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FeedGlobal warming: Lots of concern, but how about a solution?
Let’s get one thing out of the way immediately: It doesn’t matter if you believe in global warming or not. It doesn’t matter if you think the climate is changing due to man-made pollution or if you believe weather patterns are always in a state of flux and we’re just in a cycle of some kind. None of this matters. What matters is what pollution is doing to the environment from an outdoorsman’s point of view and whether it’s good or bad and what needs to be done to fix it if it needs fixing.
In the past few years I have read some well written articles on why global climate change is bad. I have also read some outstanding pieces on why global warming is fiction being concocted by Chicken Little environmentalists with an agenda. There are countless opinions from both sides of this fence that outlines the problems, but no one seems to have any solutions.
Solutions to what? What it comes down to is pollution. The acid rains that wiped out lakes and forest all over the northeast was a direct result of man-made pollution: sulfur d being pumped nonstop into the atmosphere from coal-fired energy plants. And what about all that methane? Cows and pigs spewing methane gas into the atmosphere, warming things up and killing fish as well as trees. According to a lot of reports there are just too many people on this planet, and this is negatively affecting the balance we thought we once had with nature. We can howl and cry all we want, but at some point we need solutions.
First, we need to cut the population in half. There are a lot of environmentalists who believe there are about twice as many people on this planet as there should be. So my first solution is for those that profess a need for a smaller world population to be the first to volunteer to be dispatched. I’ll predict that this will change the minds of quite a few population experts, which means we’ll only see a reduction of about zero.
So then let’s get rid of those cows and pigs and any other methane-producing animal that is spewing noxious gases into the atmosphere. Dang, that means we’ll have to wipe out the entire human population too since we fit this criteria. That’s not going to work.
How about all that pollution that’s pumped into the air via power plants? It would clean up the planet a bunch if we could stop that. Too bad we could cover the planet in wind turbines and solar panels and still not generate enough electricity to power much.
How about the nuclear option? Did you know France derives over 75 percent of its electricity from nuclear energy? This is due to a long-standing policy based on energy security. France now has a substantial level of energy independence and the lowest-cost electricity in Europe. It also has an extremely low level of CO2 emissions per capita from electricity generation, since over 90 percent of its electricity is nuclear or hydro.
But wait. Environmentalists are much better at getting the message out that nuclear power generation is dangerous and will kill us all, instead of, nuclear power from a statistical sense is extremely safe and generates no air pollution. So even France has said they will consider phasing out half of their nuclear power plants due to the politics of this type of power production.
So now I get it. The reason people howl and cry about climate change but don’t offer solutions is there are none that can appease the masses. We’ll just keep putting up wind turbines that create eyesores on the landscape and kill birds, finance solar projects that go broke and protest the only viable option for cutting air pollution because we are too gullible to believe that nuclear power is a working alternative. Our politicians are too fearful of alienating a voting block.
Did I fail to mention burning oil for transportation? I’ll save that for later.
The fastest mitigation to climate change is to severely reduce consumption of animal foods. About 1/2 of human induced warming is attributable to animal agriculture. Methane is 24 times more potent than CO2 and takes only 7 years to cycle out of the atmosphere. CO2 takes around 100 years to come out. Human pursuit of animal protein is the leading cause of methane release and a primary cause of CO2 concentrating in the atmosphere. Check the facts and act!
"As environmental science has advanced, it has become apparent that the human appetite for animal flesh is a driving force behind virtually every major category of environmental damage now threatening the human future: deforestation, erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice, the destabilization of communities, and the spread of disease." Worldwatch Institute, "Is Meat Sustainable?"
"The livestock sector emerges as one of the top contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. The findings of this report suggest that it should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity. The impact is so significant that it needs to be addressed with urgency." UN Food and Agricultural Organization's report "Livestock's Long Shadow"
“If every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetables and grains... the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. roads.” Environmental Defense Fund
Why would someone choose to be vegan? To slow global warming for one! Here are two uplifting videos to help everyone understand why so many people are making this life affirming choice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKr4HZ7ukSE and http://www.veganvideo.org