I was talking with my friend today, who is the Waste Reduction Officer in Kent, and I learned some surprising facts.
Now, I know that “manmade global warming” is not necessarily accepted as fact around the world. Some people believe it is happening, but is caused by cyclical factors outside man’s influence. Others don’t even believe it is happening, but believe the figures to be massaged to support a scare industry.
I work on the basis that it is happening, but whether it is all due to man’s influence is debatable. It could just be coincidence that it appears to have accelerated during the most scientifically progressive age of mankind, the 20th century onwards. Essentially, if it is happening, mankind needs to look at how we can reduce the impact of global warming.
And here are a few things I have learned in recent weeks. Firstly, in the Kent area at least, stopping wasted food going to landfill slows global warming to the same extent as taking off 1 car in 5 off the roads. One in five! And so much food thrown away has never even come out of its packaging; it was simply not got to before it went off (I’m as guilty of this as anyone) – we’re not talking about the scraps left on a plate after eating, but a huge proportion of totally unused food.
Secondly, another major contributor to global warming is farts from cows. It’s second only to the wasted food. If we all became vegetarian and less dependent on cows for milk (and, to be honest, that would be the necessary corollary, as we have to eat a lot of beef to keep cow numbers under control, given that they have to have a calf each year in order to keep the milk supply going), we’d cut global warming quite significantly. Of course, we would also destroy the beef and dairy industries, which just goes to show how one “good” action has ramifications all over the place.
Thirdly, degradable plastic bags are not a good thing, on balance, because of the carbon dioxide (I believe) they create. Using them reduces landfill, arguably, but increases global warming. Which of these is worse, bearing in mind that plastic bags take up a tiny proportion of landfill in volume terms?
I mean, we could take the view that the landfill won’t matter, anyway, when we are all swimming in sewage because of higher sea levels, caused by global warming.
Tricky issues, all of them. If only it were easier to make both ethical and environmentally sound decisions.
Tags: cow farts, degradable plastic, environment, food waste, global warming, methane, thenappylady
November 27, 2008 at 8:53 pm |
We talk about cow farts in greenie circles in NZ quite a lot. Unsuprisingly because we have a lot of cows in New Zealand. I’m not sure how much of your beef in the UK comes from bobby calves (the ones which are killed because they are male or otherwise surplus to the farmer’s needs)? Most beef here and I had understood to a large extent in the UK is from young adult stock of breeds especially developed for meat.
The food wastage thing is dire. I do get a bit frustrated when councils spend a lot of money on other recycling ventures when reducing food waste is relatively effective and cheap. It also has the benefit of not involving shipping plastic thousands of miles to China to be recycled in horrid conditions.
November 27, 2008 at 9:05 pm |
I’ve found some of the initiatives described in this site interesting:
http://www.wastedfood.com/
November 27, 2008 at 9:27 pm |
I’m not sure about the cow thing, Sandra, but it seems logical that either the calves are killed for meat or they are simply killed to prevent overpopulation. After, all, if every cow has a calf each year, to guarantee her milk supply, we would soon be overrun if nothing were done about the calves, surely?!
Thank you for the URL – that looks really interesting. I’ll pass it on to Belinda, if she hasn’t already seen it.
Interestingly, your first comment appeared straight in the blog, without needing approval. Yet your second needed approval. I’m not sure I understand how wordpress works!!
December 2, 2008 at 4:15 pm |
Here I live over the road from a dairy farm and have friends up the road who do beef. Both the male calves from the dairy farm and the specially bred beef cattle get eaten – some as quality traceable premium meat and the rest as ‘beef’.
It is certainly true that the world becoming vegetarian would be wholy unsustainable – for a start it’s very difficult to farm/ garden organically over the long term without animal input in terms of manure and soil health (as far as I understand).
Interestingly in Wiltshire we don’t yet have food waste collection – here the council officers have watched how other councils who do it have got on – and one of the most surprising outcomes has been a reduciton in food waste! People are more aware of what they are wasting when it’s being collected in one place once a fortnight and thus behaviour is changing. Great – but tricky if your waste reduction plan relies on people’s behaviour staying predictable!
In terms of plastic bags, I can’t believe there’s a household in the country that hasn’t got a significant collection of reusable bags in organic or unbleached or fairly traded cotton, not to mention the Bookstart bags and Bags for Life. The real trick is to get them out of the house again and back into the car….
December 3, 2008 at 4:54 am |
I’ve been thinking about this a bit more:
http://sandra-in-the-garden.blogspot.com/2008/12/cow-farts.html
Jemma I do know what you mean about the challenging bit of getting those bags back out of the house and into the car. By magic. Without relying on my own faulty human memory.
December 3, 2008 at 11:07 am |
I manage to keep the bags in the car, but almost never manage to remember taking them into the shop with me! I should bribe my kids to remember for me!!