Stern does not consider the effect of pasture-raised livestock, rather than CAFO livestock. Using principles of Managed Intensive Grazing (MIG), farmers use minimal irrigation, if any at all, and certainly far less than commodity crops such as corn and soy grown for industrial livestock. Also, the natural grass-fed diet does not result in these large amounts of methane eructations that unnatural diets such as corn and so do.

Further, by converting commodity croplands to grass and grazing livestock would reduce chemical runoff of pesticides and fertilizers, with the improvement of downstream effects (such as river and bay dead spots). While grasslands do not lock carbon back into the earth as efficiently as forests, their permanent, year-round presence does induce a net carbon-locking far superior to industrial farms or the usual agents of "modernization" (housing developments, malls, parking lots, warehouses, highways, etc.)

Finally, it is utterly unrealistic to expect that the dietary predilections of the majority of humans can be changed by Stern's argument. A better argument would be to convert industrial practices to humane, sustainable ones, thereby creating more healthful meats and a more environmentally friendly set of best practices.

So everybody switches from meat to beans and rice. Do you remember the bean eating scene in Mel Brooks comedy Blazing Saddles? And they were sitting in the middle of a herd of cattle.

what is the real agenda here? 1) tax America 2) control how many kids are born (at least with some races and not others), 3) ban hunting 4) stop coal use 5) stop fossil fuels 6) stop nuke power 7) control what kind of cars people can buy (if they can buy them at all) and then just make energy prices so high that the middle and lower classes can freeze and walk to work. Of course the rich leaders of the climate change movement can afford to pay the high energy taxes. Al Gore will still get to heat and cool his 10,000 sq ft home! And Michelle Obama can ride private jets everyday.

70 million Bison once roamed the Plains of North America and they added a lot less Greenhouse gases then did plowing up those same Grasslands to grow Corn.

Just as an aside the Country with the most Cattle is India . They have three times the population of Cattle/buffalo as Canada and the US combined and beef is not part of their diet.

One of the fastest GROWING sources of Greenhouse gases in the Country of India is from lands being converted to grow rice.

>> While grasslands do not lock carbon back into the earth as efficiently as forests, their permanent, year-round presence does induce a net carbon-locking far superior to industrial farms or the usual agents of "modernization

This statemnt is incorrect. Grasslands can be a better sink for Carbon then forests as per a number of recent studies carried out in Ireland and Canada.

A study showed that the root systems of prairie grasses act as a better sink then do forests because they are able to sequester the carbon deeper inside the ground then a tree can. Remember that much of a forest floor can be bare and exposed wherein grassland is covered.

This has been confirmed by studies in Ireland and Canada wherein it determined grasslands can act as a better sink then forests or peat bogs.

That is as long as you do not plow it up.

As well it has been shown that Forest Fires release more Carbon back into the atmosphere then does a prairie fire.

As well diverse NATURAL forests are a much better sink then are replanted forests.

http://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myth-Food-Justice-Sustainability/dp/1604860804/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256663681&sr=1-1

http://www.lierrekeith.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Against-Grain-Agriculture-Hijacked-Civilization/dp/0865477132/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256663776&sr=1-1

Everybody is on the bandwagon as long as it is somebody else's life style that needs to be changed.

Stop driving? WHAT?

Stop using gasoline motors to play? WHAT?

Stop buying plastic wrappers? WHAT?

Stop eating meat? WHAT?

Stop killing people for fuel? WHAT?

Stop watching television? WHAT?

My fellow amerikuns are funny. Maybe worse ....

The way I see this is that every single person that eats meat has the right to choose to do so. Conversely, they also have the right to change their minds and not eat meat. If a person feels that they can contribute to the betterment of the world by not eating meat, let that be their choice. It's not they're being forced to stop...they are being given information to help them make an informed choice. Lighten up, people!

When I was a kid, living in a little Yorkshire village, my sister and I would, on occasion, spend an afternoon gazing in on the local abattoir.

It was an old stone cottage probably of Danegeld vintage. Anyway, by perching on the high windowless sill we could see the goings on inside. It was more than horrifying for our tender little minds.

On our left below were pens: sometimes cattle, pigs, sheep. To the right was a little Quasimodo type hauling off these innocent creature to be "processed" (to coin a modern phrase).

Quasimodo would grab an animal, wrap a chain, hanging off the wall, around its neck, pull it tight against the masonry and zap it on the temple with a .22 caliber projectile: the creature writhed, stunted to the ground in momentary agony.

Most distressing, as the slaughter was going on, the animals in the pens were rustling and restless: they could not see but they knew. A high density, high pitch anxiety, intoxicated the air. The pending horror was palpable.

Living in ham hocks, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding country we didn't catch on for along time: I did about thirty years ago.

So, personally, anthropomorphic warming causes do not convince me.

What does convince me is the high density, high pitched anxiety emanating from those magnificent creatures should I, ever, again ingest one. I know what it does to me . . .

I have been a veggist-ista since.

there's a saying that goes like this,

"if I can choose to add to the level of mercy in the world or add to the level of misery in the world I'll choose mercy every time.

If I can choose between adding to the level of compassion in the world or adding to the level of cruelty - I'll choose compassion every time."

go vegan - it is the #1 thing you can do to save the environment and add to the level of mercy and compassion in the world.

There is a question that I have been dying to ask of those who practice "vegetarianism" as a kind of religion: What do you feed your dogs and cats? I suspect that in the United States we feed more meat to our pets than many of the those in the Third World have in their diets.
So do you suggest that we could rid the atmosphere of a global warming gases by outlawing the feeding of meat (and fish) to our pets?
Why is pet food never present in any of these carnivore/vegan debates?

The evidence that a vegetarian/vegan diet is best for human health, the environment, climate change is overwhelming. However, I have come to dread these articles on CD because they always take on a depressingly adversarial tone. Those of us who are vegetarians or vegans are so often characterized as hypocrites, insufferably self-righteous, or just idiots. I hardly ever encounter these kinds of characterizations when the discussion centers around other kinds of efforts to address environmental degradation or climate change. I ate meat for years, but when I became aware of the cruelty involved in factory farming and the environmental degradation that CAFOs cause, I found the choice to quit eating meat to be quite easy to make. Evidently others see this as a some kind of line in the sand that they absolutely will not cross because.........? I just don't understand. To me it seems that "carnivorism" is more of a religion to many than vegetarianism is to me, since it is a conscious and, to me at least, rational decision based on plenty of evidence.

Oh by the way, ppeters, vegetarian dog food is pretty easy to come by. Dogs are omnivores and adjust pretty easily. Cats are harder, since they are true carnivores and it is wrong to try to impose my moral values on creatures who don't have the same moral choices I do. However, I am lucky to live in a rural area where it is pretty easy to purchase local eggs and meat from locally and humanely raised cattle. Making your own cat food is not hard to do, and you can make several pounds at a time and freeze it.

Everyone knows it takes 10 lbs of feed to produce 1 lb of meat. Just the animal living and breathing consumes 9 lb of feed. Its hard to believe, given those kinds of ratios, that going to a vege-diet wouldn't be better for the planet than the diet we're on. Americans get so much meat in their diet, they end up burning most of it for calories, NOT using the protein for rebuilding their bodies. And meat is really bad 'calorie food' compared to carbs.

Now, I'll never give up meat. But, I really believe that switching to a partially vege-diet is better for the planet overall (and better for your health too).

We currently cut down massive quantities of Amazonian jungle so we can grow, essentially, Big Macs. There is just no way that neo-grassland and cattle is a better absorber of CO2 than the jungle it replaces. Just getting off the meat, and onto the tofu, etc, does a lot to prevent market forces that end up destroying jungle and species worldwide.