Apocalypse Cow!

Great headline from Vladimir of Red State, who writes:

On Sunday, we learned that one of the best things we can do for Mother Gaia is to keep the sizes of our families at a minimum. In the final analysis, a human being is nothing more than a CO2 generator on legs.

Today’s lesson in Saving the Planet comes from Britain, where the Lord High Poo-Bah of Climate Change, Lord Stern of Brentford, has declared:

“Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”

Save the Planet. Eat your arugula.

Direct emissions of methane from cows and pigs is a significant source of greenhouse gases. Methane is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a global warming gas.

Hold on. If we eat less beef, pork and poultry, we’ll be eating a lot more beans, broccoli and cabbage, and producing a heck of a lot more methane ourselves. Since each fart is worth 23 times its weight in carbon dioxide, won’t we be accelerating Global Warming?

But there’s a grave schism emanating in the dustier catacombs of the eco-Vatican — the above proclamation comes hard on the hooves of this recent tip:

The eco-pawprint of a pet dog is twice that of a 4.6-litre Land Cruiser driven 10,000 kilometres a year, researchers have found.

Victoria University professors Brenda and Robert Vale, architects who specialise in sustainable living, say pet owners should swap cats and dogs for creatures they can eat, such as chickens or rabbits, in their provocative new book Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living.

It’s “Time to Eat the Dog”, but it’s “a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources.”

Fair enough. I’m splitting the difference and stopping by Smith & Wollensky for dinner tonight.