[Greenbuilding] Diet, houses and Climate Change

[Lawrence Lile]

Here are some facts that might help answer this question:

According to Earthsave Boston:
http://boston.earthsave.org/GlobalWarming.htm
"= The production of 1 calorie of meat produces about 10-100 times more
CO2 than the production of 1 calorie of vegetables (including processing
and transports).

= Nitrous oxide (N2O) contained in fertilizers wasted for animal
agriculture is 310 times more "greenhouse-effective" than CO2 (during
the next 100 years, per molecule).

= Methane (CH4) is 56 times more "greenhouse-effective" than CO2 (during
the next 20 years). In the US, livestock (including manure) accounts for
about 30% of anthropogenic methane emissions, that's the same amount as
from all fossil fuels (gas, oil, coal) combined. This source of methane
would be the easiest to reduce, and thanks to the short atmospheric
lifetime of methane, this would have "immediate" effects against global
warming (lifetime of CO2 and N2O is about 10 times longer than of
methane)."

A more detailed report from earthsave.org delves into this deeply, and
contradicts some of the statistics cited above

http://www.earthsave.org/news/earthsave_global_warming_report.pdf

The major conclusion of this report is, Methane has a lot more GWP
(global warming potential) than CO2, and is easier to reduce than CO2.
The question should not be "Which causes more CO2 emission" but "Which
causes more global warming potential - homes or diets?" GWP is more
universal than just measuring CO2.  


How many calories do we eat?
http://www.dietitian.com/calories.html

"Food delivered to grocery stores is measured in pounds of food. This
does not include alcoholic beverages though. Unfortunately, this does
include food that is stolen or spoils and is thrown away either by the
grocer or consumer. Measured this way, the average American "eats" about
3,600 calories per person per day and has not changed much from 1909
when it was 3,500 calories per person per day. These calories come from
milk (14%), meat (28%), eggs and legumes (5%), grain products (26%),
fruits and vegetables (14%) and fats, sweets and beverages (13%)."

So, how much GWP does the average home cause, through it's heat and
electricity use?   Oops, lunch break is over, gotta get back to work. 


Lawrence Lile, PE, LEED AP
Project Solutions Engineering

-----Original Message-----
From: greenbuilding-bounces at listserv.repp.org
[mailto:greenbuilding-bounces at listserv.repp.org] On Behalf Of Lawrence
Lile
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2007 12:35 PM
To: greenbuilding at listserv.repp.org
Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] Diet, houses and Climate Change


Eating less meat may slow climate change By MARIA CHENG, AP Medical
Writer 
Wed Sep 12, 7:08 PM ET
 
LONDON - Eating less meat could help slow global warming by reducing the
number of livestock and thereby decreasing the amount of methane
flatulence from the animals, scientists said on Thursday. 


http://tinyurl.com/38r2f7


I wonder if one of our energy whizzes would care to tackle this
question:  which does more to counteract global warming - eating no meat
or using 100% renewable energy for your house?  I lay my bets the diet
would be the bigger "bite" [pun intended]




Lawrence Lile, PE, LEED AP
Project Solutions Engineering


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