Save A Cow, Save The Planet

[Rebecca]

According to Dr Andy Thorpe of Portsmouth University, a herd of 200 cows produces more greenhouse gas in a year than a family car produces to drive 3,000 miles.

Dr Thorpe added that while CO2 emissions have increased by 31 per cent in the past 250 years, methane has increased by 149 per cent over the same period.

Farm animals create methane emissions in 2 ways. Animals like cows, sheep and goats are ruminants, which means that they are grass-eaters.and during their normal digestion process they create methane. However, factory-farmed animals which are fed corn, chicken litter (feces, feathers and bedding) blood, ground up pigs and chickens and of course “downed” animals, produce much greater amounts of methane due to the fact that grain, meat and garbage is not their normal diet and they cannot digest it very well. Unlike grass-fed animals, factory farmed are sickly and require millions of pounds of antibiotics just to stay alive.

Another way that livestock produce methane is from their manure. When cows, pigs and chickens are raised on factory-farms large quantities of manure are produced. Livestock manure management is done by using large waste treatment systems and holding tanks. In these tanks the manure decomposes but because the tanks are closed there is no oxygen. When the manure decomposes without oxygen large quantities of methane are produced. Pastured animals, on the other hand, do not create this problem because the manure decomposes naturally.

Factory-farmed livestock generates 64 per cent of ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain, and 65 per cent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure.

It’s not the animals themselves that are at fault, it’s the way and the amount of livestock that is raised that is the problem. If we simply raise animals in a pasture in the sunshine eating their normal diet of grass, the greenhouse gasses are greatly reduced, plus the cows and people who eat them are far healthier. However, most importantly, we need to CUT DOWN on our consumption of meat.

If each one of us cuts back on our animal consumption by only 10%, approximately one billion animals would be spared a lifetime of suffering each year.

Livestock now use 30 per cent of the earth’s entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 per cent of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock. As forests are cleared to create new pastures, it is a major driver of deforestation, especially in Latin America where, for example, some 70 per cent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing.

[Emett]

Stupid Cows. They were the first thing I "gave up" -- cut all beef out of my diet back in high school.

Shortly after that I became a nonmammalatarian , a word I made up to help try accurately describe my diet. Very rarely there's some chicken, turkey, and super-rarely some Cod. I do love eggs and cheese. But I don't like the idea of eating those creatures that share our basic senses because their lives have the potenial to be and feel as wonderful as mine. And I also avoid anything animal from the water, especially fish and shellfish, because they are too likely to be too polluted to risk eating. I also think it's important not to eat endangered species, like Salmon, and that comes back to the Stupid Sows and all the Deforestation which drives so many extinctions, maybe daily extinctions...

It's the same story as since even when I was a child, why has this not been fixed yet?
Half my lifetime later, and it's just gotten worse... unbelievibly normal for the way we've been treating the planet for the last 200 years. And now it's worse in other ways too-- think of all the GM soy being fed to the cows, and that Round-Up ready crap is intended to be grown with heavy pesticide use! Yuck!

Save Yourself, Save A Cow, Save the Planet --eat less meat!

Rebecca, thanks for posting! -emett

[Emett]

Almond Milk Rocks!!!

[Rebecca]

Emett, do you make your own almond milk? If you can find fresh almonds (in the US they must be irradiated or "pasturized" in some way (dead) thanks to FTC bullying) add 1 cup almonds to 4 cups water, sprinkle of sea salt, and blend on high, then strain. Much different from the cooked processed stuff.