Big changes to the meat industry could save the planet today

Submitted on Mon, 08/10/2009 - 09:32

Degree
B.S.

Field of Study
Civil Engineering

Professional Expertise
Computers

Image credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/docman/33111082/

As long as there are low prices for the things that harm the environment the most, there will be little incentive for any agricultural industries to make any moves such as these. In my opinion, the incentive should be provided by the government (sadly, with some of our tax dollars).

Government programs have recently made some big steps in the right direction. I estimated that the "Cash for Clunkers" program removes between 5,700,000,000 and 4,950,000,000 pounds of CO₂ per year. I've heard of a new program that is supposed to do the same thing for inefficient appliances.

The American diet is driven largely by the price of our food choices. Unfortunately for meat lovers, this will have an effect on their wallets -- very much like recent tobacco taxes, making the price for a pack of cigarettes double over the last few years.

Stop subsidizing meat industry's water and energy

A factory farm demands so much water and electricity. Water and electricity for agricultural industries are heavily subsidized by the U.S. Government. This keeps the price of their produce very competitive across the world. If some are paranoid of a government run health insurance program, they really need to assess whether or not we're getting what we are paying for. When the environmental costs of the cattle industry are considered, the true cost for beef should be closer to $30/lb.

The true cost reflects all environmental costs as well as the face value price. The environmental costs associated with the cattle industry include:

methane production - remember that methane has a global warming potential much greater than CO₂ and methane degrades naturally into water vapor and CO₂ which are the #1 and #2 global warming gasses
water table depletion
runoff into drinking water supplies, including pesticides used for grains grown to feed cattle
rainforest depletion
any environmentally destructive power consumption (running farm, raising, transporting, processing, etc)
individual human health care costs associated with eating beef
threatens habitats of endangered species
real estate - it takes 12 times as much land to feed vegetarians since meat requires so much grain

Cows I don't know about you, but I strongly detest that my tax dollars are actually being used to make it easier for Americans to put dead animals on their plates.

Environmental benefits from Cash for Clunkers

Everybody agrees that the "Cash for Clunkers" program benefits the environment by replacing inefficient vehicles with much more efficient models. I wanted to try to estimate how much CO₂. this program will save on a yearly basis.

The "Cash for Clunkers" program removes between 5,700,000,000 and 4,950,000,000 pounds of CO₂ per year. This translates to between 13,570,000 and 15,600,000 pounds of CO₂ each and every day.

For these calculations, I assumed that the average trade in improved the gas mileage somewhere around 9 MPG, so 8 MPG and 10 MPG values were used to represent the likely range of CO₂ savings. The average amount for each deal was assumed to be $4,000 (between $4,500 and $3,500), but this figure is completely a guess; it is used to calculate how many trade-ins were made. Also, the common gasoline to CO₂ conversion of 19 lbs/gallon was used.

Wind Power for Pastures

As for a goverment incentive program that would return much more than the previously mentioned subsidies, how about "Wind Power for Pastures"? The next "Cash for Clunkers" stimulus should be to convert cattle farms to wind farms.

If you're extreme or progressive, you may believe that a program like this one may actually be a great time to use eminant domain (goverment claims their need of your land - and there's little you can do about it) to take cattle farms and convert them to wind farms, but I think that would be too extreme. A simple incentive program could be created that would be best for farms that match the following criteria:

cattle farm lands that strain the water supplies the most in any particular water supply area
the location has superior wind strength
the location has other superior renewable energy potential including solar, small-scale hydro electric, geothermal, and others
the area has less energy than it creates and the electricity used is generated from a high percentage of dirty sources such as coal fired power plants

The incentives would help cattle farmers trade in their farming materials for renewable energy products. If the subsidies that currently pay for a large chunk of their energy and water needs, this incentive could use that money. Perhaps it would be even better to phase in the "Wind Power for Pastures" incentives at the same time the subsidies are phased out... gradually at maybe 25% each year.