Getting that steak on your plate involves release of considerable amount of greenhouse gases
Victoria Vaughan, Straits Times 6 Dec 09;
What is a major beef among climate change supporters? They say eating meat like beef is bad news for the environment.
There is now a growing call to watch what you eat for reasons besides your health.
As world leaders gather at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen from tomorrow to tackle the rise in global temperatures, thoughts may also turn to action on a more personal level.
Recycling and taking public transport are well-known measures but there is a growing clamour to eat less meat to cut carbon emissions. The livestock sector is one of the largest sources, responsible for 18 per cent of global emissions from human activities.
A report by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation explains that livestock emits considerable amounts of the three main greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide through breathing, methane through the digestive process and nitrous oxide from manure.
Meat of all kinds contributes to these, with beef topping the charts in the amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) released.
In Singapore, beef is the third most popular meat, but trails quite far behind chicken and pork, which are not as environment-damaging as beef.
Crops such as rice and corn also release GHGs but at a much lower rate than livestock, which accounts for 80 per cent of emissions from agriculture.
For example, a serving of broccoli, eggplant, cauliflower and rice combined will still produce about 25 times less carbon emissions than a slab of steak.
Various campaigns to get people to go flexitarian and give up meat for just a day a week have gathered momentum.
The United States' Meatless Monday campaign, started by the Centre for a Livable Future in association with Johns Hopkins' Bloom-berg School of Public Health, now has a presence in Britain, Brazil, Holland, Canada, Finland and Taiwan.
Ghent, a town in Belgium with a population of 240,000, in May became the first city in the world to establish a vegetarian day each week. Thursday Veggie Day is a campaign by the Ethical Vegetarian Alternative (EVA), Belgium's biggest vegetarian organisation with 3,300 members.
EVA's founder-director Tobias Leenaert told The Sunday Times that the day has been well received. In the city's 35 schools, 95 per cent of students have opted to go meatless on Thursdays.
'The long-term aim is that in the next four years, 80 per cent of the country takes part in Veggie Day. A longer-term aim is to see 80 per cent of people eating meat only once a week - in the next 20 years,' said Mr Leenaert, 36.
Two other cities in Belgium have followed Ghent's lead. Sao Paulo in Brazil and Tel Aviv in Israel have also backed a meat-free day. The Vegetarian Society of Singapore hopes to start such a campaign next year.
A group of students at the National University of Singapore began promoting Meatout Thursdays in September on campus.
Members of Students Against Violation of the Earth put up pos-ters around campus touting vegeta-rian dishes as 'meatout' options.
The group's vice-president Goh Hong Yi, 20, said that while it was not possible to estimate how many people on campus adhere to the non-meat Thursdays, a pre-campaign survey found that 3,000 out of 10,000 students polled were willing to take part.
Several major scientific studies have linked red meat - high in saturated fat and protein - to some cancers, heart disease, diabetes and obesity.
A World Health Organisation study, published last year, showed that a 1 per cent decrease in the intake of saturated fat, found in meat and dairy products, would result in about 13,000 fewer deaths from cardiovascular disease in Europe each year.
The Health Promotion Board in Singapore says on its website that there is evidence that a well-balanced and healthy vegetarian diet usually means a lower body mass index, lower blood cholesterol levels and reduced risk of death from heart disease.
Health debates aside, the benefit to the environment of eating less meat is undisputed, experts say.
Dr Rachendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Pa-nel on Climate Change, set up to provide scientific information on climate change, has spoken on the issue.
In his lecture Less Meat, Less Heat: Impacts Of Livestock On Climate Change delivered in Ghent last year, he estimated that if a region with a population of about six million were to go vegetarian one day a week for a year, it would have the same effect on the environment as taking 500,000 cars off the road.
Livestock also contributes to climate change when forests, which absorb carbon dioxide, are chopped down to clear land for pasture and crops for animal feed.
Dr Pachauri points out that 70 per cent of deforested land in the Amazon is used for cattle pasture and feed crops cover a large part of the remainder.
The production of meat also uses more water than crops such as rice and corn. Beef needs15,500 litres of water for a kilogram, compared with 900 litres for a kilogram of corn and 3,000 litres for the same amount of rice.
'A reduction in the size of the livestock industry through reduced consumption is the most effective way of cutting GHGs from animal production,' he said.
Greenpeace International Sustainable Agriculture campaigner Jan van Aken said a meat-free day a week could reduce emissions from cattle by 10 to 20 per cent.
Greenpeace estimates every kilogram of beef eaten produces about the same amount of greenhouse gases as flying 100km - about one-third the distance between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.
