RSSUN panel: Cows emit more greenhouse gases than cars
By Jacqueline Emigh | Published November 28, 2007, 6:33 PM
A panel convened at the United Nations yesterday to discuss what the IT industry could do to better the environment, nearly came to the conclusion its practitioners could do more by changing their lifestyle...for instance, how they eat.
UNITED NATIONS (BetaNews) - After quite some time had passed, and panelists had issued what could be described as ordinary platitudes on the subject of corporate environmental policy -- essentially, "We can all do more," -- the executive director of the Society for Information Management, Judy Arteche-Carr, offered an invigorating bit of context to the discussion.
Among the world's chief contributors to the global carbon emissions problem, Arteche-Carr cited using data sanctioned by the UN, the number three pollutant worldwide comes from transportation: cars, trains, ships. Number two is the world's factories and manufacturing infrastructure, and the IT industry may have greater influence there than with transportation.
But it's the number one global carbon emitter that had everyone floored: livestock. "It comes as a shock," Arteche-Carr said, perhaps understating the fact.
From there, she suggested that attendees could have greater influence on their planet's environment by changing some of their personal habits - the way they live, the way they go from place to place, and the way they eat. And they could do even more by being a positive influence on their children.
Kids tend to be more aware of the so-called "green revolution" than their parents, she told the audience, and may thus be more involved in the global environmental movement than the previous generation. If parents did more to listen to their children -- or, perhaps more accurately, to what they hear from school, TV, and Internet advertising -- parents themselves could be influenced.
Influenced to do what, exactly, wasn't clear -- the possibility of everyone dropping their hamburgers and declaring themselves vegetarians was not discussed.
However, a UN representative did toss out some intriguing ideas after all: Kathleen Abdalla, a chief with the Division for Sustainable Developments at the UN Dept. of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA), wondered aloud why the IT community hasn't done more to improve energy transfers on the world's grids. Better load management techniques -- achievable with something as simple as improved algorithms -- could go a long way toward safeguarding the environment, Abdalla said, especially since decaying infrastructure in certain parts of the world has led to leakage in its energy grids.
Applying the concept of better networking -- load balancing, task distribution, and the other techniques honed in the world's IT back-offices -- could be applied to non-informational networks as well, Abdalla suggested. Power grids are just one example; irrigation systems are another, as well as other crop control systems used by the world's agricultural giants. Better networking control in these departments could produce better yields, she suggested.
Which could result in more vegetables, which could in turn address problem #1 after all: that what comes out of cows contributes more to the global warming problem than what comes out of cars.
Hmm ... anyone out there remember James Watt? He mentioned something about this back in 1982. So where's the surprise?
Now I understand that the world is warming up - that's a given. The big question(s) are: How much of the trend is caused by human activity (I thought that the major glaciers started to melt about 15k years ago)? Is this activity economically necessary to sustain our way of life, and if so, what are the alternatives?
Given we don't have a real good base-line and that our climate models are still VERY primitive, I'd say that any "BIG" moves would be premature (Kyoto). We worry about SUVs w/o thinking - hey - how much more CO2 is China dumping into the air? We worry about the average fuel economy of our cars w/o thinking that the boat used to transport them here caused more pollution than if they were operated w/o cat converters for their entire life. In short - we look at the face value of many things w/o thinking about the full economic / sociological / environmental impact. If the globe has warmed up 1 degree over the last 100 years, was this a very bad thing, neutral or even a good thing?
I find that activists are pretty narrow in their views - and they almost never offer an alternative that is both cost effective and implementable ('cause if there were one, it would be happening already - right?). And while I'm not saying "Do Nothing" is a good solutions, lets make sure that anything we do implement makes sense and will have the desired consequences.
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|But it's the number one global carbon emitter that had everyone floored: livestock. "It comes as a shock," Arteche-Carr said, perhaps understating the fact.
I think the #1 global carbon emitter is when Al Gore !!
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|Maybe they suggest us to eat cars... I've also read the problem is that there are too many humans in the world, so let us die...
Do you remember the date when global heating, ozone problems and climatic changes were known by the people? Just after the first Middle East oil crisis. Hmmmm....
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|Sounds like a PETA tree hugger plot to me.
Anyone want another helping of junk science?
OK I don't care if this is true or not, I'm not giving up my steak and burgers.
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|Mmm...steakburgers...
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|Just out of curiosity...what ecological catastrophe of global proportions was responsible for the warming that resulted in the retreat of the glaciers at the end of the most recent ice age?
Oh, but we see that as a good thing...right?
Yup, save the world and promote alternative energy production: fart in a jar.
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|Folks used to make fun of these studies regarding 'bovine flatulence' 20 years ago.
Its always nice when folks myopically focus on short term local mins and maxs and fail to look at the larger cyclical patterns such as solar variability.
Of course, if the local change isn't up or down, evidently the swooft geniuses expect an idyllic steady state which never has and never will occur. But then any change is necessarily viewed as catastrophic. Right....
But then what linear extrapolation have they got for us this week based upon their latest 30 year analysis... Wake me when they announce it...
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|Its very clear that the planet unable to absorb any more gases like CO2, methane etc.
Let's go around it - making machines that converts that green gases into something practical. If that thing will produce petrol from an air then everyone will love to buy one :)))
And that's possible!Check for sabatier reaction
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|Farting our way into oblivion.
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|Americans giving up their Beef? Not in a million years...
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|Damned straight.
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|Fix the problem by killing and eating more cows.
What about deer! I can't hunt them and my yard is full of the little bas****s.
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|Cows "emit" very little greenhouse gas. It's got a lot more to do with the infrastructure we've built to support raising, feeding, and processing them into tasty treats. Headline's a tad misleading. We're not actually talking about cow farts here...
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|The only thing you are right about is that we're not actually talking about cow farts, more of the methane is produced from their burps.
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|"The only thing you are right about"
Cute. How's the view from the high horse?
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|He is right, you know.
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|I beg to differ:
"Land-use changes, especially deforestation to expand pastures and to create arable land for feed crops, is a big part. So is the use of energy to produce fertilizers, to run the slaughterhouses and meat-processing plants, and to pump water."
http://www.csmonitor.com...7/0220/p03s01-ussc.html
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|There are studies that say that one cow creates as much greenhouse gas in one day as a car.
Your quote does not dispute what I said, nor does it validate your first statement.
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|Dp these studies specify the gases come directly form the cow and not the industry supporting it?
While the quote given does not give numbers, it uses phrases like, "a big part of", which leads to certain implications.
I just googled and couldn't find any numbers, so I have no idea, but you didn't post any either, and the article doesn't give any.
You claimed he was wrong. I believe that means the ball's in your court, does it not?
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|You're a moron. Why don't you actually research to see if what comes out of your mouth is truth or flatulence?
http://archives.cnn.com/....methane.enn/index.html
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|Hey PC_Tool! I gave a link with some numbers above. Not that I really care. It gave me another reason to call someone a moron.
Merry Christmas!
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|just give cows some breathe mints. that'll fix it
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|mo·ron [mawr-on]
–noun
1. a person who is notably stupid or lacking in good judgment.
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|This is very old news (though the UN saying it is probably new).
They've been trying out various different grains to feed cows with and have gotten their 'emissions' down by about a half I seem to recall.
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|Looking in my new hotrod mag for fuel cell cows.
mmm beef
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|Guess vegetarians win this round.
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|Guess vegetarians win this round.
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|We might as well just drive cows instead
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|U.N Is going to play out Exactly as the makers of Sea Quest D.S.V. Played out.
The U.N. Will ban the raising of Cattle and introduce artificial Meat. Real Beef will become ContraBand
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|I wish I could say that your comment was funny - but I'm willing to bet that it's not far from what they'd like to do.
Of course if they decide to say all cows must be slaughtered to stop this "threat" to the world. I'm guessing that India would revolt.
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|Great article, but how does this relate to beta applications...you know, what BetaNews is actually about?
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|betanews "news" hasn't reported exclusively on betas in like 2 years?
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|It hasn't been "beta news" for years. It's just news, and I like it better that way.
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|Fair question, MonacoMan103.
An eon ago, a Web site was created with the objective of reporting on what was new in the development of programs. And while that is and remains a principal and interesting topic, anyone who is not only interested but involved in the development of technology - all technology, not just the kind you wear on your wrist or twiddle with your thumb - is impacted by the evolution of a technological idea.
This is a story about the precise way in which an idea that emerges from the realm of IT - specifically, network load distribution - impacts the environment in which we live. We could have named it that, but you might not have read it. So we also made it about one of this idea's more curious aspects: that it can only compensate for the damage humans do to the atmosphere, over and above the level of carbon emission that nature was prepared to endure prior to our invention of the factory.
A "beta" is a technological idea in its development stage. Which makes this story just as much "beta news" as one on the testing of new features for Vista SP3.
Thanks for the question.
-SF3
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|That's funny. I like to think of BetaNews as news before the rest of the world gets it. The name fits in a strange way.
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