At the end of October, I gave a presentation to a group at BVV about the environmental impacts of intensive animal farming.
I tried to take commonly available and verifiable research to create an objective overview of the current environmental crisis we find our world in. The presentation was broken down into the following sections;
- Global Climate Change
- Habitat Destruction & Deforestation
- Water Usage / Water Pollution
- The Oceans (Pollution & species destruction)
- Efficiency of Land Use
- Fossil Fuel Use
You can now download a PDF (Adobe Acrobat) copy of my notes which has been enhanced slightly after my talk thanks to valuable feedback. Please use the link below (the file is approx 400k)
Meat Eating and the Environment
From BBC News site: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6181396.stm
According to the BBC news website, United Nations negotiations on fisheries have ended without a global ban on trawling methods which destroy coral reefs and fish nurseries.
Conservation groups and some governments had argued for a ban on bottom-trawling, which drags heavy nets and crushing rollers on the sea floor. Continue Reading »
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), “19% of global electricity generation is taken for lighting— that’s more than is produced by hydro or nuclear stations, and about the same that’s produced from natural gas.”
Most people will now be familiar with CF or compact fluorescent light bulbs and the environmental benfits they bestow - they last much longer (roughly 10x) than conventional tungsten bulbs, they run cooler (so more power is used to make light rather than heat) and consume less than a quarter of the electricity for the same illumination levels.
Continue Reading »
Last night, me (Martin) and a group of other BVV supporters from near and far (yo to the Telford possy!) went to see the Al Gore film, An Inconvenient Truth.
It was at times scary, upsetting and frightening, but most of all it sets the scene with absolute clarity about what could happen if we don’t take immediate and drastic steps to reduce mankind’s dependency on fossil fuels and the associated greenhouse gas emmissions that come from using them.
Like all arguments, it does of course present the very best evidence that supports its aims and doubtless there are some of the facts and figures that can be disputed (see here), nevertheless, even with a degree of scepticism, the arguments are persuasive, compelling and urgent.
Continue Reading »
Does anyone else see the hypocrisy in this report - particularly that this arms manufacturer has someone in the position of director of corporate social responsibility?
British arms manufacturer producing green weapons
One of the world’s biggest arms manufacturers, British Aerospace, is investing heavily in eco-friendly weapons. Soldiers and civilians may now be blown up by a recyclable explosive, hit by a reduced-toxin rocket, or bombed by a fuel-efficient fighter jet. Biodegradable land mines and their victims both turn into compost over time. Quieter warheads reduce noise pollution, less smoky grenades reduce air pollution, and reduced-lead bullets, if left in the environment, “do not cause any additional harm,” says Deborah Allen, director of corporate social responsibility at British Aerospace. Meanwhile, British troops will stay safe in their armored vehicles — hybrid, naturally. “No company, regardless of what they make, can now just make a product, bung it out there, and then forget about it,” says Allen. “We all have a duty of care to ensure that from cradle to grave products are being used appropriately and do not do lasting harm.”
| November 19, 2006 |
| 6:00 pm | to | 9:00 pm |
Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth is coming to the MAC (Midlands Arts Centre, Canon Hill Park, Edgbaston).
A few veg*an friends are going to see it on the 19th of November at the 6:15pm showing. If anyone else fancies joining them, meet in the bar of the MAC - the more the merrier! Tickets are £3.50 and £2.50 concessions.
Already faced with recurring cycles of flood, drought and crop failures, Africa and its 800 million people are on collision course with devastation from unchecked global warming, experts say.
The world’s poorest and least developed continent is also most at risk from climate change, an ironic twist as it produces the least warming-causing greenhouse gases of any of Earth’s inhabited continents, they say.
As environmentalists, scientists and government negotiators from 189 nations meet here for a crucial UN climate change conference, threats to Africa have taken the spotlight with urgent calls to avert looming disaster.
Global warming is not only hampering African efforts to deal with endemic poverty and underdevelopment, they threaten to undermine them completely, throwing Africa into a morass of misery, experts say. Continue Reading »
A new technique for measuring the state of the world’s forests shows the future may not be as bad as previously feared, reports BBC News Online.
An international team of researchers say its Forest Identity study suggests the world could be approaching a “turning point” from deforestation.
The study measures timber volumes, biomass and captured carbon - not just land areas covered by trees.
Continue Reading »
As reported in the Daily Mail.
Home wind turbines have become the must-have home improvement among people eager to help save the planet and flaunt their green credentials.
Dubbed ‘the ultimate green fashion statement’, are selling in their thousands amid claims they can cut household electricity bills by 30 per cent.
But now environmental campaigners say the windmills are not quite what they claim to be - and may actually do more harm than good. Continue Reading »
(Reuters) The world’s fish and seafood populations will collapse by 2048 if current trends in habitat destruction and overfishing continue, resulting in less food for humans, researchers said on Thursday.
In an analysis of scientific data going back to the 1960s and historical records over a thousand years, the researchers found that marine biodiversity — the variety of ocean fish, shellfish, birds, plants and micro-organisms — has declined dramatically, with 29 percent of species already in collapse.
Extending this pattern into the future, the scientists calculated that by 2048 all species would be in collapse, which the researchers defined as having catches decline 90 percent from the maximum catch. Continue Reading »