More from James Hansen

More from James Hansen's website. His latest papers are on "Rampant Negativity - No reason to be so glum" and Target CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?

More update tomorrow on these...

To sum up

The thing that is disappointing about these articles is that power only makes up 55% of Australia's greenhouse gas. The proper accounting of livestock production which takes into account the transport and storage costs that are also involved, which results in a staggering 159.03 Mt CO2-e, (1990's and 2004 figures) which accounts for 31% of all of Australia's emissions, and is more than road transport. Now here is the good bit; with no livestock in Australia, we would reduce CO2-e by 31% (ie: a lot). Furthermore, this could be done by consumers in Australia spending less instead of more. All other strategies are about increasing the cost of items to include their CO2-e cost, but it is so hard to reduce consumption of electricity, fuel etc without significant capital cost. Vegetarian diets are cheaper than meat diets already, and with CO2-e costs included the cost difference will be even greater. So, not all greenhouse reduction strategies are about costing consumers more. Vegetarian diet will cost less.

Also:
Someone stated that the average household uses 40kWH/day. I don't know about the 40kWH/day, as I have gone back over my power bills, and I only use 6.8 kWH/day on my last bill. The previous one was 8.1kWH/day, but we bought a new fridge that has turned out to be much more energy efficient, and the proof is in the bill. Yay! The power companies are very helpful in providing this information. Then again, I have a solar hot water system, which helps a lot. A 1kW system would generate about 4.5kWH/day, so it would be about 1/2 of what I need. Batteries are not needed, as the idea is to reduce my power consumption, and put back into the grid during the day. Conventional power stations will still be needed at night, but when I buy my power back it night, it will be 1/2 the price that I was paid for it during the day.

Saving the World, the Painless Way

Digging around a bit more, and reading the report forwarded by Joyce has been very instructive. The thing that makes having a no-meat diet so obvious is the economics of the problem, and the solution is simple. The reporting of reducing greenhouse gases has so far been about how much it is going to cost the average consumer. The report points out that the proper accounting of livestock production needs to also take into account the transport and storage costs that are also involved, which results in a staggering 159.03 Mt CO2-e, (1990 and 2004 figures - I need to update to 2005) which accounts for 31% of all of Australia's emissions.

Taking the current price of a CO2 as about 22 euro (http://www.co2prices.eu/) this would make the current market value of the CO2-e of livestock as about $5,985,523,200 AUD( 1.7111 AUD = 1 Euro today) or about $6 billion AUD. Since the livestock council submission to the Garnaut report says they are a $6.1 billion AUD industry, it adds up to about zero. In other words, livestock taking into account greenhouse gas emissions, has no value.

Now here is the good bit; with no livestock in Australia, we would reduce CO2-e by 31%, which gets us a long way to our Kyoto objectives. Furthermore, this could be done by consumers in Australia spending less instead of more. It will save you money. All other strategies are about increasing the cost of items to include their CO2-e cost, but it is so hard to reduce consumption of electricity, fuel etc without significant lifestyle changes. Vegetarian diets are cheaper than meat diets already, and with CO2-e costs included the cost difference will be even greater.

So, not all greenhouse reduction strategies are about costing consumers more. Vegetarian diet will cost less.

Improving people's awareness

This is a possible script. For my part, it is important that the message is simple and relates to a fact that most people accept - that reducing car use is an acceptable way to reduce greenhouse gasses. The same needs to be said for vegetarian, so it is eqivalent:

[Vision: person walking around the home, installing an energy-efficient light bulb]
Voice: We all know that reducing energy consumption can reduce greenhouse gasses.

[Vision: an SUV in the driveway, which morphs into a smaller car (prefer a Prius)]
Voice: and, of course, we all know that reducing our fuel consumption is also good for reducing greenhouse gasses.

[Vision: blank white screen]
Voice: but did you also know, that livestock in Australia produces nearly as much as greenhouse gasses as all of our road transport?

[Vision: balloon representing transport emissions (text "71.056Mt CO2-e"), and inflating balloon for livestock (text "63.7Mt CO2-e") which is 90% the size of the transport balloon. Text below states source of information is from "National Inventory Report 2005 (Revised) – Volume 1The Australian Government Submission to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change February 2008"]

[Vision: view of steak, and pan back to show an animation of 16,000 1 litre bottles of water]
Voice:Also, livestock uses a lot of water. Each steak needed 16,000 litres of water to produce. A salad takes only 300 litres.

Voice: A vegetarian diet (or reducing meat consumption or having a non-livestock based diet), you can reduce greenhouse gasses as much as can be done by completely removing transport. In summary, it:

• Reduces greenhouse gasses (better than a hybrid car);
• Cheap (saves $$$);
• Improves health;
• Reduced Water consumption; and
• Shows that you are compassionate.

[Vision: Be Green Go Veg, written with fruit and vegetables]Voice: For the sake of our world; Go Veg, Be Green

Glaciers melting and the glacial efforts combatting climate change. (or: My Beef with Climate Change Action).

There is more disturbing evidence of climate change shows glacial melt rates have increased in the last four years. In the meantime, the discussions on climate change continue and continue; hoping for a resolution by the end of 2009 to bring about the post-Kyoto agreement. Although there are some countries that are lagging behind; hello USA federal govt :-) Actually that is a bit harsh, as the US government is doing things to reduce greenhouse gases, however the executive office appears beholden to certain lobbyists and industries which feel that putting a cost on CO2 is not in their best interests.

The Australian federal government has announced that it has submitted its initial report on climate change to the UN some nine months early. The purpose of the initial report is to state what greenhouse gas emission data exists for the country, and the methodology for measuring the emissions so that progress in reducing greenhouse gases can be monitored. The details of the report can be found at the Australian Office of Climate Change. The report (Initial Report) is quite readable and instructive as to where Australia's greenhouse gases come from. Note all figures quoted are from this report, which is based on 2005 data.

We have all been informed that in order to combat climate change some sacrifices will be needed, there will be costs involved, and we should expect to do our part. One particular strategy is not ever mentioned, but is quite simple really, is to have a vegetarian diet. My reasoning is based on the figures from the above report, and the more Detailed Report which contains the breakdown of sources. For details of the units and gases measured in the following discussion, see the Detailed Report, General Notes section on page five.

Note in the Initial Report mentioned above in Part 1 Table 1 (page 3) the contribution of agriculture is 87,648.17 Gg (Giga grams. One giga gram = 1,000 tonnes) or 87.64817 Mt (mega tonnes) of CO2 -e (equivalent, includes carbon dioxide as well as other gases.) As stated, this represents 16% of Australia's total emissions. Reading the Detailed Report 71% of the agriculture emissions comes from livestock. This is some 63.7Mt of CO2-e, primarily from methane. This amount of 63.7 million tonnes is pretty close to the amount emitted for road transportation (71.056Mt)

So, in a vegetarian world, you could drive your SUVs quite happily.

Better still, drive a more fuel efficient car, and be vegetarian, and you can double your effectiveness in combating climate change.