Are cows worse than cars??

As usual the answer lies somewhere in the middle. If we make an effort to start eating a variety of foods of meat, vegetables, fish etc. we would have a healthier diet and relieve some of the problems. Oceans are being fished out of some species so that's another problem. Science should work on developing new recipes that are healthy and taste good. Students should be educated about the reasons and possibilities for cooking a variety of dishes. Grocery stores should stock foods that been determined to be healthy and environmentally safe. People are carnivores by nature and that's a fact but we can land somewhere in the middle and work toward moderation in our life styles.

Cows? I've heard that an even worse cause of methane gas emissions was termites!

its not the cows fault. humans kill them for meat!

We just need to slow down consumption to slow down production. If you want steak it should cost at least $40 lb.

interesting how when you make the argument to stop eating meat from an animal rights perspective, people will tell you that humans are their primary concern and that animals can wait indefinitely. then you tell them that meat consumption puts humankind in peril and they're still blithely saying 'pass the gravy'.

i'm frankly sick of arguing the point. once we wipe ourselves out, it'll be a moot point anyway.

I definitely think cars are worse off then cows. We simply do not have the technology to significantly reduce the pollution from automobiles. Hydrogen is expensive and or very hard to produce in a green manner, ethanol is a joke, and electric cars can’t store enough energy to make them viable. Plus electric cars still depend on harmful energy sources like coal.

On the other hand, reforming the cow industry would not only be easier it would net a substantial profit. Even though I don’t think its necessary, a significant investment by the government in the form of subsidies and tax incentives could help the industry buy a lot of established technology to curb their impact on the environment. Aerobic digestion could be used to turn cow manure into electricity and bio fuel. Likewise cow manure can also be used to make a healthy alternative to corn based feed. If every farm in the nation employed these technologies on site we would see a massive decrease in pollution.

Aerobic digestion has already proven itself to be a reliable technology. With a large enough system a farmer can power his entire ranch and sell the excess electricity to the power plants. Dairy farmers in particular have found this technology to be even more profitable then selling milk.

Using manure to produce algae cakes is also a promising technology. Algae cakes are much healthier than corn and if produced on site would negate the effects of having to transport all that feed to the farm. Using algae feed for livestock would also have a favorable impact on the price of corn, which would help the fight against hunger.

Cutting down on beef consumption, individually, is a nice gesture but it is by no means a solution to pollution and climate change. Population growth will easily trump anything that the individual could choose to do and it’s a lot more important for us to develop sustainable practices instead of plain abstinence.

Case in point even if the US decided to take the totalitarian approach and heavily limited the production of cattle, the world at large would continue to function. India, brazil and China individually have more cattle then us anyway. Therefore it would make a lot more sense for the US to step up and develop a smarter and more ecologically sustainable way to produce cattle so the rest of the world can copy us.

I don't think the Amish are vegans.

And yet, somehow, they have managed to feed themselves without resorting to toxic pesticides and sprays, growth hormones/anti-biotics for their cattle....or resorting to disease-riddled factory farm practices.

Gosh...how'd they manage such a feat?

If they can live sensibly without giving up meat then I'm pretty such we can do it to.

They eat pleanty of meat and they manage to do it without pesticides, growth hormones, factory farms, "recycling" diseased cows as farm feed or any of that other shit Agro-Business does.

Eating meat is selfish on so many levels. There is no disputing the facts and if you are not willing to change your habits then I will mark you as a threat to my future and the future of the planet that I live on.

You have been warned.

I heard about a "tax on toots" in Minnesota taxing methane releases.

i say go vegetarian or better yet vegan! but i know that's not going to happen..."in any case the problem is that the cows slow digestive system make them a key producer of methane...Scientists are now carrying out trials of new diets designed to improve cows's digestion and hopefully reduce global warming...by feeding cows clover and alfalfa instead of grain it can reduce methane emissions by 25 percent..."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2274995/Cow-farts-collec...

All the while the Soft-Drink industry flies under the radar.

How much CO2 is released everytime you crack a can or bottle of Coke open?

Cows are way better than cars; cows taste good - yum yum!

according to a variety of sources

1 pound of feed lot beef equals approximately:

35lbs of eroded topsoil
~20lbs of grain
~2500 gallons of water
huge amounts of methane gas which is shown to be about 20 times the greenhouse gas that CO2 is.
plus nutrients
plus massive amounts of antibiotics
plus transport costs/packagings etc. etc.

1 pound of beef = 4 hamburgers

Honestly there are slightly different numbers regardless of where you go but the result is the same: meat products are very high energy (high energy input and high energy loss). So even if these numbers aren't the exact amount, it demonstrates that meat is resourcefully expensive. Reducing your beef intake, switching to chicken, or going vegetarian will reduce your impact significantly!!!

"but it tastes so good!" --- I KNOW! I LOVE BEEF CHICKEN PORK STEAK FISH SEAFOOD! I love it all but this 'taste' factor alone is not enough for me to still eat meat (I am a vegetarian but aspiring vegan). Honestly, if you can look at all of the reasons and resources that are being wasted with our carnivore society and just say "well it tastes good," you are without a conscience.

Moderation is the key to healthy living, reduce your meat intake and add some healthy variety to your diet. It will be a significant positive change for yourself and your Carbon footprint

Every time someone suggests that we SLIGHTLY scale back beef production to levels that were closer to what they were 70 years ago (before there was a McDonalds every 5ft in America).....people start screaming, "I'm not giving up meat! Now they're telling us we can never eat meat again???"

No one is saying that.

Slightly scaling back beef production to more sustinable/common sense levels is not the equivilant of giving up meat in America.

This is way off. Now we can't eat anything because the cow poop is too bad for the Environment? Where do we draw the line between living and environment care?

If anyone has to go, is the Cars, not the cows. Move to massive transport services.

i've never tasted a car but I'm assuming cows are more delicious. and that's all that concerns me.

What that is crazy
who thought that not eating meat is like driving a car
thats so weird

Sorry--giving up beef is one sacrifice too many. And this is coming from someone who is a fanatic about recycling and all sorts of other environmental activities. However, I am not giving up Gulyas, Texas Chili or any other beef dishes. As the old advertisment went, "Beef, it's what's for dinner."

It's all about volume.

The average person thinks, "A cow? Surely a single cow can't do any real damage!"

And that's correct....a SINGLE cow is harmless.

Just like one person peeing in your swiming pool isn't going to significantly effect the ph balance (or the clarity!) of the water.

Now imagine 10,000 people all peeing in your swimming pool 24hrs a day for 50 years!

Yup...pretty sure THAT would have a significant impact on the water quality contained within that swimming pool.

Yes, the production of beef at it's current level is unsustainable.

There are physical limits to how many cows you can produce in a healthy manner.

Eventually you hit a tipping point and then you have to resort to factory farming which breeds a LOT of diseases and immunity problems in calves and chicks, etc.

We don't have to eliminate meat, chicken or pork from our diets....but we have to drastically scale it back.

Even the oceans are reaching a tipping point as well (some would argue its already crossed it) where we are taking out more fish than are being replenished.

Without a common sense scaling back of consumption eventually we're going to have a catastrphoric collapse of these industries that are currently stretched waaaay beyond the sustainability level.

nope just stop eating it, i believe in you!

You don't have to stop eating beef.... just stop eating so much of it. Some people live on foods like the BigMac or Burger Kings' double Whopper.

Limit yourself to one meal with beef once a week or less and you'll be healthier and help cut down on beef consumption!

Yeah, but you can't eat a car. I'll give up my Mustang before I give up my Prime Rib.

Stop mass producing cows!

Stop eating meat!

This was an interesting piece, who would of thought that not eating meat is like driving an economical car.