Each time I walk with Mike Fremont, the 91-year-old LifeNut that some will challenge in the Indianapolis Monumental half-marathon in November, I marvel not only at his mental acuity but his perception of the world around us. With an engineering degree from Yale, Mike views most things analytically. In this week's blog, he shares some of that thinking.
Sojourns with Nature:
July 28 Sun. Ran 5
29 Mon. Raced canoe 3
30 Tue. Ran 10
31 Wed. Raced canoe 3
Aug.1 Thu. Walked 5
2 Fri. Raced canoe 3
3 Sat. Ran 10
Week Aug. 4th schedule:
Sun. Aug. 4 Canoe 16.5 miles practice for National Championships race August 9
Mon. 5 Race canoe 3 mi.
Tue. 6 Run 5 or 10
Wed. 7 Drive to Michigan Thurs. 8 survey canoe race course
Fri. 9 Canoe race Nat'l Champs.
Sat. 10 Drive home
EATING, AND GLOBAL WARMING
It's a matter of degree... Or degrees Centigrade. What we eat here, and in the developed world, is a major factor in the generation of greenhouse gases or global warming gases, viz. CO2 and methane and a few others. You're aware of glottal eructations from cows, a lot of methane.
Keep in mind that we kill about 55 billion animals a year to eat, whilst feeding 20 billion alive animals at any one time. But to feed cows, hogs, sheep, ducks, chickens and even farmed fish takes enormous quantities of corn and soy. Almost all you see across our country goes to feed animals for the table, which is why they are cutting down the great rain forests of the world: to plant more feed grains and create ranches to grow cattle. Hamburgers! Rain forests in Africa, Brazil, Indonesia. Mangroves are removed from the swamps around Ecuador to make shrimp farms.
The trouble is this: rain forests and mangroves used to capture huge quantities of carbon in their leaves, taking it out of our atmosphere. It's called carbon sequestration. So as we generate more CO2 with our cars and fossil-fueled electric power plants, it builds up in the atmosphere and is no longer absorbed in our forests or earth surfaces as it used to be. The oceans also absorb CO2 but more reluctantly today because the water's becoming carbonated and saturated with CO2 and therefore more acidic, which dissolves coral reefs and the shells of shellfish and destroys or disturbs ocean microorganisms - important in the food chain.
And we have not succeeded in burying CO2 in rock formations underground. So the percentage of
CO2 in the atmosphere has risen recently from about 280 parts per million to the safe limit set by some scientists at 350 ppm, and beyond that to 400 ppm now and rising. It's putting more blankets on the earth, which means the world is getting hotter. We're feeling the effects.
If we changed our diet, which has speeded us to this idiotic position, we could much better limit the effects of global warming and perhaps buy the time to reverse it. We do not know the exact amount of warming gases generated in livestock production. It is said to be from 18% to 51% of the total gases generated in the world. Others say agriculture in general is responsible for 18%. By comparison, 40% comes from fossil-fueled power plants and 13% from transportation.
The conservation community says it is better for the world for a person to become vegan (no meat,
no dairy) than for her to trade in her Hummer for a Prius. It's easy to prove! Growing meat is hopelessly inefficient, using 8 to 10 times the amount of energy needed to grow equivalently caloric grain. And then we subsidize the feed grains, making the meat artificially cheap, and growing a
short-lived, obese and sickly population. What a system. But you can change it! It’s not hopeless!
Sojourns with Nature:
July 28 Sun. Ran 5
29 Mon. Raced canoe 3
30 Tue. Ran 10
31 Wed. Raced canoe 3
Aug.1 Thu. Walked 5
2 Fri. Raced canoe 3
3 Sat. Ran 10
Week Aug. 4th schedule:
Sun. Aug. 4 Canoe 16.5 miles practice for National Championships race August 9
Mon. 5 Race canoe 3 mi.
Tue. 6 Run 5 or 10
Wed. 7 Drive to Michigan Thurs. 8 survey canoe race course
Fri. 9 Canoe race Nat'l Champs.
Sat. 10 Drive home
EATING, AND GLOBAL WARMING
It's a matter of degree... Or degrees Centigrade. What we eat here, and in the developed world, is a major factor in the generation of greenhouse gases or global warming gases, viz. CO2 and methane and a few others. You're aware of glottal eructations from cows, a lot of methane.
Keep in mind that we kill about 55 billion animals a year to eat, whilst feeding 20 billion alive animals at any one time. But to feed cows, hogs, sheep, ducks, chickens and even farmed fish takes enormous quantities of corn and soy. Almost all you see across our country goes to feed animals for the table, which is why they are cutting down the great rain forests of the world: to plant more feed grains and create ranches to grow cattle. Hamburgers! Rain forests in Africa, Brazil, Indonesia. Mangroves are removed from the swamps around Ecuador to make shrimp farms.
The trouble is this: rain forests and mangroves used to capture huge quantities of carbon in their leaves, taking it out of our atmosphere. It's called carbon sequestration. So as we generate more CO2 with our cars and fossil-fueled electric power plants, it builds up in the atmosphere and is no longer absorbed in our forests or earth surfaces as it used to be. The oceans also absorb CO2 but more reluctantly today because the water's becoming carbonated and saturated with CO2 and therefore more acidic, which dissolves coral reefs and the shells of shellfish and destroys or disturbs ocean microorganisms - important in the food chain.
And we have not succeeded in burying CO2 in rock formations underground. So the percentage of
CO2 in the atmosphere has risen recently from about 280 parts per million to the safe limit set by some scientists at 350 ppm, and beyond that to 400 ppm now and rising. It's putting more blankets on the earth, which means the world is getting hotter. We're feeling the effects.
If we changed our diet, which has speeded us to this idiotic position, we could much better limit the effects of global warming and perhaps buy the time to reverse it. We do not know the exact amount of warming gases generated in livestock production. It is said to be from 18% to 51% of the total gases generated in the world. Others say agriculture in general is responsible for 18%. By comparison, 40% comes from fossil-fueled power plants and 13% from transportation.
The conservation community says it is better for the world for a person to become vegan (no meat,
no dairy) than for her to trade in her Hummer for a Prius. It's easy to prove! Growing meat is hopelessly inefficient, using 8 to 10 times the amount of energy needed to grow equivalently caloric grain. And then we subsidize the feed grains, making the meat artificially cheap, and growing a
short-lived, obese and sickly population. What a system. But you can change it! It’s not hopeless!
RSS Feed