This is an interesting excerpt from the BBC Bloom website about why eating less meat can be hugely beneficial for the environment. And this definitely something we can all do!
Visit here for the full article and have a play around on the rest of the Bloom website because it's very very enlightening.
"A vegan in a 4x4 can do the climate more good than a meat-eater driving a hybrid car. Food for thought?
Livestock produce more greenhouse gases than all the world's transport combined, with beef production singled out by a recent UN report as a particular enemy at the gate. Why? Because cattle belch. Methane is a greenhouse gas more than 20 times worse for climate change than CO2 emissions and cattle are full of it. There are 1.5 billion cattle and buffalo worldwide, each producing more greenhouse gas in a day than the average 4x4.
According to the World Health Organisation, the average Briton eats twice the amount of protein they need in a year. By halving the amount of beef you eat, you could save almost as much CO2 as recycling for a year. By going vegan, you can slice off almost as much CO2 in a year as skipping a single return flight to India.
And cows, sheep, pigs and chickens are responsible for more emissions than just their... well, emissions. So, should we be choosing our meats more carefully?
Together, belched methane from cows and sheep, plus methane from manure, account for about 40% of global methane emissions. But that's not the whole story.
Livestock production also plays a big part in deforestation for grazing and cultivating animal feeds such as soya. Deforestation is currently responsible for a staggering quarter of all global man-made CO2 emissions.
Add to that the fact that manure and fertilisers used to grow crops to feed livestock produce two-thirds of global human emissions of nitrous oxide (a gas almost 300 times as damaging to the climate as CO2 ) and you start to see the scale of the problem.
When you crunch those numbers, a single kilo of beef can be responsible for more greenhouse gas than driving for three hours while leaving all the lights on at home, according to 2007 Japanese research published in the journal Animal Science.
Cows can even offer vegetarians something to ruminate on - a veggie who scoffs a lot of dairy products can actually be as bad for the climate as a meat-eater. That's because the dairy industry accounts for about 23% of UK food emissions.
If the UK went the whole hog and stopped eating meat and dairy entirely, without increasing how much we eat of other foods, we would cut our greenhouse gas emissions by 8%. While this may be an unikely scenario, even eating a bit less could lower demand and reduce emissions significantly."
Tuesday, 28 October 2008
Sunday, 5 October 2008
Top Three Reasons Not To Eat Fish
A good little video documenting why eating fish is bad for you and the environment.
http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/video.asp?video=fish_3_reasons&Player=wm
http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/video.asp?video=fish_3_reasons&Player=wm
Tuesday, 22 July 2008
Zecar - costing 2p a mile!
Are electric cars the way to go in terms of reducing humanity's impact on the environment?
An important point to consider when thinking about such things must be the break-even point i.e. the point at which the amount of carbon emissions you have saved by using electricity overtakes the amount of emissions produced in the manufacture of the vehicle.
Hopefully with an increase in green electricity production surely electric driven cars are going to be a much more sustainable solution to land travel in cars.
A car produced in my native South Wales, the Zecar, now claims to be able to run for 2p for a mile. This is substantially cheaper than that of a petrol car, especially given the current crisis in terms of rising fuel costs. The Zecar costs £15,000 and will go on sale in the UK later this year.
Another benefit of the company is that the cars are manufactured in the UK- thus cutting down on the emissions used on import.
With plans to expand into vans, taxis and limos this company could really help cut greenhouse gas emissions in the future!
An important point to consider when thinking about such things must be the break-even point i.e. the point at which the amount of carbon emissions you have saved by using electricity overtakes the amount of emissions produced in the manufacture of the vehicle.
Hopefully with an increase in green electricity production surely electric driven cars are going to be a much more sustainable solution to land travel in cars.
A car produced in my native South Wales, the Zecar, now claims to be able to run for 2p for a mile. This is substantially cheaper than that of a petrol car, especially given the current crisis in terms of rising fuel costs. The Zecar costs £15,000 and will go on sale in the UK later this year.
Another benefit of the company is that the cars are manufactured in the UK- thus cutting down on the emissions used on import.
With plans to expand into vans, taxis and limos this company could really help cut greenhouse gas emissions in the future!
Sunday, 20 July 2008
Impressive results from fishing ban
It seems that evidence is now starting to be seen that maintaining no-fishing zones in British water has a significant impact on the underwater world.
The marine reserve set up by the Government off the coast of Lundy island has recently been investigated to see what effects have been seen on marine populations. Compared to the control zones it was found that lobsters are around seven times more abundant in the no-take zone.
This lends great credence to the work and motivation of the Marine Conservation Society and the 'Marine Reserves Now' campaign, aimed at bringing big steps into the Marine Bill published by Defra.
For the BBC article on the results at Lundy follow this link and the Marine Bill from here.
The marine reserve set up by the Government off the coast of Lundy island has recently been investigated to see what effects have been seen on marine populations. Compared to the control zones it was found that lobsters are around seven times more abundant in the no-take zone.
This lends great credence to the work and motivation of the Marine Conservation Society and the 'Marine Reserves Now' campaign, aimed at bringing big steps into the Marine Bill published by Defra.
For the BBC article on the results at Lundy follow this link and the Marine Bill from here.
Friday, 27 June 2008
Melting Glacier in Norway
One of the difficult things in making a difference to the climate change that our planet is experiencing is breaking things down into chunks that people can handle (hence the name of this blog!). Very often we have a picture of planetary despair painted for us with little or no hints as to how we can help.
This can also be the case with the effects of climate change, with very little physical evidence being given for the changes that are being observed around the planet.
However with more and more attention being paid to climate change this is changing. As this wonderful but distrurbing set of photos shows the dramatic effect of climate change on glaciers in Norway. The difference between the glacier's size in 2001 compared to 2006 is staggering, as seen from the pictures are the beginning and end of this post.
Wednesday, 4 June 2008
The end of single use plastic bag - success starts at home!
I feel quite pleased with myself this week since I've taken another step to forcing my housemates into using linen bags.
Every time one of them goes to the shops they come back with a plastic bag, no matter how few items they buy. It's an issue which thoroughly winds me up and in turn winds them up because of me harping on about it!
But at Camden Green Fair on the weekend, I picked up of a load of linen bags that were being handed out for free and have hung them on a hook on the back of the front door. Now I have given all my housemates the strict orders that when they go to the shops that they have to take one off the door to save on plastic bags.
Now all I've got is beast them enough that they continue taking them!
Every time one of them goes to the shops they come back with a plastic bag, no matter how few items they buy. It's an issue which thoroughly winds me up and in turn winds them up because of me harping on about it!
But at Camden Green Fair on the weekend, I picked up of a load of linen bags that were being handed out for free and have hung them on a hook on the back of the front door. Now I have given all my housemates the strict orders that when they go to the shops that they have to take one off the door to save on plastic bags.
Now all I've got is beast them enough that they continue taking them!
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