is" if you don't place blame? What is wrong with placing blame? I'll hurt some Big Oil, Auto, or Mcdonald's executive's feelings, or the feelings of a politician bought by them?

  If cow "emissions" are more a culprit than autos and gas usage, why don't I hear about people boycotting beef and ranches? Because it's not as fun and popular perhaps. It's not as "cool".

  I've yet to confirm that cow emissions are the bigger problem, but assuming they are, this is relatively new info. That aside, I don't know about you, but while I know many people who have a general negative attitude towards Hummers and their ilk, I don't personally know anyone that flips Hummer drivers off; I know many people who are vegetarians however, and many more, myself included, who are meat eaters but are beginning to take a closer look at where that meat comes from, and the farming practices that got it to my table. I also know of a few people who drive smaller, more efficient cars than they have to.

  IMO, the last word, even after we get reams more data and understanding than we have now, will be that by hook or by crook, individually (though probably individually-through-societal-action) we are going to have to each put out a smaller ecological footprint than we do now if we want to leave a world that is not just a savage game of survival for our children and their children.

  Below is from this link: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20050718/

  Part of the reason the new calculations give a larger effect is that they include the sizeable impact of methane emissions on tropospheric ozone since the industrial revolution. Tropospheric ozone is not directly emitted, but is instead formed chemically from methane, other hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides. The IPCC report includes the effects of tropospheric ozone increases on climate, but it is not attributed to particular sources. By categorizing the climate effects according to emissions, Shindell and colleagues found the total effects of methane emissions are substantially larger. In other words, the true source of some of the warming that is normally attributed to tropospheric ozone is really due to methane that leads to increased abundance of tropospheric ozone. According to the study, the effects of other pollutants were relatively minor. Nitrogen oxide emissions can even lead to cooling by fostering chemical reactions that destroy methane. This is partly why estimates based on the amount of methane in the atmosphere give the gas a smaller contribution to climate change.

  Molecule for molecule, Methane is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, but CO 2 is much more abundant than methane and the predicted growth rate is far greater. Since 1750, methane concentrations in the atmosphere have more than doubled, though the rate of increase has slowed during the 1980-90s, and researchers don't understand why. Controlling methane could reap a big bang for the buck. Another bonus of this perspective is that in order to manage greenhouse gases, policy decisions must focus on cutting emissions, because that's where humans have some control.

  "If we control methane, which the U.S. is already starting to do, then we are likely to mitigate global warming more than one would have thought, so that's a very positive outcome," Shindell said. "Control of methane emissions turns out to be a more powerful lever to control global warming than would be anticipated."

  Sources of methane include natural sources like wetlands, gas hydrates in the ocean floor, permafrost, termites, oceans, freshwater bodies, and non-wetland soils. Fossil fuels, cattle, landfills and rice paddies are the main human-related sources. Previous studies have shown that new rice harvesting techniques can significantly reduce methane emissions and increase yields.

  Reference

  Shindell, D.T., G. Faluvegi, N. Bell, and G.A. Schmidt 2005. An emissions-based view of climate forcing by methane and tropospheric ozone. Geophys. Res. Lett. 32, L04803, doi:10.1029/2004GL021900.

  Media Contacts
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  Abaddon

  One reason why the focus is on modes of transport and energy use is that one can still get to work/school/the shops in an alternately-powered car, or use public transport and vastly reduce the environmental impact. When one throws a switch the electricity can come from any power source, the lights will still come on.

  Replacing cows as a food source is, well, a cow of a different colour. You cannot have alternate forms of power for cows (the rocket-powered cow being an exception :-P ).
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  SixofNine

  Abaddon, that's true, for now. I don't know how many of us will be willing to eat it, but the day seems to be coming when it will be possible to "grow" whatever cut of meat we want. While it sounds kind of icky (ok, very icky; not that a cattle rendering plant isn't icky), it could potentially fix the current ecological issues with the cattle industry (of course, it might turn out to be inefficient compared to nature?).
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  LittleToe

  The articles made me wonder how much methane is given off by a human being from consuming eggs and red meat; and how many litres of water are required for a female human to produce one litre of milk...

  Welcome to the weird and wacky way my mind works...