Shun beef to stop climate change, says India

[Spring Onion]

Shun beef to stop climate change, says India

India, a stronghold of vegetarianism where the cow is a sacred animal for the majority Hindu population, has urged the rest of the world to give up eating beef to help reduce global warming.

"The single most important cause of (carbon) emissions is eating beef," Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said during a speech on Thursday, his office told AFP.

"My formula is stop eating beef. This would stop the emission of methane," said the vegetarian minister.

Ramesh, who recently made headlines for disputing international research suggesting glaciers in the Himalayas are melting, made the remarks on Thursday at the launch of a UN report on world population in New Delhi.

Meat eating is common in India, albeit in smaller quantities than in Western countries. However, the vast majority of India's Hindus shun beef and the sizeable Muslim minority do not eat pork.

Non-meat eaters help in "climate mitigation", Ramesh said.

In 2008, Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, also suggested that people should cut their meat consumption to help combat climate change.

His study found meat production accounts for a fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions.

Experts on climate change warn that without action the planet's rising temperatures could unleash potentially catastrophic change to earth's climate system, leading to hunger, drought, storms and massive species loss.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...p-climate-change-says-india-1825196.html]Shun beef to stop climate change, says India - Health News, Health & Families - The Independent

 

[arihant]

Where India's says that. You should edit title. It's personal observation.

 

[Red Dwarf]

Is there anything which doesn't cause climate change ?.

However, the vast majority of India's Hindus shun beef

This may be true for north India. But I'm not sure about South india, where i live.

 

[Spring Onion]

I am not sure how beaf eating is causing most of the carbon emission

 

[navtrek]

Is there anything which doesn't cause climate change ?.


This may be true for north India. But I'm not sure about South india, where i live.

Well u can be very sure abt south india too.... No beef please is written all over

 

[navtrek]

I am not sure how beaf eating is causing most of the carbon emission

Beef a shocker for carbon emissions

A KILOGRAM of beef causes more greenhouse gas and other pollution than driving for three hours while leaving all the lights on at home, a Japanese study has found.

for more read the link buddy
Beef a shocker for carbon emissions | News.com.au Top stories | News.com.au

The team discovered that producing a kilo of beef causes the equivalent of 36.4kg in carbon dioxide (CO2), the principal greenhouse gas

 

[navtrek]

Pachauri Backs Jairam on Issue of Beef Eating

The views of Environment and Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh that beef consumption leads to emissions today got the backing of noted environmentalist R K Pachauri.

"If you count the emission associated with beef production, it is huge," Pachauri, who is Director General of The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI) and Chairman of the Inter-governmental Panel of Climate Change, told reporters.

Huge pasture land is required for meat production and at times the forest resource is denuded to make it pasture land. The cattle are given food grain which is produced by using chemical fertilisers and pesticides, Pachauri explained.

"Then the meat has to be refrigerated and transported. It is an international industry. It is kept in refrigerators in outlets. The whole process involves huge green house gas emissions," he said.

Ramesh had yesterday said the single most important cause for emissions is eating beef and appealed people to stop consuming it.

According to latest research, reducing intake of beef and pork would lead to the creation of a huge new carbon sink, as vegetation would thrive on unused farmland.

Millions of tonnes of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, would also be saved every year due to reduced emissions from farms, the research points out.

news.outlookindia.com | Pachauri Backs Jairam on Issue of Beef Eating

 

[Red Dwarf]

No beef please is written all over

You haven't seen Kerala.

 

[King Julien]

100 liter of water= 1 kg of potato

13000 liter of water= 1 kg of beef

 

[New Shivaji]

I am not sure how beaf eating is causing most of the carbon emission

Because cows produce more methane than any other animal.

Burping cows and sheep are being targeted by UK scientists to help bring down Britain's soaring levels of greenhouse gas pollution. Experts at the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research in Aberystwyth say the diet of farmed animals can be changed to make them produce less methane, a more potent global warming gas than carbon dioxide. Farmed ruminant animals are thought to be responsible for up to a quarter of "man-made" methane emissions worldwide though, contrary to common belief, most gas emerges from their front, not rear, ends.

Mike Abberton, a scientist at the institute, said farmers could help tackle climate change by growing grass varieties bred to have high sugar levels, white clover and birdsfoot trefoil, a leafy legume, for their animals to eat. The altered diet changes the way that bacteria in the stomachs of the animals break down plant material into waste gas, he said. The institute has started a new government research programme, with the universities of Wales and Reading, to investigate how this process could be improved. A similar project in New Zealand suggested that dietary changes could reduce methane emissions from sheep by up to 50%.

Dr Abberton said: "It's very unlikely that we'll get that sort of reduction in the UK but it could still make a significant difference. Making the animals' diet more digestible can lower their methane emissions." A single cow can produce between 100 and 200 litres of methane every day. Farmers regularly re-sow their fields so Dr Abberton said the switch in diet could be relatively straightforward. Birdsfoot trefoil can be difficult to grow, he said, but part of the new project is to develop more suitable varieties.

As well as helping to reduce methane production, growing legumes such as clover could help replenish soil nitrogen levels because they naturally attract bacteria and fungi that fix it from the air. In a separate project, Giles Oldroyd, a plant scientist at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, is working on ways to genetically modify other plants such as wheat so they can mimic this nitrogen-fixing ability, an advance he called the holy grail of crop research because it would dramatically cut the use of synthetic fertilisers.

Scientists at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, Germany, announced this year that they had developed a pill to reduce methane emissions from cattle. The plant-based pill, combined with a special diet and strict feeding times, is meant to reduce the methane produced by cows by converting it to glucose.

Move to cut methane emissions by changing cows' diet | Science | The Guardian

 

[Spring Onion]

So the Indian minister supports baning all kinds of beef? i mean goats, sheeps etc

 

[KillBill]

So the Indian minister supports baning all kinds of beef? i mean goats, sheeps etc

I dont think he is talking of banning, its more like a public appeal if you insist.

For that matter all non veg are environmental unfriendly ( i am a hardcore non veg eater).

 

[Spring Onion]

I dont think he is talking of banning, its more like a public appeal if you insist.

For that matter all non veg are environmental unfriendly ( i am a hardcore non veg eater).

yeh i meant to ask that if so does it mean the entire world should stop eating beef ??


if non veg eaters are envirnomental undfriendly then i guess all the industrial projects are more envirnomental undfriendly, so better stop all projects.

 

[Awesome]

Where India's says that. You should edit title. It's personal observation.

A member of your government is saying this ridiculous thing then that obviously implicates all of India.

I would think that CFCs from factories, cars, ACs, powerplants would have more of an impact that the farts of the beef eaters.

If anyone tries to take my T-bone steaks away they'd have a war on their hands

 

[Spring Onion]

A member of your government is saying this ridiculous thing then that obviously implicates all of India.

I would think that CFCs from factories, cars, ACs, powerplants would have more of an impact that the farts of the beef eaters.

If anyone tries to take my T-bone steaks away they'd have a war on their hands

thats what i was thinking that he an Indian Minister that too from envirnomental ministry