Pollution and Global Warming

This post is about an article I read about Kathy Freston talking about how raising livestock is a huge reason why global warming is happening. I had to do a free writing exercise where I spend 30 minutes writing either for or against her claim. Of course, being a big meat eater, I had to discover reasons why she was wrong. Obviously I have left a lot out only having 30 minutes to type this entire text hence the discussion ability of forums. I will see you in the reply's.

Kathy Freston “Vegetarians the New Prius” analysis


Argument Against Kathy Freston’s “Vegetarian is the New Prius”

Global warming has been a very pressing matter in the past few years. There have been many ways proposed to conquer this problem but none have been effective so far. Kathy Freston puts forth an idea that if everyone stopped eating meat and only ate vegetarian food then our problems with global warming would be solved. There are multiple logical flaws in her argument, including generalizations and ignorant claims. These disputable claims are evident in the supporting texts and examples she uses.

Kathy Freston’s argument is that raising animals to eat is extremely damaging to our world because it is a leading cause of global warming. She states that the cause of climate change is due to two main factors. The first, being that the actual animals’ secrete gasses including methane, nitrogen and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through “farts” and the gasses get trapped and heat up the earth. The second claim is that all the resources we use to raise, kill, clean and distribute the meat releases so much pollution that the only solution is to discontinue this ordeal all together. The way that these “facts” are stated in the actual essay she wrote has no credibility and the supporting examples shown are baseless and completely irrelevant.

The first task will be to dissect her statement that the gasses released by the animals causes global warming. Let’s first look at the three main gasses released as the result of digestion. It should also be stated that these same gasses are released by humans in the same manner. Carbon Dioxide is the first gas that is released in flatulence and belching. This gas is instrumental in air pollution but what most people don’t know is that there are more than enough plants in this world to account for all of the world’s emissions of CO2 per year. So, if CO2 is not a problem in global warming then it must be one of the other two gasses.

Nitrogen is another gas secreted by living things on a daily basis and this has no effect on the atmosphere since over 90% of it is made of nitrogen. The excess nitrogen emitted will also be recycled into the ozone and assist in creating new ozone. Since ozone is made up of O3 the nitrogen creates a an environment suited for the addition of new oxygen molecules to the system.

The third and final gas in this process is Methane. Methane happens to be the most harmful gas released compared aforementioned gasses. Cows release about 1 liter of it a day each. There are 1.5 billion cows being pasteurized on earth. So if you do the math then that’s about 1.5 billion liters of methane gas emitted per day. This may seem like a huge amount but let’s look at humans in comparison. Each human releases about .3 liters of methane a day in the form of farting and belching. That means that 1.8 billion liters of methane per day for humans. This exceeds cows by 300 million liters. All this information adds up to one thing. Humans release more global warming gasses than cows do by hundreds of millions of liters per year.

The other section of her argument is the means it takes to transport the meat around the country releases a consummate amount of pollution into the atmosphere. Freston obviously did some research on this when she says that cars release greenhouse gasses similar to that of cows and other livestock. In reality this problem could be solved by lessening the ignorance of buyers. If people knew where their food was coming from then people in Californiawouldn’t be buying food that came from Maineor places on the other side of the continent. In response to this the business owners should stop being greedy and only sell within a certain mileage of where the food they grow actually comes from. Most of the waste produced from the trucking around of produce and livestock can be reduced by localizing agriculture in the U.S. and actually telling people where their food is being grown. Some statistics against this claim include a pollution chart from 2010 that shows pollution from transporting vegetables and fruits surpassed that of all meats by 200 metric tons of CO2. This proves that it is ignorant to say “become a vegetarian because moving meat causes pollution”” and is not the answer. The other side can be argued that becoming a carnivore would save the world from global warming. The amount of meat thatAmerica eats also helps to keep the economy going. In 2009 the United States received more than $10 billion from products raised and processed solely in America.

We as a country have many other alternative solutions to solve the overwhelming problem of global warming in opposition to a full scale change of national diet. There are plenty of wise and educated people coming up with ideas and two are making their way to the forefront. First, is a plan suggested by Bill Gates (Gates). His teams of researchers have found a way to take nuclear waste and reverse engineer it to use it for power. By doing this we will have enough clean energy to power our earth until the end of projected human existence. In his speech Bill throws out several world changing ideas but focuses on one main thought. How can we bring pollution down to zero? Surely the answer to this question is sought after by Kathy Freston and other Global Warming Activists. The answer he gives is a complicated and long process of taking the waste made from nuclear fission and use it to make power so there will be virtually zero waste emitted from nuclear power plants. Already we have accumulated enough waste in the factories of Arizona to power the entire U.S. for 100 years. When examined, this plan sounds much more intelligent than the previously stated idea of rocketing the waste into space and forgetting about it.

Yet another huge concept in clean energy is thorium. A research group lead by Kirk Sorensen has found a way to use thorium to put out more energy than nuclear fission. It is a lot safer since it works at room temperature and it is not radio-active. A huge innovation with Thorium power is that it reduces the size of the power plant by 65% while still producing the same amount of energy. The most useful consequence pertaining to this type of power is that it is cooled in water instead of radio-active material and is not pressurized so if there is a malfunction then there will be no risk of an explosion or damage to the plant (Kirk).

These are much more plausible solutions to our global warming problem and can be implemented in a more pleasing, national way than taking meat from the public.

The economic factor involved in making such a huge nationwide decision is phenomenal. Not only is it taking meat and money away from America, but it is also taking away something that America, as a nation, enjoys. On almost every holiday there is a celebration with a large cut of some type of meat. It has been a multiple century’s old tradition to have turkey on thanksgiving and ham on Christmas and if this goes away than many people will be upset. So if everyone is made into a vegetarian than various traditions of this country will never be the same.

The argument that becoming vegetarian can stop global warming or at least help stop it is an absurd and wonton statement. The lack of educational texts and proofs that Freston has is proof that the information for such a task doesn’t exist and the amount of contrary text is staggering in comparison.