How stuff works: Episode 2 Turkeys!

The How stuff works series is great fun for anyone weird like me and interested in loads of stuff!


This episode focuses on the Turkey industry, it is a good watch! Please do! There are 3 parts... ENJOY :D!!!

Nearly There Conclusion!! SEAPUK!

This blog was started to try and highlight the role that livestock plays in climate change and how our consumption has resulted in us drastically changing the earth's climate; land cover and productivity. We have introduced new species to places where they have caused so much damage (please look at Gem's blog for an in depth look at the palm oil industry; Jonnys's blog on Arctic environmental change; Wei's blog on the home of the polar bears and other arctic wildlife; Jess's blog on species migration) and we are causing the destruction of the homes, habitats and ecosystems of other species that inhabit an increasingly smaller niche on an ever homogenised planet due to our requirements from the environment around us.

By no means I am wagging my finger and blaming everyone under the sun for everything negative that's wrong with the world; that would be tiring and hypocritical lol! 

What is needed are solutions. 

Whether it is bio-technology and increased use of GM technologies to produce less GHG producing cows and other ruminants, or the utilisation of efficient feed and better storage, disposal and use of manure and other excrement produced as a livestock by-product (all in this IPCC report) and suggested by Popp et al., 2010.

Greater efficiencies in the production of livestock is integral to its sustainability, its been done to a certain extent in the transport industry, so why should what we eat be ring-fenced whilst we are all streamlining transportation (greater fuel efficient cars) energy production (renewable energy/ long life light bulbs), waste disposal (recycling); yet we still dump a lot of unnecessary fertiliser on a over irrigated field all in the name of reducing starvation?

Like in every single one of the example I have highlighted (and many more I have forgotten lol) there are some common traits; public support and interest; consumer attitude changes; cost of implementation; accessibility and availability of products. 

I am not asking/telling people to be vegetarian, it isn't necessary if agriculture was more sustainable. Greater GHG sinks (afforestation); less intensive agricultural practices; the real cost of meat (reduction in production subsidies Bruges, 2008) they would all curb emissions one way or another.

But by far the biggest source of agricultural expansion and GHG emissions is through demand. Unsustainable and inappropriate consumption is creating a problem that shouldn't even exist. The most significant way, as all the literature points to, whether modelled or not, is through consumer habits changing. Not eating meat every day is a start. Buying a non-meat alternative is also good. Margarine over butter is a positive, however depending on where the source of ingredients come from , palm oil could be one. 

Whatever you choose to do, just be aware of the choice you are making. Be a concious consumer and try act in an environmental, in a sustainable way. This is not easy. I am no expert on all products and their sources, but finding this information out has never been easier. Google it! 

Maybe soon there will be some kind of certification that address how environmentally sustainable meat products are (like those for tuna and dolphins, recycled paper from sustainable forests and recyclable plastics)? If there is already please let me know!!! Maybe that's one thing we could do, start a social movement for Sustainable and Environmental Agricultural Production in the United Kingdom... SEAPUK!

SEAPUK...we could get Paul McCartney to talk at an event... hmm.... Planet organic... get a few farmers involved... we could start something great!

I am managing director..... no.. vice president.... no.... King of SEAPUK! Who wants to join me? We can do it!

Livestock in Food Security: the debate widens...

With all the talk about environmentalism, and when we are all too busy hugging trees, we do forget other things that are happening on the planet. 

Sustainable development is not just some buzz-phrase cooked up in the nineties to gives us 15 year olds in the naughties to learn about in geography... well there is some truth in that too.

It is easy to forget that livestock, farming, is a valuable source of income for some of the poorest families in the world. A new report by the UN FAO on the importance of livestock to food security is a great summary of what kind of role livestock plays in developing nations in particular:

"livestock make a vital contribution as generators of cash flow and economic buffers, provided that market chains are organised to provide openings for small scale producers and traders and those in remote areas." (Forward, ix, FAO 2011: Livestock in Food Security)

The fundamental point is that livestock is not just a source of emissions, pollution, ethical controversy but at the end of the day is a source of food and income. Highlighting Sub-Saharan Africa, the expansion of agriculture (like that seen in China and India in the late 20th Century, Green Revolution) is pegged as a lifeline to reduce poverty and improve on the health problems.

The report highlights the changes in livestock production numbers and per capita consumption (Table 4) and also shows specific region and national scale changes and predictions (figures 1, 2 and table 16). I could bore you describing what they say... alternatively you could read? read isn't a good word to use, you don't 'read' a graph do you? observe the graphs yourselves.

As you can see, the numbers only increase...

Pastoralists number 120 million, and they depend on their livestock for food, income, transport and fuel; would it be fair to force them to stop stocking animals because climate change is getting out of hand? After all it is the 'developed' who have truly mechanised GHG emissions; should we tarnish everyone with the same brush? I don't think so.

This coupled with the need to maximise profits and reduce cost to open the market to everyone, livestock intensification is needed, and these agricultural systems are the worst environmentally, ethically and for small business competition which just does not have the finance to compete.

The report (FAO, 2011) goes onto stress that the dichotomy for environmental mitigation and sustainable economic development doesn't necessarily result in changes in the way development is going but rather the point that:

"suggest that the average global consumption of meat should be approximately 90 g a day, compared with the current 100 g, and that not more than 50 g should come from red meat from ruminants. If this target were achieved, it would lower the peak demand for meat. However, government-sponsored nutritional and healthy eating programmes have had limited success in changing dietary preference." (page 82)

The root of all evil it seems is not money but consumption, and a lot of it at that!

Inequality in food distribution is widely known. Last year I had the opportunity to sit in on a UN Young Ambassador Society events held at the Institute of Education and none other than the Executive Director of the World Food Programme gave a keynote speech. There, Josette Sheeran spoke quite bluntly about the inequality of food distribution worldwide. There is enough food but a billion remain undernourished and a billion over. That means there is still a lot of waste, and through waste reduction we can 'offset' carbon emissions and save the environment!

It is a very long read and I would bet there are gems that I haven't mentioned that I haven't read in the report... it's 100 pages long! What do you expect me to do???

Keep watching the posts!!

Alternatives to Meat? Watch this!

Video from the infamous One Show! Please Watch!!

This video sums up the arguments for and against meat alternatives. It is an easy and fun watch... in fact I remember watching this when it first aired on tv... how sad am I!?!?!

Next up... a reply to another comment! I would love to see more! :D

And remember, if we can send a man to the moon any thing is possible, even reducing our consumption!

How do you solve a problem like Maria eating meat? Alternatives!

VS

 

The end is nigh!

Well I am not talking about 21st of December... regardless of what those great survivors the Mayans thought (even if THE Britney Spears 'sings' a song about it) the world won't end; but one absolute certainty is that the cows will come home to fart....

The end of my blogging days may be over... screams of please no I hear?!? (or are they all 'Thank God!')... nevertheless I will try and look at the alternatives to a life in an atmosphere of animal farts.

From what the much of the literature points to as the driver in increased livestock production, demand seems to generate the largest fundamental factor in the quantity of emissions. So, to reduce emissions and other detrimental effects of livestock farming we have to reduce demand and consumption.

This is not easy... I personally do not want to stop eating meat altogether, although, after watching the documentary Mat the Truth, I was seriously contemplating going cold turkey... on turkey...

Proteins are vital to human health and life. So if we don't eat meat, what would we eat instead?

A commonly given example is fish. Fish is often seen as a better food stuff than meat, but fishing has caused a substantial amount of environmental damages as well as the state of fish stocks world wide ebbing closer and closer to depletion. The UN FAO World Fisheries and Aquaculture report (2010) states that 32% of stocks are over exploited/depleted or recovering; 53% are fully exploited and 15% are moderately exploited. Shifting more than a billion people in the developed world onto an already stressed resource will cause its collapse. Greater consumption of smaller fish which is environmentally sustainable and healthier for you is one option. If this resource is ever going to support an increasing number of people then sustainability is required, please read Worm et al. (2009) for an in depth insight into the potential approaches to take, most could be applied to other environmental problems; a multidisciplinary approach.

Corn, Soy and Grains are the food stuffs we generally feed to livestock. They are also very much fit for human consumption; but we tend to feed more of it to the meat we eat then personally consume ourselves. I personally don't eat corn... I know shoot me... but as you will find out in a later post (ooh foreshadowing I know right?!) I have taken certain steps in the right direction already!

This list doesn't look too impressive... but one factor easily neglected is simply reducing the amount of meat we eat. Meatless Fridays, or what Roman Catholics call Fridays... notable celebrities do it, Paul McCartney, Leona Lewis, they are talented because they eat a lot less meat... in fact none! OK... there is no link between talent and meat consumption. 

Reducing meat consumption has many benefits. You are healthier, richer (from not buying any meat, doesn't work if your meat originates in a five finger discount manner), aiding the environment in becoming less polluted and less full of cow farts. Also you can waste all those calories on chocolate, more room for nutella! OK I am not advising you to go on to an all nutella diet as fun as it would be, full of chocolaty goodness..... OMG it has been so long since I have had nutella I would kill love to have some right now..... *drools* mmmmmmm. Nutella pizza - nutella instead of tomato sauce and kinder in place of cheese. HEAVEN... like this, but rather than the nuts (which are a great source of proteins and energy!!!) add bananas... *collapses*.

10 minutes later....*wakes up*

Back to the point!

My New Years resolution is to eat less meat... so far I think I have eaten a little meat every day FAIL, but it hasn't been one whole week yet!

So I'll let you ponder about other foods you can stuff yourself with... but remember put down the fork, don't eat too much beef chicken or pork!

Free the Turkeys! Put down that fork!!!

Less than 1 hour to go, I fear that there is not enough time… the turkeys/chicken/pigs/sprouts are already dead and in your fridge…MURDERERS! (lol jk!)

So… whilst you tuck in to your no doubt incredible spread for Christmas dinner/lunch (or even breakfast-weirdoes!) and maybe saying grace, spare a thought about the meat you’ll be eating - not about the most probably sad lives they had running, well squeezed walking, cooped up in a large industrial scale production house – but the emissions they produced and the smell *coughs*.

I could give you a lecture on ethics of meat production but that would be so hypocritical I should be arrested (although there is an interesting resource of literature and media on this very subject I would strongly advise you to read and look at like this site!)… so instead let’s talk about Christmas dinner! From the material highlighted in the videos shown and the post earlier; all livestock, like any animal produces emissions directly and indirectly. Christmas comes but once a year; unfortunately for us, but fortunately for the environment and those lovely, tasty succulent…*drools*… om nom nom… err…those birds.

Poultry (chickens/geese/ducks/turkeys) accounted for 61 million tonnes of CO₂ in the year 2002, and numbered around 17 billion (a head) globally (LLS, FAO 2006)…weird thinking they’ve all almost certainly have been eaten. That number astonishes me! And that was nearly 10 years ago! Our love of poultry is incredible, 29.06 kg/capita/year is consumed in the UK alone for the year 2007 (great stat website! http://faostat.fao.org/). That’s a load of emissions; not to mention the fertiliser gone into producing feed (such as corn) for the poultry.

Once a year is acceptable, but maybe we should begin to scrutinise our lifestyles. Poultry is by no means the worst offender; on the contrary it is more emission efficient than ruminants like cows (where’s the beef?). Like most things in life, the case of moderation persists.

This website also shows some meat consumption data in map form (I love maps I do!), and there is always the great worldmapper site!

Livestock production, as I hope to have shown throughout this blog touches upon a wide variety of topics; whilst on the subject of phosphorous, the next posts will be on resources, depletion and pollution… more still to come!

So wherever you are, whatever you may be doing… have a Merry Christmas!

Replying to a comment!

I felt this deserved a whole post because I wrote too much to respond in a comment; the comment too (by Emily Smith who has a great blog called Treading on thin ice; about glacial melt and it's consequences - its great please take a look, I am not doing it justice!) highlights some issues that we face in the coming decades.

Her original comment was: 

"You're right it is a really provocative video. I hadn't even heard of the riots in 2008, let alone known they were partially due to phosphorus shortages. It really makes you think about our priorities, especially if the peak could be reached by 2035. Even if the peak is in 300-400 years like the Fertiliser Agency stated, its the wrong attitude to pass it off to future generations to deal with. Saying that, I'm not sure how many people, me included would be willing to give up meat. And even if they did, if it's a finite resource, I wonder what proportion of the population can be sustained when the phosphorus resource has run out? Not 7 billion I expect."

My Response:

It is very true, I personally love to eat meat occasionally, but how much meat we eat I feel is the question. Humans have always eaten meat, and in some parts of the world, meat is reared without the use of extensive amounts of resources, for instance well within the ‘carrying capacity’ of certain countries; especially subsistence farming.

Intensive agriculture has resulted in massive amounts of fertiliser being used when it is not even required (Europe for instance; I have read this in a journal article but fail to remember at the moment!). We eat a lot of meat, but by just looking at any reduced aisle in any supermarket we can see huge amounts of meat wasted; no one buys every meat product. Just think, how many times have you walked past a butchers or a deli counter in a supermarket and thought about buying meat a few days to expiration and left it? Or even thrown out some left over gone off meat? Please do not think I am accusing you personally of this (lol!) but society is wasteful, regardless of how conscious we are individually.

By reducing waste in the consumption of meat, I’m guessing (not very academic here!) that we will naturally produce less meat, or meat per capita. The alternatives of a low-meat high-protein diet result in either large shifts in diets to legumes/beans/soya (which the cows generally eat as feed now) or fish. Fish is one of the most consistently exhausted and depended upon food sources we have, adding more pressure could cause greater depletion of an already controversial ‘commons’ resource.

The fact that meat production will almost certainly increase in line with demographic change requires a renewable source of P, that’s where natural fertilisers come in. Like the video material has shown, P is not really absorbed by our body, so most of it passes straight out; the P used to make the meal for one person is now available to be used to make food for another person. We just need to roll this out on a large scale, thanks to urbanisation; the feasibility of capturing P from human waste is easier from cities. There is a great potential in harnessing P; and there are just as interesting ways of utilising this resource which I hope to explore in greater depth soon!!!

Sorry for the long reply! :D And I hope you do not mind me using your comment!

Add a little P, get a load more Poo! Part 3: Video time...AGIAN!

This video is from an Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) did a special on... you guessed it, peak P!


It is a really interesting video investigating the potential for utilising urine for nutrient extraction. I love the toilet! However, the man said that men will have to sit down... errr has anyone ever told him men can aim where they pee? This is very disturbing....


There is also a related article on the website. Please read!

Add a little P, get a load more Poo! Part 2: Video time!

This video summarises the main arguments around P, and it's in green (my favourite colour!). I particularly like the part about doing your part whilst sitting...just one letter away from what you're actually doing!

Add a little P, get a load more Poo! Part 1: The whole debate around fertiliser.

Livestock feed on animal feed which is produced from some main ingredients which include: corn, soybeans, sorghum, oats and barley. The more cows you want to milk, the more plants you need to grow to turn into feed for the cows.

Plants, like every other living creature, needs nutrients to live, grow and reproduce. This is where the whole debate around food security comes in, and an element we call Phosphorous (P).

P is necessary for living organisms, in the case of plants, phosphorous is used not just energy pathways (respiration) but also growth and most constrainedly, root growth and so uptake of other vital nutrients.

Now agriculture is a business...a very big agri-business. To maximise crop production and yield, you do not want the amount of P in the soil to limit growth, this is the same for the other vital nutrients (Nitrogen and Potassium). NPK fertiliser is added to soils to allow plants to grow. But where does this fertiliser come from... we have known for millennia that poo is just as good a fertiliser as anything else, once more it's natural and we have loads of the stuff!

The mining of P for decades has started to make people wonder... we have had a peak in oil production...will the same happen for phosphorous? Short answer yes. With any finite resource, which P is one, there will always be a peak, and a downward trend following it.

So as I begin to shed light on the nutrient side of things, here is an article calling peak phosphorous into the light, and the implications it might have on foreign policy and food security... who'd 'a thought it... cow poo is related to international relations eh?!?

Meat the truth! Documentary Time!

This documentary, presented by a Dutch MP (Dutch Party for the Animals - might be a little biased) explores the role livestock plays in GHG emissions; pretty much what this blog is designed for!

The whole documentary is a great watch, please do!

To eat or not to eat meat… That is the question! Part 1: is it all demand?

When people debate the issue around livestock and the negatives of increasing production of meat and livestock associated products many say we should reduce meat consumption.

REALLY?!?

Now sure, one way we COULD reduce emissions from livestock is to cut down on our sausages, chicken legs and kebabs; after all, less cows and sheep farting, less direct methane emissions. But there are other issues around more animals on the planet that feed our hunger for meat. This paper by McApline et al. 2009 looks at environmental degradation in Colombia, Brazil and Australia due to expanding beef production and the deforestation it causes.

A big issue around emissions from livestock is the fact that there are large indirect GHG emissions from forest clearance and land use changes. The paper looks at factors that have increased beef production and surprisingly, in some countries like Brazil, it is not supply and demand which dictate beef production and emissions; its land prices. Land policy in Brazil has made it more profitable to clear once natural rainforest and keep it clear than let it be. The cheapest way to keep vegetation from establishing again is to regularly cut regrowth… cows are surprisingly good at turning grass into milk, meat, leather and other useful products for human consumption. This not only has a dramatic effect on local ecosystem services and physiography; the global consequences include depletion of the capacity for natural carbon sequestration.

Meat is big business. Curtailing meat production will directly affect the economies which rely mainly on agriculture and the primary sector. This is a controversial topic as if a country is able to utilise its natural resources within its territory for economic means and development ‘at the expense’ of the environment, who are we to judge? We chopped down our ‘oak’ forests centuries ago to fight wars with continental Europe. With the specific driver of meat production in this context being land management, economical profitability and natural lawn mowers; there is an assumption that if the main driver of livestock (beef) expansion being the one stated, then whether you eat the meat or not, there still will be emissions from it, albeit highly inefficient per capita of digestion. In the case of Australia, land management reform in the favour of protecting old growth forests has reduced the profitability in expanding cheap, subsidised (through tax incentives) cattle ranches. This protection has worked, again regardless of whether Sheila or Russell eat steak or love veggie burgers.

However, with all business, it is fundamentally based on a market; therefore demand. If demand for meat (whatever the reason) decreases; then production and emissions would – economically speaking – decrease too.

I will explore more arguments around decreasing dependence on livestock as a food source. However, I am guessing it isn’t as straight forward as I think it’s going to be!

Fossilised farts (and other agroGHGs)! Part 3: The critiques of fart records: it’s ALL NATURAL.

Now both articles (Fuller et al., 2011; Ruddiman et al., 2011) and their side of the debate have critiques. From these graphs (from Ruddiman et al., 2011) they become evident:

In the first (A) graph you can see that the relationship between CH₄ concentrations and population is not constant. Initially CH₄ per capita increased proportionally, then methane rose steadily whilst population was rising exponentially. This decoupling is down to (what Ruddiman et al. 2011 note from Ellis and Wang in 1997) different land production efficiencies and priorities. With increasing intensification techniques, like rearing cattle, more land and plants are needed as well as primitive ruminants who haven’t been selectively bred to maximise meat or milk production yet. These inefficiencies which increase CH₄ release (IPCC, 2006) where only dealt with during the latter half of the Holocene, this is just one argument supporting anthropogenic methane emissions prior to the Anthropocene; this decouples methane and population, whilst explain the change in rates. Also land use per capita dropped, as seen in the second graph, that is not to say that the early human pastoralists had large herds of cows farting across the once green, bread-basket of the Sahara, it just highlights primitive techniques of farming. Quantifying the contributions of CH₄ into rice agriculture and livestock rearing category is hard as more research needs to be undertaken (Fuller et al., 2011; Singarayer et al., 2011).

Picking up on the point of the inter-polar gradient (IPG), Chappellaz et al. (1997) investigated the difference between the polar records of methane concentrations. Studying the Arctic GRIP ice core and the Antarctic BYRD and D47 ice cores, they attributed the changes in the IPG to initially (5.7 and 2.5 – 5 ka) lower atmospheric CH₄ levels due to the on-going drying of the tropical regions combined with massive peat land growth in the northern boreal regions after 5 ka. With a recent period (ca. 1 ka) increases due to increased wetness and significant anthropogenic emissions. Harder et al. (2007) investigates this further, coupling a GCM with information on the sinks of methane; volatile organic compounds (VOC) and the sea (changes in sea surface temperature, SST). Another vital sink, the largest in fact (and one I hope to investigate further is the hydroxyl radical (­^●OH). Stressing the importance of changes in the various other sources and sinks, Harder et al.’s research show that the IPG changes are the result of dynamics within the ‘methane cycle’, between the balance between the sources/sinks. However, they draw attention to the necessity to improve understanding about how methane may react with other GHGs especially considering the fact that the hydroxyl radical is the sink for many other GHGs. Any anthropogenic influence on the changing methane concentrations either at 5 ka or in the IPG has been sidelined.

This point is underlined by Singarayer et al. (2011) as concluding remarks describe the lack of model evidence successfully calibrating predicted and observed data sets, with an anthropogenic input providing a correct outcome. It goes even further saying, and I quote:

“The late Holocene increase in methane can be primarily ascribed to increasing emissions from the Southern Hemisphere tropics. In the late Holocene, unlike the last interglacial, these increases are not counteracted by equivalent decreases in Northern Hemisphere emissions. We suggest therefore that direct anthropogenic influences are not necessary to explain the late Holocene methane record.”

Rather than the idea of cows farting (as it is quite hard to believe!); Singarayer et al. (2011) looks into possible overlooked variables. Exploring such variables like: glacial extent, and how it may effect subtle changes in the source regions; seasonality of the SH tropical wetland, and the resulting emissions; but most importantly, the link to the Eemian period where the orbital configuration is comparable to the present (and where models attempting to show the anthropogenic link fall short). They reaffirm their point that SH emissions were not counteracted with NH CH₄ emission decreases.

Even Burns (2011) discusses the possibility of an ‘all-natural’ 5 ka methane rise due to tropical produce methane causing the deviation from the expected. Burns looks at speleothem records to infer monsoonal strengths. It shows that the monsoons did migrate southwards, so making the highly productive tropics and areas south of the equator increasingly waterlogged and, ergo, greater CH₄ productive. It does seem that it is a one or the other theory approach… Neo can only take either the red or blue pill. There is no such thing as a purple one. But here, I would suggest that even though evidence is in favour of an all-natural approach. In my opinion one cannot exclusively write out the other, and the debate will go on for ages; but archaeological evidence shows the techniques expansion. Whether you like it or not, ruminants fart, producing methane, as well as humans might I add!

I would like to think that thousands of years ago my ancestors around the Mediterranean were herding farting sheep, farting cows and farting chickens, contributing to increasing methane concentrations in the atmosphere. It was a simpler time; it was a less fartier time!

Reference list for the 3 parts of Fossilised Farts (and other agroGHGs)!

Brook, E. J., Sowers, T. and Orchardo, J., 1996, Rapid variations in atmospheris methane concentration during the past 110,000 years, Science, 273, 1087-1091 pp.

Burns, S. J., 2011, speleothem records of changes in tropical hydrology over the Holocene and possible implications for atmospheric methane, The Holocene (special issue), 1-7 pp.

Chappellaz, J., Blunier, T., Kints, S., Dallenbach, A., Barnota, J., Schwander. J., Raynaud, D. and Stauffer, B., 1997, Changes in the atmospheric CH­₄ gradient between Greenland and Antarctica during the Holocene, Journal of Geophysical Research, 102, D13, 15,987-15,997 pp

Ellis, E. C. and Wang, S. M., 1997, Sustainable traditional agriculture in the Tai Lake region of China, Agriculture Ecosystems and Environment, 61, 177-193 pp.

Fuller, D. Q., Manning, K., Castillo, C., Kingwell-Banham, E., Weisskopf, A., Qin, L., Sato, Y. and Hijmans, 2011, The contribution of rice agriculture and livestock pastoralism to prehistoric methane levels: An archaeological assessment, The Holocene, 21, 743-759 pp.

Harder, S. L., Shindell, D. T., Schmidt, G. A. and Brook, E. J., 2007, A global climate model study of CH₄ emissions during the Holocene and glacial-interglacial transitions constrained by ice core data, Global biogeochemical cycles, 21, GB1011, 1-13 pp.

IPCC, 2006, CH4 Emissions from enteric fermentation,in Guidelinesfor National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Volume 4 Agriculture, Forestry andOther Land Use, writtenby Gibbs, M. J., Conneely, D., Johnson, D., Lasse, K. R. and Ulyatt M.J., , 297-320 pp. 

Ruddiman, W. F., Kutzbach, J. E. and Vavrus, A. J., 2011, Can natural or anthropogenic explanations of late-Holocene CO₂ and CH­₄ increases be falsified? The Holocene, 21, 865-879 pp.

Schlit, A., Baumgartner, M., Schwander, J., Buiron, D., Capron, E., Chappellaz, J., Loulergue, L., Schupbach, S., Spahni, R., Fischer, H. and Stocker, T., 2010, Atmospheric nitrous oxide during the last 140,000 years, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 300, 33-43 pp.

Singarayer, J. S., Valdes, P. J., Friedlingstein, P., Nelson, S. and Beerling, D. J., 2011, Late Holocene methane rise caused by orbitally controlled increase in tropical sources, Nature, 470, 82-86 pp.

Sowers, T., 2010, Atmospheric methane isotope records covering the Holocene period, Quaternary science Reviews, 29, 213-221 pp.

Wolff, E. W., 2011, Methane and Monsoons, Nature, 470, 49-50 pp.

Fossilised farts (and other agroGHGs)! Part 2: The expansion of Livestock and the debate around the Anthropocene.

Now, studies by Brook et al. (1996); Schlit et al. (2010); Sowers (2010); Burns (2011); Singrayer et al. (2011) and Wolff (2011) all show ice core records and other proxies (analogues for past environmental records) like speleothem (calcite deposits) to show CH₄ and other GHGs like N₂O over the Holocene (11 ka BP; Sowers, 2010) to 140 ka (Schlit et al. 2010). These records show the link between precessional cycles and CH₄ concentrations; but up until 5 ka, the CH₄ concentration deviated from what is expected due to the precessional cycle. The NH has been at an insolation minima due to the precessional cycle being in a NH negative stage (i.e. the southern hemisphere, SH, has more intense summers and winters).

This discrepancy between expected and observed therefore does not follow the natural process. Now shoot me if you must, but I agree with research put forward by Ruddiman, and I am joining in the argument/debate on the Anthropocene. In an article by Ruddiman et al. in a special issue Holocene published in June 2011 (where some of the other 2011 articles from Holocene are taken) attempts to falsify anthropogenic and natural increases in CO₂ and CH₄. The case states that only one other (stage 11) deglaciation has a similar increase in methane after the initial peak and decreasing tail (which would be due to a natural or at least non-anthropogenic process). All of the records (except stage 11) show a decrease of CH₄ in line with NH summer insolation minima. Stage 1 (our current Holocene/Anthropocene) does not follow this trend. Due to the rise and spread of humans through the globe, the establishment of civilisations and the first age of modernity through agricultural development, Ruddiman et al. (2011) and Fuller et al. (2011) show that it is expansion of agricultural practices of wet-rice farming and livestock intensification which is responsible for the anomalous rise in atmospheric methane contribution. This is significant for this blog as it shows (even among scientists like myself… ok I am only a student) humans have had an effect on the greater environment and the Earth’s ecosystems through a variety of anthropogenic process; relating this to livestock they include deforestation (increasing CO₂) and increased agricultural production (increasing CH₄ and later with the green revolution N₂O). This rise is evident 5 ka; that is why I believe that humans have had a significant impact on the earth before 250 yrs BP, it’s been 5 ka that’s how far the Anthropocene extends. This is shown in the graph taken from Fuller et al. 2011. 

Graph showing CH₄ predicted (NH insolation records) and measured CH₄ in GRIP ice core over time.

The Fuller et al. (2011) article looks at agricultural (pastoral and arable) contributions to prehistoric methane levels, using archaeological evidence to match it to the GHG records. This graph from their article shows the deviation from the predicted methane concentrations from the GRIP ice core. The black square points represent actual methane concentrations. The difference between the two data sets is ‘potentially’ cow farts and other anthropogenic processes (causing the deviation). They go deeper, investigating the spatial distribution of the technologies and knowledge of the more intensive (and greater GHG producing) agricultural techniques over time. Here are some maps showing the expansion of livestock practices:

Southern and Eastern Asia Livestock technique dispersal Fuller et al. 2011

Africa Livestock technique dispersal Fuller et al. 2011 

Southern Asia Livestock technique dispersal Fuller et al. 2011

The increased expansion of these farming practices means that more food was able to be cultivated, for direct food (like rice) or indirect food (like livestock feed).  This archaeological evidence shows the actual distribution of the increasing anthropogenic CH₄ sources. Another integral point (that will be elaborated on in part 3 of Fossilised farts) is the fact that the inter-polar gradient (IPG) between ice core records of CH­₄ concentration in Greenland and Antarctica begin to equate (Chappellaz et al., 1997; Burns, 2011). If for instance the NH boreal arctic polar circumference began to emit greater amounts of CH₄, then Greenland’s ice cores will have a greater concentration of the gas than Antarctica’s cores due to the proximity and difficulty of inter-polar diffusion. The fact that the IPG is levelling out shows that the source is low latitude; agricultural expansion into Africa, Southern Asia and South-Eastern Asia can be an explanation to this. Coupled with greater CH₄ emissions from the amazion basin (due to a stronger SH summer) and other low latitude CH₄ sources; this could explain the 5 ka rise. 

Fossilised farts (and other agroGHGs)! Part 1: The natural sources of methane in the past.

Records of trapped gas (of which some are fossilised farts) come from ice cores. GISP2 and GRIP (central Greenland) and the Vostok cores (Antarctica) show GHG levels fluctuating for millennia; stadials and interstadials (Brook et al., 1996). Focusing on methane and nitrous oxide (nitrous oxide will become increasingly significant during the green revolution and greater use of fertilisers), the role which livestock domestication and increased production has played on levels of those gases has been increasing over the late Holocene, correlating with the increasing human population and complementarily food demand.

Butt (pardon the pun), there are a variety of natural and other anthropogenic process which produce CH­₄ (and N₂O). To add to the debate about when humans had a global effect on the planet, we must be able to distinguish the gases between the various human and natural process, and that’s  where the magic happens…err, the science I mean.

The earth has always been able to regulate the gases in the atmosphere thanks to dynamic equilibrium. A long time ago, in a land quite close to home, early Homo sapiens sapiens lived as hunter gatherers and there was no such thing as an economic crisis. Over the last 140 ka (Schlit et al., 2010), atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases has varied naturally (as they have done before human mastery of emitting vast amounts of GHGs) due to feedback processes which are triggered by either external (orbital cycles, volcanic eruptions) or internal (organisms, Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles, Heinrich events, oceans) processes (Brook et al. 1996).

In the prior blogs I (hope to) have shown the main anthropogenic sources of the GHGs methane and nitrous oxide (as well as CO­₂, but due to its greater abundance in the atmosphere and number of sources is hard to quantify what proportion is due to livestock processes). These two gases in particular are good indicators of livestock production and other agricultural process as they can have a signal specific to the process of formation and as natural methane is dependent on the precessional cycle of the earth (explained further in part 2) it is relatively easy to predict and categorise as it increases and decreases in line with the earth’s precession. The main sources of methane come from the humble bacteria. Decomposers, who (as the name suggests) decompose organic matter (dead plants, leaves, bodies…err cow poo or rice stalks, to name but a few) anaerobically (without oxygen) which produces methane.

The best way of removing oxygen from soil (where tonnes of organic matter meet with anaerobic decomposers) is through water-logging/increasing the water table. Like any other organic process involving enzymes; the warmer the environment, the greater the rate of the process occurs, ergo more methane.

More organic matter + higher temperatures + greater water logged soils + decomposer bacteria = a load of natural methane!

The greatest sources of natural methane are large areas on earth (where else?) where temperatures are sufficient to allow decomposition to occur, have large stores of organic carbon in the soil and are highly water-logged. The source of the organic material is the crux of the matter, if it comes from cows stomachs via the rectum (LOL) then increasing the cow population directly increases methane produced from anaerobic decomposition, as well as their farts of course.

Tropical/sub-tropical and boreal (peat land) wetlands are the largest sources of natural methane. Other natural sources include termites, wild fires, wild animals farting, methane hydrate release and oceans (Ruddiman et al., 2011). In the ice core records, the direct correlation between the CH₄ concentration and precessional cycle boils down to the northern hemisphere summer insolation. The precessional cycle dictates the amount of summer temperatures in each hemisphere, governing the seasonal intensity (temperatures/precipitation) and the monsoons. As the direction of the tilt of the earth towards the sun changes cyclically over 22-26 ka (Ruddiman et al., 2011), when the northern hemisphere (NH) is pointed towards the sun when at the same time the earth is closest (the perihelion) to the sun then the NH summer insolation is high, increasing temperatures and precipitation, as seen in speleothem records across the tropics (Burns, 2011). Due to the inter tropical convergence zone (ITCZ) shifting northwards, NH precipitation increases the water logged state of the tropical/sub-tropical rainforests and greater insolation heats and melts permafrost in the boreal band across North America and Eurasia; paving the way for those nasty bacteria to unlock the frozen carbon in the form of the by-product that is CH₄.

You see… all those old-fashioned climate sceptic and climate change deniers are right… it’s not the fault of humans; we just have to destroy all those evil decomposer-bacteria that produce this bad gas, get the Dettol at the ready!

So what is the problem with excessive farting (also burping, urinating and excreting)?

Why is it even an issue worth discussing in a blog dedicated to the world of excrement? Well the fundamental problem we face, not just as a species, but as inhabitants of earth, is climate change. We humans use the planet as our only home, kitchen, garden and toilet. Like any other confined space, when you begin to change the chemical make-up of the gas enclosed in that volume, you begin to change the overall physical, chemical and thermal properties of that gas. In the case of excrement, methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) is produced through a variety of processes (as is carbon dioxide, CO₂) which contribute to the greenhouse effect (Popp et al., 2010). Carbon dioxide is the most significant anthropogenic produced GHG due to the sheer quantity that is emitted into the atmosphere from human activities.  

However, as I touched upon in the previous post, over 100 years, the same amounts CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O have varying potencies due to their thermodynamic properties. This property is applied as a ration of heat trapped by one unit mass of the GHG compared to one unit mass of CO₂; this is called the Global Warming Potential (GWP) (Pitesky et al., 2009). As it a ratio, CO₂ has a GWP of 1; CH₄ has a GWP of 23 (in the previous post I wrote that the potency of methane was 20 times that of carbon, it was wrong sorry!); N₂O is 296 (FAO, 2006). From this data, it shows how important methane and nitrous oxide produced from livestock production, and in particular from poo, will be an increasing problem, not just as the total number of GHGs (CO₂ and non-CO₂) is set to increase from projected and modelled figures (Popp et al., 2010). In addition, with populations estimated to reach 9 billion by 2055 (World Bank, 2011) and increasing qualities of life reflecting greater demand for meat in the diet; livestock rearing is set to increase; that equates to a whole load of shhhhh… excrement.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) commissioned a report on the impact livestock production has on the planet,Livestock’s long shadow (FAO, 2006). As a whole, livestock (either directly or indirectly) is responsible for 18% of total anthropogenic GHG emissions (FAO, 2006); those figures broken down into individual GHG include:

·  Carbon dioxide (CO₂) 9% of global anthropogenic emissions.

·  Methane (CH₄₎ 35 – 40% of global anthropogenic emissions.

·  Nitrous oxide (N₂O) 65% of global anthropogenic emissions.

·  Ammonia (NH₃) 64% of global anthropogenic emissions.

However, as I will investigate later on in the blog (or further towards the top of the blog), Excretion and everything  does not just play an integral role to GHG emissions, it also plays a vital role in the nutrient cycle, particularly phosphorous and nitrogen. Phosphorous (P), as well as nitrogen (N) in the form of nitrates and other vital macronutrients like magnesium (Mg), potassium (K) and calcium (Ca) are required as well as a variety of other micro nutrients (Robinson, 2004). Phosphorous is often a limiting factor in plant production, due to its vital role as an ingredient in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA), the building blocks of life; and in the Adenine triphosphate (ATP) which is the primary method of intracellular energy release and storage (Biology-Online, 2011), so we can all move, keep warm and most importantly… LIVE! Also, specifically to plants, P is necessary for healthy root growth, vital for the uptake of water and the other nutrients. The role fertiliser plays is significant, and indeed focusing on one of the nutrients, phosphorous, an increasingly important point has surfaced. Livestock (cows for example) need to eat; feed is created from plants; high amounts of land and biomass is required to produce vast amounts of feed; limited land resources dictates more intensive farming methods; greater dependence on higher yields; synthetic fertilisers created to provide the vital nutrients for plant growth; mining of phosphates from a finite source requires large amounts of energy whilst depleting the source.

As you can see, just from scratching the surface, cow (and other animals’) farts and poo pose a more serious problem than the humorous connotations applied to them suggest. Over the next few weeks and posts I hope to show you a greater insight in to the world of climate change, nutrients (re)cycling, pollution, eutrophication, renewable energy and many, many more uses, and subjects, which poo influences.

This blog may overlap with others, in fact it will. A post by fellow GEOG3057 blogger Emma (I hope she is Ok with me using her name), touches on the renewable potential of methane gas from… well cow farts. Another blog dedicated to the debate around biofuels can also shed light on the increasing diversification of energy sources, by another fellow GEOG3057 blogger Yulia. But those topics are for another time!

Next I hope to give you an insight into past methane releases and the relationships between the potent GHG and the atmosphere, looking at palaeo records of methane…essentially fossilised cow farts… Ok well some of the methane was produced by pre-modern time cows farting. Until then… watch those deadly emissions!

References:

Biology Online, 2011, ATP Definition. Available from: http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Atp. [Online] accessed 24/10/2011.

FAO, UnitedNations, Food and Agriculture Organisation, 2006, Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental issues and options, FAO-UN:Rome.

Pitesky, M. E., Stackhouse, K. R. and Mitloehner, F. M. 2009, Clearing the Air: Livestock’s contribution to climate change, Advances in Agronomy, 103, 1-40 pp.

Popp, A., Lotze-Campen, H., Bodirsky, B., 2010, Food consumption, diet shifts and associated non-CO₂ greenhouse gases from agricultural production. Global Environmental Change, 20, 451-462 pp.

Robinson, G. 2004, Geographies of Agriculture: Globalisation, restructuring and sustainability. Harlow: Pearson Publications Limited.

World Bank, Development Research Group, Human Developmentand Public Services Team, (Das Gupta, M., Bongaarts, J. and Cleland, J.) 2011, Population, Poverty and SustainableDevelopment: A Review of the Evidence, World Bank: Washington D.C., WPS5719.

If you find this sh.... stuff interesting then you might find these blogs interesting to! 

Please check them out, as I try to myself!

Agriculture: Human Health and Earth Health: http://robs-agriculture.blogspot.com/ 

Biofuels: Way Ahead or Blind Alley: http://biofuels-wayaheadorblindalley.blogspot.com/

Fixing Climate Change: http://fixingclimatechange.blogspot.com/