Agriculture Reference
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ide and methane have increased by 50 per cent and 40 per cent respectively. 77 Fossil fuel
CO 2 emissions over the last 40 years have increased at a much higher rate than non-fossil
fuel CO 2 emissions. Since 1970:
Emissions from the energy supply sector have grown by over 145 per cent, while
those from the transport sector have grown by over 120 per cent; as such, these two
sectors show the largest growth in GHG emissions. The industry sector's emissions
have grown by close to 65 per cent, LULUCF by 40 per cent, while the agriculture
sector (27 per cent) and residential sector (27 per cent) have experienced the slowest
growth. 78
A child could deduce that if we were serious about preventing global warming, the most
obvious and reliable course of action would be to leave all fossil fuels in the ground. If we
did that, then not only would the CO 2 burden begin to stabilize, but the amount of methane
in the atmosphere would decline dramatically, since more than a quarter of all anthropogen-
ic methane comes from fossil fuels. The exaggerated emphasis on the alleged four or five
per cent of GHGs emitted by cattle, and the mendacious rhetoric about cows causing more
global warming than cars, look suspiciously like an attempt to shift some of the blame for
global warming from below ground to above ground, from fossil fuels to the natural bio-
sphere, from the town to the country and from the rich nations to the poor.
Calverd's Return
Remember Alan Calverd, the euphonium player mentioned at the beginning of this
chapter who warned of the dangers of animals breathing? Once I had finally obtained a
copy of his article, and satisfied myself as to its content, I felt I could safely lay it aside to
gather dust. Even the authors of Livestock's Long Shadow , however keen they might be to
fix blame for global warming on livestock, state categorically that 'respiration by livestock
is not a net source of CO 2 '.
However, in 2009, the Calverd thesis was resurrected, this time in all seriousness by
Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang. Goodland is a colleague of David Pimentel and a former
adviser to The World Bank who has written a paper putting the environmental, ethical
and religious case against meat-eating (though there was no mention of global warming in
this). 79 Anhang is a research officer at the International Finance Corporation, an arm of the
World Bank which facilitates private sector investment in developing countries' econom-
ies. In a document published by the World Watch Institute entited Livestock and Climate
Change , 80 Goodland and Anhang (whom henceforth I shall call G&A) begin by rubbishing
the FAO's affirmation that animal breathing has no net effect upon global warming. Anim-
 
 
 
 
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