Miss piggy is giving off high emisions

Title: As More Eat Meat, a Bid to Cut Emissions

By: Elisabeth Rosenthal

Published: December 3, 2008

Summary of blog: This blog is mainly about the idea that trillions of farm animals around the world generate 18 percent of the emissions that are raising global temperatures. According to United Nations estimates they are giving off more emissions than cars, buses and airplanes.

Farm animals are cute and a primary source of our food but as this article states "when looked at through the lens of greenhouse gas accounting, they are living smokestacks, spewing methane emissions into the air." This just recently became an issue because more and more people are beginning to consume meat around the world. The main concern with this is that the problematic issue will be over looked...when thinking of emmisons we usuually jump to think of cars and factories, and smoggy cities...not farmlands or little miss piggy! One thought up solution for the problem is called the "methane capture". This method would invente food that will make cows belch less methane, which traps heat with 25 times the efficiency of carbon dioxide. "Other proposals include everything from persuading consumers to eat less meat to slapping a “sin tax” on pork and beef. Next year, Sweden will start labeling food products so that shoppers can look at how much emission can be attributed to serving steak compared with, say, chicken or turkey." How bizzare is it that on your food label you will find out out much emisions your dinner had given off? I guess thats a good way to raise awareness but to be honest as much as I want to keep the environment healthy I'd also like keep my stomach and tastebuds health and happy. This will affect my family because we do eat a lot of meat. I do not think it wil become a major issue while i'm a young person but it may effect my granchildren's generation. I think that this issue is not as dangerous as the statistics try to exemplify.As a nation I do not feel this issue will become very large either. There other contributors that we are better off trying to fix like cars and such. People can control that better then there intact of food (one is more a luxury where the other is a bigger factor in survival when it truely comes down to it). I think this article was pretty interesting overall! It seems pretty reliable with statistics from a few different countries along with facts from the chief of sustainability at the Swedish agricultural group Lantmannen.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/science/earth/04meat.html?_r=1