Geoff Russell from Animal Liberation, South Australia on Climate Change and a Meat Eating Diet.
Reviewer: CVaughan

You told the Conservation Counsel of South Australia that the methane from animals equated to 216 mega tones of greenhouse gases against 214 mega tonnes from all energy industries and 80 mega tonnes from all cars, trucks, buses and aeroplanes. This prompted the response that farmers should cut livestock numbers or pay for the privilege of polluting the world. What is wrong with farmers growing only vegetables and crops and ban livestock farming altogether?

We don't need livestock farming, but banning things is hard and only effective if people are in full support. Just think how long it has taken to reduce tobacco use to a point where a ban in the next 20 years is a real possibility.

The Australian Greens don't advocate for a vegan diet, and neither does Tim Flannery and some of the other "big names" in the anti-global warming debate. Is this because they don't want to offend the farmers?

Tim Flannery has no ethical objections to killing animals --- sustainably. He is famous for suggesting that harvesting whales is fine, if sustainable. The Greens have a diversity of members and politics is about compromise. Veganism doesn't follow from any footprint minimisation principle, it’s an ethical decision in my opinion.

With the new UN Report out on linking meat-eating with environmental destruction why do you think this has not been a leading policy amongst leading environmental groups in Australia a big way.

Many Greens eat meat. Some Greens are working on projects that need farmer assistance (e.g., wildlife corridors). Most Greens are not used to being the target of criticism. They figure it is nobler to give than to receive. They like to think that only bad people do bad things. So they prefer to pick on faceless multinationals run by people no-body ever meets. It isn't easy to accept, especially for a person sincerely devoted to improving the planet, that some of your actions might be making things worse.

Global warming and the environmental degradation due to meat consumption have connections, but not all problems lead to global warming. In fact, knocking down forests in the artic may reduce warming by exposing more snow which would reflect more sunlight.

What is carbon sequestion?

Piping co2 from power stations and burying it will enable people to burn coal for energy without the side effects. But it is an overhyped technology. It will depend for its effectiveness on lots of tricky little details --- like how far from the power station to a suitable geological formation and the risk of leaks from that formation. Another type of carbon sequestration is growing trees or making charcoal and putting it in the ground. The charcoal is made at relatively low temperatures and can both improve soil, increase plant yields by increasing nutrient availability, and bury carbon.

How much more effectively does methane trap heat than carbon dioxide?

Releasing a tonne of CO2 is like turning on a little bar heater that stays on for a couple of hundred years. Releasing a tonne of methane (CH4) is like turning on a bar heater which is 100 times stronger than the CO2 heater, but which will automatically turn itself down after about 10 years --- after which it will be the same strength as the CO2 heater. Globally, the impact of the methane heaters on the temperature over the next 20 years is almost the same as the CO2 heaters. Most comparisons of methane and CO2 concentrate on the long term average impact --- which is fine, but if the situation becomes serious quickly, then the short term impacts will become suddenly more important.

How does the greenhouse gases due to animal transportation work Geoff including refrigeration?

The energy processing animals and meat is just CO2, it is just a component of our total greenhouse emissions, but it’s a tough component to separate out and account for. I have a fridge, but it doesn't have meat in it. Fruit shops have cool rooms. Dissecting out the meat production flow is tough. As I said before, I don't do research. There are people that do this stuff --- its called life cycle analysis. The CSIRO Balancing Act uses probably the best methodology available, but it still can't trace all the chains in the an appropriate way to allocate the proper range of emissions to meat. The formally defined LCA approach is actually of limited use --- because it comes up with very abstract results that are only meaningful to number geeks.

Why would replacing meat with pasta and vegetables, legumes and rice have the biggest affect of all in reducing a person's greenhouse emissions?

This depends on the person's emission profile. If a family is a chicken family and not a red meat family but with a couple of 4WD vehicles in the garage and a 600 sq metre house, then replacing the meat with pasta may achieve less than reforming their transport and housing emissions. Obviously, once they reform their transport emissions, then losing the chicken will be an obvious gain, but a smaller gain. If the family is a red meat family, then the meat will out-pollute almost any number of 4WDs in the garage.

All these 'Save the Planet' ideas were around long before the past Prime Minister John Howard and George W. Bush recently stated advocating global warming, albeit on their terms only. Why do you think that is?

I don't believe John Howard and his ilk ever understood global warming because they surround themselves with liars who have no respect for truth or evidence and see the world solely in power political terms. Such people will say anything to increase their bottom line and these are the people they trust. I'd like to see the John Howard types of this world shut up in a room with James Hansen with as many business buddies as Howard liked. Then watch over the next 24 hours or so as Hansen demolished their arguments one-by-one in his measured accurate style. Howard's Prime Ministership has cost Australia 10 very important years in responding to global warming.

Nuclear energy. What are your views?

We don't have the people of technology for nuclear energy (all we have is uranium). Hence we will have to buy it. How will we do that? Sell more coal, sell more aluminium, sell more beef. Will the additional emissions generated to buy the technology be more or less than the emissions saved? I'd guess more.

For more info visit: http://www.animalliberation.org.au/homesa.php