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!
