Near Coles Knob in eastern Floyd County, many acres of former mature forest are being cut (down to what’s left of the topsoil) to create pasture to grow beef cattle. (Wood chips likely now on a freighter ship to Europe.)
The carbon footprint of those cattle that will graze on land where carbon-storing oaks and hickories stood until this summer, would fall near the “high impact” range in this chart, especially if they are shipped to a feedlot for finishing and sold to consumers hundreds of miles from here.
“Low impact” pork would be my meat of choice. The half-a-pig we purchased a few years back from our neighbor a mile up the road was probably the lowest-impact non-avian meat we’ve ever enjoyed (except maybe redfish caught off Ann’s homeplace in Biloxi back when.) Home-raised eggs served us (and the carbon load) well for a dozen years.
I am considering a pledge (which doesn’t have to wait until Jan 1 to become a “resolution”) to eat no more beef. It won’t be that hard, frankly, since we don’t eat steaks and rarely grill hamburgers at home. I would have to forgo my quarterly Mushroom Burger at Parkway Grille, alas. But I guess I should put my money where my mouth is.
There are a number of places in Floyd County where you can purchase locally-grown grass-fed beef. The PRICE is higher than stockyard chain-grocery beef, but the field-to-fork COST is much lower if we consider all environmental inputs and outputs–and we must.
If we could all shift our diet as far as possible towards the low impact version of our protein of choice–but especially do this for beef for those who are not already Vegans–it would have a measurable and important impact on CO2 entering rather than leaving the air.
We (all 10 billion of us soon) will have to eat far lower on the food web than we have, if profound suffering is to be prevented, and hopefully not at the cost of further fouling our nest. Change is coming. We should start making individual decisions about diet very soon. Towards that end, I saw the relevant quote below recently, from an article about which I will have more to say soon:
One hectare of land yields one metric ton of soy protein, a common livestock feed, a year. The same amount of land can produce 150 tons of insect protein.
Very informative article. I’m currently eating less meat, but find it difficult to be totally vegan just yet. I still eat eggs & cheese.
I expended great energy teaching my 7th grade science classes about the impact of cattle on the environment. I hope it helped create some vegetarians