The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has this article on their website:
http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/index.html

Unless you click on the link above, this is a long post. So, you might want to click on “Print-friendly version” at the top right to see it better.

On the positive side, here is an amazing acknowledgment and warning from a non-AR, non-Environmentalist group speaking clearly about the serious impact of animal agriculture on the environment, and more importantly (for those who consider it the most urgent issue of the day), Global Warming. Will people and governments sit up and take notice now? Will environmentalists be willing to include animal agriculture along with use of fossil fuels when they talk about our individual and collective footprints on Global Warming? Will environmentalists become the first new (non-AR or non-health conscious) group to voluntarily cut back, or totally eliminate meat and other animal products from their diets?

On the negative side, because the FOA doesn’t have an AR bias, they neglected to put forth the most obvious solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from animal agriculture — by recommending that people change their diet, to drastically reduce the number of “food” animals that need to be raised to keep up with our society’s demand. (That might be a conflict of interest for them to suggest. So the very thing that makes them most credible is the very thing that ignores the obvious.)

Regardless, this is an opportunity for Episcopalians who are concerned about the treatment of farmed animals, and/or about the environment, and/or about supporting MDGs to “make poverty history” to work together for a comprehensive common cause. (Why not involve the Peace and Justice people, the Office of Government Relations, and ERD, too, not to mention the Bishops of New England? The connection between animal agriculture and Global Warming adds an unexpected underlying potential for coalition-building in GC 2003 Resolution D016, which ought to encourage the Episcopal Church to work together toward solutions on various issues, instead of in its currently compartmentalized, and sometimes conflicting ways, by relatively small special interest groups and their supporters.)

Livestock a major threat to environment

Remedies urgently needed

29 November 2006, Rome - Which causes more greenhouse gas emissions, rearing cattle or driving cars?

Surprise!

According to a new report published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent ñ 18 percent ñ than transport. It is also a major source of land and water degradation.

Says Henning Steinfeld, Chief of FAOís Livestock Information and Policy Branch and senior author of the report: ìLivestock are one of the most significant contributors to todayís most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is required to remedy the situation.î

With increased prosperity, people are consuming more meat and dairy products every year. Global meat production is projected to more than double from 229 million tonnes in 1999/2001 to 465 million tonnes in 2050, while milk output is set to climb from 580 to 1043 million tonnes.

Long shadow

The global livestock sector is growing faster than any other agricultural sub-sector. It provides livelihoods to about 1.3billion people and contributes about 40 percent to global agricultural output. For many poor farmers in developing countries livestock are also a source of renewable energy for draft and an essential source of organic fertilizer for their crops.

But such rapid growth exacts a steep environmental price, according to the FAO report, Livestockís Long Shadow ñEnvironmental Issues and Options. ìThe environmental costs per unit of livestock production must be cut by one half, just to avoid the level of damage worsening beyond its present level,î it warns.

When emissions from land use and land use change are included, the livestock sector accounts for 9 percent of CO2 deriving from human-related activities, but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse gases. It generates 65 percent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure.

And it accounts for respectively 37 percent of all human-induced methane (23 times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 percent of ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain.

Livestock now use 30 percent of the earthís entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 percent of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock, the report notes. As forests are cleared to create new pastures, it is a major driver of deforestation, especially in Latin America where, for example, some 70 percent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing.

Land and water

At the same time herds cause wide-scale land degradation, with about 20 percent of pastures considered as degraded through overgrazing, compaction and erosion. This figure is even higher in the drylands where inappropriate policies and inadequate livestock management contribute to advancing desertification.

The livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the earthís increasingly scarce water resources, contributing among other things to water pollution, euthropication and the degeneration of coral reefs. The major polluting agents are animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and the pesticides used to spray feed crops. Widespread overgrazing disturbs water cycles, reducing replenishment of above and below ground water resources. Significant amounts of water are withdrawn for the production of feed.

Livestock are estimated to be the main inland source of phosphorous and nitrogen contamination of the South China Sea, contributing to biodiversity loss in marine ecosystems.

Meat and dairy animals now account for about 20 percent of all terrestrial animal biomass. Livestockís presence in vast tracts of land and its demand for feed crops also contribute to biodiversity loss; 15 out of 24 important ecosystem services are assessed as in decline, with livestock identified as a culprit.

Remedies

The report, which was produced with the support of the multi-institutional Livestock, Environment and Development (LEAD) Initiative, proposes explicitly to consider these environmental costs and suggests a number of ways of remedying the situation, including:

Land degradation ñ controlling access and removing obstacles to mobility on common pastures. Use of soil conservation methods and silvopastoralism, together with controlled livestock exclusion from sensitive areas; payment schemes for environmental services in livestock-based land use to help reduce and reverse land degradation.

Atmosphere and climate ñ increasing the efficiency of livestock production and feed crop agriculture. Improving animalsí diets to reduce enteric fermentation and consequent methane emissions, and setting up biogas plant initiatives to recycle manure.

Water ñ improving the efficiency of irrigation systems. Introducing full-cost pricing for water together with taxes to discourage large-scale livestock concentration close to cities.

These and related questions are the focus of discussions between FAO and its partners meeting to chart the way forward for livestock production at global consultations in Bangkok this week. These discussions also include the substantial public health risks related to the rapid livestock sector growth as, increasingly, animal diseases also affect humans; rapid livestock sector growth can also lead to the exclusion of smallholders from growing markets.

---

Livestock’s Long Shadow
Environmental Issues and Options

This report aims to assess the full impact of the livestock sector on environmental problems, along with potential technical and policy approaches to mitigation. The assessment is based on the most recent and complete data available, taking into account direct impacts, along with the impacts of feed crop agriculture required for livestock production. The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. The findings of this report suggest that it should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity.

Livestock’s contribution to environmental problems is on a massive scale and its potential contribution to their solution is equally large. The impact is so significant that it needs to be addressed with urgency. Major reductions in impact could be achieved at reasonable cost.

Download the .pdf report here.

Livestock impacts on the environment
The challenge is to reconcile two demands: for animal food products and environmental services…
A new report from FAO says livestock production contributes to the world’s most pressing environmental problems, including global warming, land degradation, air and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity. However, the report says, the livestock sector’s potential contribution to solving environmental problems is equally large, and major improvements could be achieved at reasonable cost….

Read it all.

On a related topic to the FOA article above, this picture links to a 3 year old(!) article about the ‘Flatulence Tax’ in New Zealand.

Press Release

100 Academics Support New Animal Ethics Centre at Oxford

More than 100 academics from 10 countries have agreed to become Advisers to the new Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics ñ to be launched online on Monday (27 November) at www.oxfordanimalethics.com - which aims to put animals on the intellectual agenda.

The Centre is the worldís first academy dedicated to the enhancement of the ethical status of animals through academic publication, teaching and research. Academics world-wide from both the sciences and the humanities will be eligible to become Fellows of the Centre. It will act as an international, independent think tank for the advancement of progressive thought about animals.

One of the areas of research will be the relationship between animal abuse and violence to human beings. One of the worldís major writers, who has explored this link - Nobel Laureate in Literature, Professor J. M. Coetzee ñ has honoured the Centre by agreeing to become its first Honorary Fellow. Other projects being pursued include an online course in animal ethics, a new monograph series, and a new Journal of Animal Ethics.

The Centreís first director, Oxford theologian, the Revd Professor Andrew Linzey, said today: ëThe support of such a large number of internationally recognised academics underlines just how important animals are as a moral issueí.

ëThere is a strong rational case for animals, which has been recognised over the centuries by academics and philosophers. What is needed is for this rational case to be much better known and there are now signs that progressive thinking is becoming mainstream. Importantly, animals are now recognised as sentient beings in European law; and, in the UK, the most comprehensive - and long overdue - overhaul of animal welfare legislation for almost a century is shortly to be enacted into law.í

‘We must strive to ensure animal issues are highlighted and rationally discussed throughout society - we cannot change the world for animals without changing our ideas about them. The Centre will promote ethical attitudes and contribute to informed public debate.’

Professor Priscilla Cohn, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Penn State University, who is the Associate Director of the Centre, added: ëIt seems to us that academics should take the lead in helping to foster a new kind of debate about animals ñ one that goes beyond slogans and stereotypesí.

The Advisers and the first six Fellows are listed on the Centreís website: www.oxfordanimalethics.com. The Centre is named after the distinguished Spanish Philosopher, JosÈ Ferrater Mora, who courageously spoke out against bull-fighting in Spain.

[snip]

Notes to Editors:

The Revd Professor Andrew Linzey is a Member of the Faculty of Theology, University of Oxford, and holds the worldís first post in Ethics, Theology and Animal Welfare ñ the Bede Jarrett Senior Research Fellowship at Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford. He has written or edited 20 books, including Animal Theology (SCM Press/University of Illinois Press, 1994) and Animal Rights: A Historical Anthology (Columbia University Press, 2005).

Professor Priscilla N. Cohn is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Abington College, Penn State University. She has taught courses on animal ethics for 35 years, and lectured on five continents. Her books include Contraception in Wildlife, Book 1 (Edwin Mellen Press, 1996) and Ethics and Wildlife (Edwin Mellen Press, 1999).

The first six Founding Fellows comprise three theologians, two philosophers, and one scientist from the UK, US, Australia, Armenia and Canada: Professor Paul Ara Barsam (theologian at the University of Yerevan, Armenia), Professor Mark Bernstein (philosopher at Purdue University, USA), Dr Scott Cowdell (theologian at Charles Sturt University and Rector, St Paul’s Anglican Church, Canberra, Australia), Professor Susan Pigott (Old Testament scholar at Hardin-Simmons University, Abilene, Texas), Professor Mark Rowlands (philosopher at the University of Hertfordshire), and Professor Martin Willison (biologist and environmentalist at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada).

Thinking Anglicans: animal ethics

“40 Theologians Support New Animal Ethics Centre at Oxford” (Anglican Communion News Service, 11/28/06)

“ENGLAND: Academics support new Animal Ethics Centre at Oxford” (Episcopal News Service, 11/29/2006)

This survey is more informative than conclusive, mainly because it doesn’t compare dogs on a vegan or vegetarian diet against dogs on a typical meat-based diet. But it’s interesting to see what the results are, and how people responded at the end.

In general, it was found that a vegan diet was healthiest, with two possible drawbacks that can be overcome with supplements. (But again, there is no way to know how the frequency of those conditions might compare with the rest of the dog population.)

You can download this .pdf file to read it: Dog Health Survey

(Also, there might be other causes for arthritis, regardless of dietary choice. I found this article earlier this week: “Are We Overvaccinating Our Pets?”.)

Please watch this video with the sound up: Video of the rescue of 100 horses in the Netherlands

Photos of the rescue from the BBC

“Dutch save trapped flood horses”

“The great Dutch horse rescue operation”

Click on the picture to read ‘Protesters decry Chinese crackdown on dogs’:

The sign in the third picture says to stop killing the innocent dogs — in Chinese!

There’s much better news than this which I haven’t posted yet, but AETA is weighing on my mind, feeling betrayed by the House of Representatives who conveniently waited until after the election to sneak this through.

The following are statements opposing the unnecessary “Animal Enterprise Terrorist Act”:

National Lawyers Guild (.pdf file)

Humane Society of the United States

Equal Justice Alliance (.pdf file)

American Civil Liberties Union