The GW Issue Few Wish to Hear

Most environmentally aware people try to keep up with the science, the debates, and the drafting of policy that will hopefully address Global Climate Change (a.k.a. Global Warming). The hope is that we can diminish human contributions to greenhouse gases before the planet becomes unlivable. Things like developing energy sources that don’t require raping the earth or poisoning the air and water (Mountaintop Removal) or never-ending oil wars, conservation at home and at work, switching urban transportation fleets to biodiesel, purchasing hybrid cars, commitments to rebuilding infrastructure such as the electrical grid so it doesn’t ‘lose’ nearly half of our generation capacity, ending the decimation of tropical rainforests, etc.

And many of the people young and old who are paying attention and doing what they can to mitigate their own carbon footprints are also well aware that with some tweaking of our antiquated agricultural policies that were originally designed to ‘beat’ the Soviets in some kind of mock Cold War game of who can produce the most corn, we could be saving 20% of our fossil fuel consumption simply by switching the nation’s primary shipping systems – trains, ships and semi fleets – to biodiesel made with alternative feedstock crops. Along with our agricultural machinery. A combine can run just fine on biodiesel – or, with a pre-heater refit, straight vegetable oil.

Yet there’s a huge contributor to climate change that people don’t seem to be particularly aware of or take seriously as far as choices they could make to lessen their own impact. It’s not about carbon dioxide, which is the primary focus of most attempts to mitigate Global Warming, but about other greenhouse gases like nitrous oxide and methane. For these the agricultural sector is again the most significant contributor, and it all revolves around our hard-to-kick habit of eating way too much meat.

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