What did you learn about dietary choices from using the footprint calculator? Now imagine that you could translate what you learned into an effective societal policy on food- what would it be? And how would this policy effect the need to alleviate world hunger?
925 million people on earth do not have enough to eat according to the FAO [Food and Agricultural Organization]. That's almost 1 in 7 inhabitants of our planet!
Food & Hunger >
Cows and Global Warming
Cows release about 70-120 kg of Methane every year. The negative impact of Methane on the environment is 23 times that of CO2. Every cow releasing an average of 100 kg of Methane each year is equivalent to releasing 2300 kg of of carbon per year. This amount of carbon is the same as when burning 1000 liters of petrol. Agriculture is also responsible for 18% of the total release of green-house gases world-wide, and cattle breeding is largely responsible for this amount. I therefore believe that one of the most effective ways to reduce our carbon footprint is to limit the amount of meet and dairy products we consume.
I also did a post on the affects of domesticated cows on global warming and I agree that reducing the amount of red meat humans consume on average is an important step in lowering personal carbon footprints. In addition, the grain used to feed cows that are domesticated for meat can be used to feed a significant amount of the population that is underfed - yet another reason to cut back on red meat consumption! Obviously, a vegetarian or vegan diet would be ideal for this to happen, but even the average American cutting red meat out of their diet one day a week would be helpful.
Like you mentioned in your post, methane is an extremely harmful greenhouse gas. I found a website with more information on the importance of reducing methane emission: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ … -than-cars
After what Nina said, I totally agree with her, reducing the amount of meat and dairy products would help lower the CO2 emissions that come from the methane produced by cows. Setting a limit on th amount of products we consume could be difficult at first, but after some time, we will eventually get use to it.