Obesity, cows and climate change

By , Tuesday, 21 April 2009, 2 Comments
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I was flabberghasted when I learned that cows produce as many litres of polluting gases as a car does in a day. And I’ve since been trying to run over as many cows as possible to reduce the carbon footprint of my huge four-by-four.

But my novel solution to the problems of climate change has hit a brick wall, because rising levels of obesity in humans are now being blamed for damaging the environment.

Research in the International Journal of Epidemiology compared the needs of a lean population (for example Vietnam) with those of the population of the USA, where 40 per cent are obese. The weightier population required 19 per cent more food energy and made greater use of cars.

At the same time, the United Nations suggests that we should be eating less meat because meat production causes 20 per cent of global emissions.

There is an endless list of statistics of this kind because, in short, everything we do damages the planet. But it’s also becoming clear that many of the ways in which we damage our own individual health have repercussions for the environment and everyone who lives in it.

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  • GEORGE CALDWELL

    Indeed eat less meat. (What is meant by “less”?) One serving a week for most sedentary folk but daily for a steel worker or day labourer? The amount will vary.

    But let us have the best.
    Most beasts are now kept in sheds far away from their natural habitat and nutrients found in good natural unadulterated grassland.

    Good grassland contains most of the nutrients that go to make good beef and pork and lamb.
    It is we, the public, who are served up with a depleted food, deficient in vital mineral, trace elements and vitamins.
    The animals are ill-fed, just sufficient to send them to market and make a profit for the commercial “FOOD INDUSTRY”.

    Chickens and ducks also. The public is being deprived of its proper food.
    Eggs must be free-range.

    The Royal Societies for the prevention of Cruelty to Animals are silent though the farm animals and birds are confined in too small cages so they are unable to lie down or move around. They are in pain often from these disabilities and surroundings.
    Does no-one care? We should because we are not getting the proper nutrients in our meat.

    THEN you can reduce the quantity of meat we eat, and find some fresh fish to take its place.

  • Martin Gray

    Fish stocks are also now at dangerous levels due to the selfish attitudes of different countries and their fishermen. Only the British have lost most of their fishing fleet, putting hundreds if not thousands, of workers out of a job. Thank the EU for that as I don’t want to be called racist for actually naming the countries (not PC and all that).

    perhaps when we have no electrcity or fossil fuels to run our machinesl, hence reducing food production back to the age old, and probably forgotten, methods will we be in a position to reduce carbon footprints and obesity. No more eddie Stobart lorries running up and down the motorways; no container loads of foods from foreign climes transported on ships and aircraft to feed the greedy civilised nations. No more 4x4s with bull bars to catch the ‘obesies’ crossing the road as they munch their 3rd snack of the hour.

    They say the people in the war were healthier and fitter than now because of rationing – maybe it would work again, but let’s not have another war just to test the theory.

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