An Inconvenient Omission
Posted by Freddie on July 1, 2007 under Uncategorized | 
I was impressed by the response to our former Senator’s recent documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, but that doesn’t mean I was particularly excited about seeing it. I honestly didn’t expect to get much out of it since I’ve been an environmental advocate for almost the entirety of my adult life and have thought that the ends of each minor change were important regardless of newfound evidence of their collective impact when unaddressed. Well after the release, a DVD edition was given to me as a gift, and I finally made a point of watching it on Earth Day this year. My interest was more in its apparent singular power of persuasion than in the issues at the heart of its message. Friends of mine whom I had long thought were de facto environmentalists were talking to me in more passionate terms than ever before about changes they were making in their own lives as a result of having seen this movie. One friend excitedly used MTA’s Night Owl service with me one night after the symphony.
So I watched, and I was impressed. An Inconvenient Truth is not an incendiary film. Mr. Gore is a dispassionate presenter of the best information available to him as a lay person speaking on behalf of thousands of the world’s climate scientists, who would probably never have been able to have the same impact without a spokesperson the caliber of Mr. Gore.
Until recently, my relatively minor criticisms of the movie were shared with another friend of mine. They include the following items:
- Mr. Gore flies quite a bit, despite air travel being one of the most polluting forms of transportation per person mile.
- Mr. Gore drives around in his sedan quite a bit. I’d be curious to know whether it was even a hybrid, but I rather doubt it, or I suspect he would’ve called attention to it.
- The only concrete suggestions for individual empowerment appear during the closing credits rather than as an integral part of the conclusion of the movie.
But now I have some new information, and my criticism of Gore’s campaign has actually stepped up a notch. While vacationing this summer at a wonderful little bed and breakfast called The White Pig nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, I was reading the May+June issue of VegNews they had in the common room and came across an article entitled “Can Vegetarianism Save the Planet?”. That’s a more strident title than I would’ve used had I been the author, but the information in the article is no less striking, regardless. Here is the kicker:
The remarkable 400-page report Livestock’s Long Shadow, recently published by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), reveals that animal agriculture contributes an estimated 18 percent to global warming, surpassing even transportation emissions as the primary cause.
Yes, you read that right: animal agriculture is actually the leading cause of global warming. The author of another report cited in the article reveals that methane actually has 23 times the impact of CO2.
So let me get this straight. The current champion of the fight against global warming who simultaneously laments the decline of evidence-based reasoning in modern policy discussions leaves out the single leading cause of global warming as determined by one of the world’s leading providers of evidence?
Some companies are actually including this evidence in their quest for greenness. Yahoo!, for example, recently encouraged its employees to be more conscious of their meat intake.
I remain hopeful that Mr. Gore might make mention of this evidence at some point, but today’s op-ed in the New York Times does not give me much hope. I also remain hopeful that his careful omission is not an indicator of his desire to take extreme political care when addressing the complicated issue of climate change. I.e., that taking on the world’s agribusiness lobby is not seen by this particular political actor as too risky, especially if he is still considering a presidential bid. Is it really that much easier to ask people to change light bulb technology than to ask them to eat more healthfully and conscientiously?
At the end of the day, I applaud Mr. Gore for bringing the world to attention to what is, truly, a shared problem. He is clearly an effective agent of change on the issue of global warming and climate change. But at the end of the same day, I find it a bit inconsistent that the man who subsequently penned a book called The Assault on Reason said absolutely nothing about the contributions of animal agriculture to the problem of climate change.
Update: Our friend Joe at the Vanderbilt Scoop Shop informs us that Ben & Jerry’s is hard at work on this issue.
Marjorie said,
Before I launch into my argument here, I should confess that I eat primarily vegan, primarily organic and about 50-70% raw. I’m very careful about ingesting minimal animal products in my own life.
However.
I look at some statistics cited from a vegetarian magazine and I assume they’re just a little bit interested in proseletysing about their preferred lifestyle. And similarly, if you want a whole wad of slightly suspect statistics that’ll make you never want to eat anything dairy again, go to milksucks.com.
However.
Milksucks.com is run by PETA. They’ve got an agenda and I assume VegNews does, too. The UN FAO sure SOUNDS like a dependable source but I find an assertion that some cowpies produce more air pollution than the gajillion vehicles with internal combustion engines on the road to be a skepticism-inducing notion, even for a food-puritan-with-an-environmentalist-bent like me.
Can anyone cite any more studies that might back this up? If there is something to the claims of VegNews, well, I’ll be happen to strap them onto my already teeteringly tall, day-to-day soapbox.
Thanks!
Freddie said,
Well, that’s why I linked to the FAO report directly rather than making a big deal out of an agenda-driven commentary. It’s an interesting read. And the agencies of the UN aren’t exactly into junk science.
Nashville is Talking » Udder Catastrophe said,
[...] Freddie at Liberadio(!) on another Inconvenient Truth Until recently, my relatively minor criticisms of the movie were shared with another friend of mine. They include the following items: [...]
Casey said,
Pretty interesting. I went wikipedia to see if I could find out a little more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_and_agriculture
It seems that more than just livestock is a contributor to the problem.
Cutting out meat might help but possibly be offset by the need for additional produce.
Freddie said,
Well, and that’s where the buy local, buy organic part of the equation comes in. I guess it’s all about where we want our costs to arise and how we want to pay for them.
Besides, you left out the interesting section entitled “Livestock” under your excerpt:
Sean Braisted said,
There is something about this argument that makes me scratch my head…
35-40% of global methane emissions (chiefly due to enteric fermentation and manure)
64% of global nitrous oxide emissions, chiefly as a result of fertilizer use.
Now, I’m no farmer, but from what I recall the main ingredient in most fertilizers used by farmers is manure. If we were to stop mass production of animals, where would we get the manure that replenishes the nutrients in the soil lost to the farming process?
Its part of the whole cycle of life, and if we were to cut out meat consumption, our plant consumption would increase dramatically, thus further decreasing the quality of the topsoil, which needs to be replenished with animal dung.
newton said,
as a vegetarian and an aspiring vegan, i too was dumbfounded on how gore could so conveniently skip over the impact that the mass production of livestock & meat has on the environment.
thanks for bringing it up.
Karenina said,
Not to be a contrarian here, but if everyone in this country went to an all vegan diet and discontinued use of any and all animal products; we would be in some serious trouble.
Continued farming on the same lands cause serious degradation of the soil and also kills various forms of animal life in and of itself.
An alfalfa field alone is responsible for killing over 50% of the grey tailed vole population, not to mention the other birds, varmints and assorted insects it kills.
Apparently, there just isn’t any ONE answer that we can resort to. It’s finding a balance.
Freddie said,
Sean and Karenina, I’m a little curious as to why each of you leapt to extremes, here. Nothing about my post suggested that I thought we should eliminate animal agriculture; I was merely highlighting what I find to be a significant omission from Gore’s one-man climate change campaign.
Karenina’s point is a good one though: This is all about finding a sustainable balance.
Volunteer Voters » Global Warming Til The Cows Come Home said,
[...] One would assume that Freddie O’Connell, a long time environmentalist and vegetarian, would be predisposed towards being a supporter of Al Gore’s climate change awareness campaign. However, Freddie has a large type beef (emphasis on beef) with one glaring ommision in Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth: Yes, you read that right: animal agriculture is actually the leading cause of global warming. The author of another report cited in the article reveals that methane actually has 23 times the impact of CO2. [...]
Sean Braisted said,
I guess because the purpose of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” is to find ways to reduce global greenhouse emissions. The assumption made by groups like PETA is that you can do this buy eliminating consumption of animal flesh. However, if we were to stop animal agriculture, it would have other, possibly more disastrous effects to our ecosystem. Therefore, it really doesn’t matter if animal dung is a contributor to greenhouse gases, because we can’t do anything about it; unlike with traffic pollution and energy consumption, where there are solutions to those problems available.
Freddie said,
Sean, I probably need to touch base with my friends from the environmental sciences and agricultural economics fields, but as a lay person (”not a farmer”), it’s difficult for me to imagine that sustainable (read: organic, smart seasonal rotation, scientific, etc.) non-livestock agriculture would not have a measurably lighter footprint in terms of contributions to global warming. Again, I reiterate that I’m not calling for a global ban on meat; I’m pointing to a major statistical omission that, like some of the other challenges, could probably begin to be addressed if given the attention being given to the energy production piece of this puzzle. E.g., $25 million prizes being awarded in recognition of problem solving.
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