"Carbon issues in our food: Paddock to plate"
‘Should meat be on the menu?’ explores the widely held view that sheep, cattle and other grazing animals are responsible for an enormous net production of new global warming gases.
It asserts that, on the contrary, livestock are part of a closed atmospheric carbon cycle where the carbon they emit is equal to the carbon they take in. More than that, the book relates how livestock can play a part in reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
Living things which incorporate carbon, and exchange carbon as part of their living processes, are related to a natural carbon cycle which occurs in the atmosphere, not the ground. Non living carbon consumers – such as power stations – source their carbon from the ground and emit it to the air.
The book addresses the methane issue and reports the recent work by Professor Mark Adam at Sydney University. He has discovered that certain microbes operating in certain highland soils consume more methane than is ‘emitted’ by a herd of cattle grazing the same ground.
Moving on from these purely defensive points about the neutrality of livestock within the atmospheric carbon cycle, the book introduces the idea that plants and animals, acting together, can be the facilitators of a huge drawdown of excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The book then goes on to develop the whole carbon grazing story. It shows how, far from being villains in the global warming debate, farmers and their animals can be the heroes of the environmental movement.
The book points out that the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists has identified carbon grazing as one of the ways to increase terrestrial carbon stocks.
This book is not about global warming per se. It does not discuss whether or not global warming is taking place, or whether the production of new global warming gases is, or is not, the cause of global warming. The focus of this book is purely about whether or not farm livestock – primarily sheep and cattle in Australia – add to or subtract from the level of global warming gases in the atmosphere.
In short the book contains information that every foodie, farmer and environmentalist needs to know about livestock and global warming gases.
87,000 words - Give or take Author David Mason-Jones
This product was added to our catalog on Sunday 25 September, 2011.
