the president of the IPCC differes from your opinion. And from what i have learned about GW and meat production, i tend to agree with him.
Cutting down on meat is easy, you just don't buy it. It doen't get much easier than that, as opposed to other forms of CO2 reducing stratagies like having to buy a new car. This is a carbon cut that anyone can participate in, regardless of economic status.

Why do we need to keep sustaining an industry that is obviously so polluting? Just because we want to chomp on a dead animal's butt? Look again at the first post, and see what animal agriculture pollution is compared to.

i agree with you too by the way. We also need innovations and change in transportation. But that doesn't mean much if we don't cut down out carbon output in other areas as well.

people will stop eating meat when it gets too expensive. until then people will eat it if they enjoy it
that may be the wrong thing to do (for the environment, because it it morally wrong to eat this luxurious food when people are starving and because it is wrong to kill animals), but i can't see people changing their eating habits until they are forced to

i also forgot to add how the carbon rations are calculated.

Basically, the scientists get together and decide how much pollution is acceptable per year to make a certain target (like a 90% reduction by 2050).
That amount is then divided equally for every person on earth. We will all have the same amount to pollute. If we pollute over our share, we have to buy more (from countries that don't pollute as much).

Of course, there are some dangers to a progam like this, such as poorer countries trying to up the birthrate to aquire more rations...

But on the other hand, it is ruthlessly democratic and fair.

perhaps. But i have faith that a lot of people will try to do what feels right, rather than just what tastes good. Hell, it worked on me. I'm an ex-hunter and fisherman myself.

All this CO2 rations thing sounds ridiculous to me.
Why undeveloped country people that make 9/10 of the earth's population should be forced to have CO2 rations when the main polluter in the world is the heavy industry in the rest 1/10 of the developed world.

thats actually a boon to the developed countries. They don't use all their carbon rations, because they do not pollute as much. They then can sell their extra rations to developed countries, whcih levels the playing field a bit.

I just see it as a scheme from developed countries in search for an excuse to their incompetence to reduce CO2 emissions.

Soo, we can not reduce the CO2 emissions and the rest of the world blames us for Global warming what should we do?

I know what should we do, lets introduce a CO2 market. Once some money flows into the poor countries by selling the amount of CO2 we should have been trying to eliminate instead of exporting, then everyone will be happy.

Plus it will make for a good excuse to stop founding the undeveloped countries, "we are giving you money for our CO2 emission, you bugers what more??? "

how is that different than the ration system?
If you want a clearer explanation than my half-assed job, read 'HEAT' by George Monbiot.

its not that's the problem!

the rations system is probably the most undemocratic thing I ve heard today.

i actually think it's fair. it creates a commodity that those who don't pollute can sell to others.
but who is going to mointor CO2 emission levels in far flung corners of the globe?

former cattle ranchers?

gotta go, chat about this tomorrow. At any rate, its still nowhere near reality, so we don't need to get too serious about it.

shelling it doesn't mean that the already emitted CO2 magically vanishes from the atmosphere. It is emitted, it is still there!
So instead of spending money trying to export it, spend the same amount trying reducing it by introducing clean technologies.

But meat tastes goooooood!!!

I agree that we should eat less meat and more veg but purely from a dietary point of view. I think there are probably worse offenders than the meat industry but they aren't as easy to attack.

I won't be stopping from eating meat but I am gonna try and eat less purely from a dietary perspective. After all we are an omnivorous animal and we should eat a balanced diet of meat and veg

If we are talking about being realistic here, then FT has a point. We are being taught about how we can reduce global warming though means that won't severely effect our day to day lives.

Producing vehicles that have lower emissions is something that has been part of the transport developmental footprint for some time and reducing our reliance on fossil fuels will also make a difference but I find it difficult to think it realistic to have people not consume meat and any government thoughtful enough to entertain the fact would be removed from office at the next election.

I think there are too many people out there who don't really care enough for the environment to implement the changes necessary to make a difference in our lifetime and that is where the battle needs to be won.

Is the meat industry easy to attack? I wouldn't have thought so. Most folk like meat and have always eaten it, albeit not quite in the amounts that are eaten today.

Ethanol as fuel is actually a very complex issue, and is actually supported by many uber-greens like permaculture people. That doesn't mean that industrial ag as practised is the best way to make it though, or that cars with one occupant are the best way to use it.

Its easier in the sense that it probably doesn't have as much governments in its pocket unlike the oil industry, and also its not got a global voice (that I know of) in the form of unified representation, unlike the oil industry (for example)

I think the issue here is simply a methane one. It has a much bigger warming effect than CO2.

I read somewhere that research is going on into less fart-producing cattle feed. There's also research into kangaroos, because their farts don't contain methane. Cattle fart testing doesn't sound like the most appealing of careers, but I wish the people doing it every success! Their work could have global implications.

So, how much methane do 6.8 billion people on the planet produce by farting?

Should we also stop eating beans in order to fart less?

that depends on how many light their farts as a greenhouse gas reduction effort.

you should not be arguing about it Tday, China is the worlds top fart polluting country.