Posted on 09/06/2008 5:58:34 PM PDT by markomalley
People should have one meat-free day a week if they want to make a personal and effective sacrifice that would help tackle climate change, the world's leading authority on global warming has told The Observer
Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which last year earned a joint share of the Nobel Peace Prize, said that people should then go on to reduce their meat consumption even further.
His comments are the most controversial advice yet provided by the panel on how individuals can help tackle global warning.
Pachauri, who was re-elected the panel's chairman for a second six-year term last week, said diet change was important because of the huge greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental problems - including habitat destruction - associated with rearing cattle and other animals. It was relatively easy to change eating habits compared to changing means of transport, he said.
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation has estimated that meat production accounts for nearly a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. These are generated during the production of animal feeds, for example, while ruminants, particularly cows, emit methane, which is 23 times more effective as a global warming agent than carbon dioxide. The agency has also warned that meat consumption is set to double by the middle of the century.
'In terms of immediacy of action and the feasibility of bringing about reductions in a short period of time, it clearly is the most attractive opportunity,' said Pachauri. 'Give up meat for one day [a week] initially, and decrease it from there,' said the Indian economist, who is a vegetarian.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Wow, and here I thought tire guages have already solved all our energy and global warming problems.
What? UN still exists ?? MAybe we should turn off electricity to UN headquarters to reduce global warming.
I grilled steak and chicken last weekend and grilled again tonight. Man it was so good. I’ll do it every time I can.
I don't want to make any MORE sacrifices for the UN.
UN out of the US
US out of the UN
Wasn’t there a report somewhere out that said cow dung produces methane gas. If there’s global warming, wouldn’t one need to eat meat to end methane gas. Just pondering. :)

C'mon, lets do it for the chidrun...
I’m sorry, but I’m a meatatarian;
it’s a commitment I’ve made...
No way. I am from Texas and I eat my beef.
It seems to me that if we replace the beef with the protien equivalent in beans, we will not have mitigated the methane problem at all but just shifted the blame from cow flatulence to vegan flatualance. Pretty soon, every family dinner will look like the campfire scene from Blazing Saddles.
The UN — definitely not mooseburger-friendly.
Hey are you one of my neighbors?????
I had a fillet of moose that Palin killed by winking at it cooked over a fire with the wood from the trees that Berkeley just cut down.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We already know. Your boy Zerobama already told us. And we're supposed to contact you guys when we want to drive our SUV. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They are not going to be happy until we’re vegetarians wearing togas and sandals ... and living in tee pees.
The UN has been chewing cud for years. Now they want us to. Sorry but veggies is what food eats.
Save The World...Eat Nobel Prize Winners.
What a bunch of fruitcakes.
They can have my meat when they take it from my cold dead hands.......
Why, do you need your mower back?
No thanks.
What resort community does he call home now that he is out of the money trough?
On the other hand, maybe we need to eat more of that stuff, preferably grilled, since sun spot activity has just about ceased. I think its going to get cold.
Yea, alright U.N., I’ll keep that in mind as I throw some pork chops in the skillet tonight.
LOL!!
News staffers at the RNC said they were happy to be there with real vittles! The DNC tried to go healthy and served celery sticks, etc.
(Heard it on my radio news.)
For the sake of the planet I’ve given up the $70/lb. custom Kobe beef steaks. It was tough but if that’s what it takes....
I won't mention the HUGE buffalo roast we had with this. I don't want to sound like a pig.
I can remember when we were told to turn out the lights when we left the room — that would fix everything. . . . .
Think I’ll order a nice steak at work for dinner tonight.
That was my first thought when I read this..so in order to fulfill my global obligation to stop global warming, I must make the supreme sacrifice and have a nice grilled double cheeseburger with the works....notice that not only will I eat a double portion of meat I am willing to go to the nth degree and include some delicious cheese.
“They can have my meat when they take it from my cold dead hands.......”
Did you really think that through before you wrote it?
LOL.
Does fish count as meat to these yahoos? Cuz I made tilapia for supper. The kids had fish sticks. I would have made hamburgers instead just to spite this advice.
I make it a point to slam the UN whenever it comes up in conversation. However, none of my friends or family think too highly of them so I end up preaching to the choir.
At least there wasn't a picture...
Once the word of this gets out, I wonder how many people in the meat industry will be voting for liberals in any party (and in any country) in the world.
I’m a carnivorian, too.
I live in a high rise, but my cast iron ribbed grill pan works great for ribeyes, teriyaki chicken, pork tenderloin, etc.
Screw these U.N. veggie supremacists! It’s about nothing other than America-hatred, IMHO.
The real truth is that you would be less intrusive on the environment if you ate more meat. Growing ARUGULA takes a lot of land, mechanized machinery and manpower, especially if you take into account and compare the nutrients and the calories.
Much of the beef is backgrounded on lands that are marginal and then fattened for a short time before going to market.
Yeah, that’s great, UN. Lets just reduce our meat consumption by 1 day a week... and screw the farmers and ranchers who will take a 1/7th reduction in revenue for it. Yeah, that’s a great idea.
Here’s another great idea, Mr. UN. How’s about you and your leaf eating Gia slaves do everyone a favor and link arms and head down to the Soilent Green factory. How’s that hit ya? Ya like that idea?
Pass the steak sauce.
LOL...No, apparently I didn’t.
When plants decay, they create methane gas which is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That’s true but they want the world to think that the fake global warming is caused by cow flatulance.
If I eat less meat and it dose stop globule warming. Where will I get my leather coat to wear because it is so cold?
Global warming is an excuse the global elites are using to take control over us. This is one way they will take control of the food supply.
“The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation has estimated that meat production accounts for nearly a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. These are generated during the production of animal feeds, for example...”
Right. And the Good People of Earth will generate crop substitutes for meat by doing what, exactly?
Er.
Tilling the soil, perhaps?
Consider the animal by-products that currently find their way into manufacturing. Be ready to clearcut more trees and drain more wetlands to substitute plant by-products. It’s perfectly OK. The aboriginals won’t mind giving up their land. And in the remote possibility they protest, well, the new cropland will need fertilizer, Comrade.
“People should have one meat-free day a week if they want to make a personal and effective sacrifice that would help tackle climate change,”
I’ll have meat at every meal thank you.
I’ll also just go drive around just to be driving around to counter some of the freaks tht believe that AH!
My footprint will be bigger than yours no matter what you do!
People should have two meat-free days most weeks, and a long stretch of them before Pascha and Christimas, and shorter stretches before the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul and the Dormition of the Theotokos. Oh, and lay off the stuff on January 5th, August 29th and Sept. 14th as well (on whichever calendar you’re using).
Of course, don’t forget to eat meat all week the week after Pascha and from Christmas to the Vigil of Theophany, and during the week following the Sunday of the Pharisee and the Publican.
Unless of course you’re a monk or a nun, in which case you should lay off the stuff entirely (except fish).
[:-)====
(That’s an Orthodox Christian monastic smiley, in case you’ve not seen it before. Of course, implicit in my suggestion is the idea that the whole of humanity would be better off embracing the original-issue version of Christianity—now usually called Eastern Orthodoxy—and keeping the fasts.)
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