MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO For AL Gore
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Published: 10 December 2006
Meet the world's top destroyer of the environment. It is not the car, or the plane,or even George Bush: it is the cow.
A United Nations report has identified the world's rapidly growing herds of cattle as the greatest threat to the climate, forests and wildlife. And they are blamed for a host of other environmental crimes, from acid rain to the introduction of alien species, from producing deserts to creating dead zones in the oceans, from poisoning rivers and drinking water to destroying coral reefs.
The 400-page report by the Food and Agricultural Organisation, entitled Livestock's Long Shadow, also surveys the damage done by sheep, chickens, pigs and goats. But in almost every case, the world's 1.5 billion cattle are most to blame. Livestock are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.
Burning fuel to produce fertiliser to grow feed, to produce meat and to transport it - and clearing vegetation for grazing - produces 9 per cent of all emissions of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas. And their wind and manure emit more than one third of emissions of another, methane, which warms the world 20 times faster than carbon dioxide.
Livestock also produces more than 100 other polluting gases, including more than two-thirds of the world's emissions of ammonia, one of the main causes of acid rain.
Ranching, the report adds, is "the major driver of deforestation" worldwide, and overgrazing is turning a fifth of all pastures and ranges into desert.Cows also soak up vast amounts of water: it takes a staggering 990 litres of water to produce one litre of milk.
Wastes from feedlots and fertilisers used to grow their feed overnourish water, causing weeds to choke all other life. And the pesticides, antibiotics and hormones used to treat them get into drinking water and endanger human health.
The pollution washes down to the sea, killing coral reefs and creating "dead zones" devoid of life. One is up to 21,000sqkm, in the Gulf of Mexico, where much of the waste from US beef production is carried down the Mississippi.
The report concludes that, unless drastic changes are made, the massive damage done by livestock will more than double by 2050, as demand for meat increases.
Meet the world's top destroyer of the environment. It is not the car, or the plane,or even George Bush: it is the cow.
A United Nations report has identified the world's rapidly growing herds of cattle as the greatest threat to the climate, forests and wildlife. And they are blamed for a host of other environmental crimes, from
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posted by Michele @ 8:53 PM
11 Comments:
I'm eagerly waiting for your all-too-expected parting shot at Koffi Annan, since he criticized your hero Dubya. Forget that the Iraq Study Group basically made the same criticisms about his "go it alone" diplomacy style, I know how much you hate the opinions of people from the rest of the world (even though you want the American taxpayers to foot the bill to prop up paper democracies).
Failed policies.
Failed diplomacy.
Failed presidency.
Arctic Ice Melting Faster Than Expected
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
New studies project that the Arctic Ocean could be mostly open water in summer by 2040 — several decades earlier than previously expected — partly as a result of global warming caused by emissions of greenhouse gases.
The projections come from computer simulations of climate and ice and from direct measurements showing that the amount of ice coverage has been declining for 30 years.
The latest modeling study, being published today in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, was led by Marika Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
The study involved seven fresh simulations on supercomputers at the atmospheric center, as well as an analysis of simulations developed by independent groups. In simulations where emissions continue to rise, sea ice persists for long periods but then abruptly gives way to open water, Dr. Holland said.
In the simulations, the shift seems to occur when a pulse of warm Atlantic Ocean water combines with the thinning and retreat of ice under the influence of the global warming trend.
Scientists ascribe most of that planet-scale warming, including a warming of the shallow layers of the oceans, to the buildup of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping smokestack and tailpipe gases in the atmosphere.
After 2040 or so, ice persists in summer mainly around Canada’s northern maze of islands and the northern coast of Greenland, a region that always tends to accumulate a clot of thick ice.
Separately, scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder found that the normal expansion of sea ice as the Arctic chilled in fall had been extraordinarily sluggish this year, following a pattern seen in recent years. The November average ice coverage was by far the lowest since satellite measurements began in 1979, said Walt Meier, a scientist at the ice center.
“It’s becoming increasingly unlikely that things will be able to turn around,” he said. “It would take several very cold winters and cool summers, which seems unlikely under global warming conditions.”
Several experts not involved with the studies said they were significant for human affairs, as well as biology.
Polar bears will struggle, these scientists said, and so will Arctic people who still go out on sea ice to hunt seals. By contrast, countries and businesses pursuing new shipping lanes, energy supplies and fishing grounds could profit.
The melting is likely to shift weather patterns, too. More sea ice means colder winters, because frigid winds blowing over ice pick up little heat from the warmer waters below.
The change will have ramifications beyond summertime, experts said. Having open water each year would mean that almost all ice forming in winter would be freshly frozen and just a yard or so thick.
This would greatly ease the task of maintaining shipping lanes with icebreaking vessels, said Lawson W. Brigham, deputy director of the Arctic Research Commission, a body that advises the White House on Arctic matters.
Mr. Brigham and other experts said the new research raised the urgency of establishing common standards for protecting the Arctic environment and patrolling shipping lanes.
The commission plans to deliver letters to the Bush administration and Congress this week urging them to commit at least $1 million to start work on replacing the country’s two aging, ailing polar-class icebreakers.
Outsourcer in Chief
By PAUL KRUGMAN
According to U.S. News & World Report, President Bush has told aides that he won’t respond in detail to the Iraq Study Group’s report because he doesn’t want to “outsource” the role of commander in chief.
That’s pretty ironic. You see, outsourcing of the government’s responsibilities — not to panels of supposed wise men, but to private companies with the right connections — has been one of the hallmarks of his administration. And privatization through outsourcing is one reason the administration has failed on so many fronts.
For example, an article in Saturday’s New York Times describes how the Coast Guard has run a $17 billion modernization program: “Instead of managing the project itself, the Coast Guard hired Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, two of the nation’s largest military contractors, to plan, supervise and deliver the new vessels and helicopters.”
The result? Expensive ships that aren’t seaworthy. The Coast Guard ignored “repeated warnings from its own engineers that the boats and ships were poorly designed and perhaps unsafe,” while “the contractors failed to fulfill their obligation to make sure the government got the best price, frequently steering work to their subsidiaries or business partners instead of competitors.”
In Afghanistan, the job of training a new police force was outsourced to DynCorp International, a private contractor, under very loose supervision: when conducting a recent review, auditors couldn’t even find a copy of DynCorp’s contract to see what it called for. And $1.1 billion later, Afghanistan still doesn’t have an effective police training program.
In July 2004, Government Executive magazine published an article titled “Outsourcing Iraq,” documenting how the U.S. occupation authorities had transferred responsibility for reconstruction to private contractors, with hardly any oversight. “The only plan,” it said, “appears to have been to let the private sector manage nation-building, mostly on their own.” We all know how that turned out.
On the home front, the Bush administration outsourced many responsibilities of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. For example, the job of evacuating people from disaster areas was given to a trucking logistics firm, Landstar Express America. When Hurricane Katrina struck, Landstar didn’t even know where to get buses. According to Carey Limousine, which was eventually hired, Landstar “found us on the Web site.”
It’s now clear that there’s a fundamental error in the antigovernment ideology embraced by today’s conservative movement. Conservatives look at the virtues of market competition and leap to the conclusion that private ownership, in itself, is some kind of magic elixir. But there’s no reason to assume that a private company hired to perform a public service will do better than people employed directly by the government.
In fact, the private company will almost surely do a worse job if its political connections insulate it from accountability — which has, of course, consistently been the case under Mr. Bush. The inspectors’ report on Afghanistan’s police conspicuously avoided assessing DynCorp’s performance; even as government auditors found fault with Landstar, the company received a plaque from the Department of Transportation honoring its hurricane relief efforts.
Underlying this lack of accountability are the real motives for turning government functions over to private companies, which have little to do with efficiency. To say the obvious: when you see a story about failed outsourcing, you can be sure that the company in question is a major contributor to the Republican Party, is run by people with strong G.O.P. connections, or both.
So what happens now? The failure of privatization under the Bush administration offers a target-rich environment to newly empowered Congressional Democrats — and I say, let the subpoenas fly. Bear in mind that we’re not talking just about wasted money: contracting failures in Iraq helped us lose one war, similar failures in Afghanistan may help us lose another, and FEMA’s failures helped us lose a great American city.
And maybe, just maybe, the abject failure of this administration’s efforts to outsource essential functions to the private sector will diminish the antigovernment prejudice created by decades of right-wing propaganda.
That’s important, because the presumption that the private sector can do no wrong and the government can do nothing right prevents us from coming to grips with some of America’s biggest problems — in particular, our wildly dysfunctional health care system. More on that in future columns.
The Earth is Alive and Well......
It's a real rodeo ride......We are but a small speck of dust on the saddle.....for us to think we can impact what the earth has in store for us.........total joke......
We better learn to hang on to the saddle horn and enjoy the ride....whereever it takes us.
for us to think we can impact what the earth has in store for us.........total joke......
As usual, you have no scientific evidence to back up this ridiculous statement. In fact, it's quite the opposite. You just want to plow forth and ignore any damage that is created along the way. That is the epitome of selfishness. Maddie, stop reading talking points and watching Fox News, and start reading the journals Science and Nature. There are actual scientific publications in there, by actual scientists. You might find it enlightening, assuming you have someone explain them to you.
From 2004: One third of the nation's lake waters and one-quarter of its riverways are contaminated with mercury and other pollutants that could cause health problems for children and pregnant women who eat too much fish, the Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday.
States issued warnings for mercury and other pollutants in 2003 for nearly 850,000 miles of U.S. rivers — a 65% increase over 2002 — and 14 million acres of lakes. The warning level is the highest ever reported by the EPA.
Americans were cautioned about eating fish from more than one-third of U.S. lakes and nearly one-fourth of its rivers last year due to pollution from mercury and other chemicals, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Tuesday.
Nationwide, about 102,000 lakes and about 846,000 river miles were under fishing advisories in 2003, the EPA said in its annual report. Fishing advisories are issued by states if high concentrations of mercury, dioxin, DDT or three dozen other chemicals harmful to humans are found in local fish. The advisories range from an outright ban on all fishing to restrictions on certain species or sizes of fish.
Most of the new fishing advisories issued last year were due to mercury pollution from coal-fired utilities, the EPA said. Mercury emissions in the air can pollute nearby streams and lakes, contaminating local fish.
The EPA and the Food and Drug Administration recently advised pregnant women, nursing mothers and young children to avoid some types of fish that may contain higher levels of mercury which is harmful to developing nervous systems.
In 2003, 48 states, the District of Columbia and American Samoa issued 3,094 fish advisories, 280 more than the previous year, the EPA said. "With these additions, 35 percent of the total lake acres and 24 percent of the river miles in the nation are now under advisory," it said.
The nation's 1,100 coal-burning utility plants emit about 48 tons of mercury annually, the largest unregulated U.S. source of the toxic substance.
The Bush administration proposed earlier this year to require utilities to cut mercury emissions by 70 percent by 2018, a deadline that Democrats say is too generous to the industry and too risky for public health.
The number of river miles under fishing advisories was up by 9 percent in 2003, with lake acreage up 2 percent, the EPA said.
Now Maddie, please explain how these are examples of us having no impact of what the Earth has in store for us. Do you think the bears and elephants would have started burning coal and not cleaning up after themselves, so it doesn’t matter that we did it first? Do birth defects not matter to you, so long as your taxes are low? Is that all that metters to you, because I can see no other reason to defend these pricks aside from your desire to not help pay for their activities.
Several States have seen fit to clean up their own waters, and regulate themselves.......
I'm all for this.
C. Whitman did it when she was governor of New Jersey......
We as people need to take responsiblity..........Not depend on the federal government to do it for us.
Beginning with towns, counties......to cities........the residents should protect their environment.
We have a strong County government here.......and have kept hog farms from encroaching into our wetlands and reservoir feeders. We have alternative fuel gas stations, as we demanded it.....
Most of the Mercury that has accumulated in the environment that has entered the food chain; is from way before you and I were born... A lot has been done to cut down on the non natural mercury poisoning............however; I'll agree more needs to be done.
Unfortunately, too few, even take the time to know what is going on in their countys, towns, cities....etc, until an obvious problem presents itself.
Now Republicans have and are working on this problem statewide:
The EPA is a federal regulatory agency. Are you suggesting that they not do their job? Corporations who pollute are to be held accountable by the EPA. After Bush put ex-energy people in the formerly scientific positions, these people are ignoring their duties. That’s just another example of Republicans looking out for business over people. If high stock prices mean higher level of birth defects, so be it I guess. At least Maddie doesn’t have to pay a lot of taxes…yet. All bills come due in time.
At any rate, the original point was your assertion that "we" have no effect on the planet, which is totally asinine. Please defend that statement. Even this weak attempt to defend your views argues that “we” are indeed changing the planet.
In the last 7000 years we humans have changed the earth; but over the span of 4 billion years we are not even a blink of earths eye.
That statement means nothing. What are you, a fortune cookie?
What caused the last ice melt......?
I don't think we had cars, factories, gasoline, before that one...as a matter of fact; I think only dinosaurs roamed the earth....
perhaps the same thing as the cows
mooooooooooooooooooo
anyway, glad it happened or Wisocnsin, New York, Michigan, etc. would be very different places
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