Hate wind farms? Eat chicken, not beef
On the theme of alternatives to the current conflict caused at the local level by the present high level of public subsidy to private business to develop renewables this article gives a completely different spin to the issues of tackling climate change. It tells us:
Cutting global beef consumption and eating chicken instead would do more to tackle climate change than building two million onshore wind turbines and 2,000 nuclear reactors, according to Government analysis.
Cows and sheep are so bad for the environment that switching just half the beef and lamb in an average diet to pork and poultry could enable the world to hit its global warming targets without using any nuclear plants or wind farms at all.
The figures are drawn from a new “global calculator” online tool, launched on Wednesday by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
The software, part-funded by £550,000 of taxpayer cash, is intended to show the possible scenarios in which the world can hit its goals of limiting warming to 2C above pre-industrial levels. Beyond 2C, scientists say the effects of warming will be far more severe.
The goal requires annual global greenhouse gas emissions to be slashed from about 50 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent now, to about 20 gigatonnes a year in 2050. On current behaviour, the world is on course for about 84 gigatonnes by 2050, leading to global warming of 6C this century.