There’s a lot of health benefits to being vegan, but also a lot of challenges just to stay healthy because it is hard to get all the nutrients you need to stay healthy in the quantities you need, like iron.

Looking at this statistic, you should be concerned about your health in your ability to go vegan if you are considering it, and not the nobility of global warming. You can offset the 1.5 tonnes CO2 for about $45, which is a LOT less than the cost you’re going to incur in eating meat compared to going vegan, or your doctor and health bills if you don’t go vegan sufficiently to sustain your health.

I’m not against one or the other. I’m a meat-eater, to be upfront. However, I’m not going vegan because I know I can’t without devoting far more of my life to my diet than I care to do to get the proper requirements to not only stay healthy but also to marathon training. I know others who do it and I know I can’t do what they do so props to them. I’m just trying to put things into perspective, which is part of my purpose in having this blog.

However, here is some great advice from the source article below on how to be a “caring carnivore”, a term that must just make the vegans and vegetarians cringe! [Envirostats author] 

How to be a caring carnivore

* Elect to eat one or two organic, locally produced cuts of meat a week rather than eating cheap processed meat every day

* Roast a chicken and live off it for a week, making stock from the bones and eating the leftovers – avoiding wastage

* Investigate meat alternatives such as tofu (pictured left), tempeh, textured vegetable protein and Quorn

* Buy organic milk, or try soya (pictured right), almond, oat, hazelnut or quinoa milk instead

* Chicken and pork are more carbon-efficient and produces less methane than beef

* Be aware of other good sources of protein. These include pulses, beans, nuts, seeds and, of course, soya beans

* Many kinds of bread and even some vegetarian products contain unnecessary milk products like whey, buttermilk or lactose, or eggs. Check the packaging and avoid buying non-organic dairy by avoiding these products 

- Researchers from the University of Chicago for statistics on vegan versus meat-eater emissions via The Independent, Dec 23 2007

- Unattributed source for number of British vegans, via same newspaper source and link above

Apparently, before chopping the cane with large machetes called facão, the workers burn huge swaths of cane fields (seems to the remnants of the cane crops on the ground) to remove dry leaves and drive off snakes and other creatures. The cleared fields are easier to cut by hand, but the massive burns create choking clouds of smoke and ash. Other insightful excerpts are below, from the source story.

Nitrogen compounds naturally vary in global warming potential, but tends to be hundreds of times that of CO2, meaning a given mass of various nitrogen gases can do several hundred times the global warming damage as the same mass of CO2.

Happy New Year, everyone! Thank you for reading Envirostats! [Envirostats author]

During the harvest period from April to November, a layer of ash covers cars, and NO_x levels double in the main sugarcane-growing state of São Paulo, says study leader Arnaldo Cardoso of São Paulo State University.

The equivalent of 35% of the nitrogen applied to cane as fertilizer goes up in smoke, Cardoso says. Some of this comes back down and recycles nitrogen into soil to fertilize plants, but much of it does not. “This may generate impacts such as acid rain, ozone, and changes in the quality of water in rivers and lakes,” Cardoso adds.

Cardoso notes, based on his group’s previous work, that “because this season is also dry, this usually increases the particles in the air.” The combination of particles and gaseous emissions can lead to harvest-time ozone levels in the agricultural regions that are “similar to [those in] a big city like São Paulo,” he adds. A recent study by a different research group tied sugarcane burning to higher hospital admissions for asthma.

This kind of research is useful, says Mark Delucchi of the University of California Davis, “because it is important to characterize all of the environmental impacts of the bioethanol life cycle in Brazil.” The country faces growing concerns about ethanol production, and the workers who harvest cane are believed to be the most vulnerable.

- Arnaldo Cardoso of São Paulo State University via Environmental Science & Technology, Dec 5 2007

- Abstract for original research article in Environmental Science & Technology, Oct 23 2007

Tons are suspected to be metric tonnes due to the kilograms used in other parts of the article despite the tons spelling.

World population of 6.6 billion was used to get some per capita statistics not mentioned in source article.

I don’t know what is a sufficient amount of grain per person, but the more important issue is properly distributing this resource. Despite less food being available per person than in 1986, far less if you factor in the biofuels demands because the world didn’t have that resource withdrawal to any significant extent in 1986, there is no big famine in the much more evident media these days than was in the 1980s when there seemed to have been a famine in Africa for most of the second half of the decade.

Despite growing harvests, several factors are actually decreasing the amount of grain available per person as food, which peaked at 376 kilograms in 1986:

• Industrial livestock production requires large amounts of grain, particularly corn. Grain, in conjunction with soybeans, provides the primary source of livestock feed: in total, roughly one third (35 percent) of the world’s grain becomes feed.
• Ethanol and other fuels now consume 17 percent of the world’s grain harvest. Worldwide, the amount of course grains (a group that includes corn, barley, sorghum, and other grains fed mainly to animals) converted to energy jumped 15 percent in 2007 to 255 million tons, although this is small compared with the 627 million tons devoted to livestock feed. The 255 million tons is course grains only, not all grains.
• In recent decades, annual growth in grain production has at best matched each year’s population growth.

The low stocks and strong demand combined to push prices of all cereals to new highs in 2007. At harvest time, the U.S. corn export price was up about 70 percent from the previous year, while the U.S. hard wheat price averaged 65 percent more than a year earlier.

Other key trends in the Vital Signs Grain Update include:

• At 784 million tons, the record 2007 corn harvest was buoyed by growing use of the grain to produce biofuels, which prompted farmers in the United States, Brazil, and Argentina to plant more land for corn. The U.S. alone is responsible for over 40 percent of the global corn harvest and half of world exports.
• The global rice harvest was up slightly to 633 million tons, while wheat also increased modestly (by 2 percent) to 605 million tons.
• Corn, wheat, and rice account for about 85 percent of the global grain harvest by weight, with sorghum, millet, barley, oats, and other less common grains rounding out the total.

Comments in italics by Envirostats author.

- Worldwatch Institute, Dec 12 2007

“Most people don’t realize that the meat and food items they eat, the soaps and shampoos they use, even some of the biodiesel and ethanol biofuels powering their cars come from cleared tropical forests,” said Michael Totten, CI’s Chief Adviser for Climate, Water and Ecosystem Services. “This calculator shows them how big of an impact they are making, and how to offset the damage by protecting tropical forests that contain some of the world’s richest biological diversity and life-sustaining benefits critical to the wellbeing of local populations.”

Most web-based carbon calculators focus on reducing a person’s carbon footprint through energy solutions, mainly by the purchase of renewable “green” power such as capturing land-fill methane gas, or wind power or energy efficiency options. While CI advocates those options as well, CI’s calculator is a quick and easy way to calculate carbon footprints, learn about ways to reduce emissions, and contribute to one of the least addressed and most important ways to combat climate change — protecting existing tropical forests.

Reducing emissions from deforestation is one of the most effective ways of keeping greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. The United States and China are the world’s two largest emitters due to industry emissions; Brazil and Indonesia are ranked third and fourth due to tropical deforestation.

Users of the CI online tool can offset emissions by donating to the long-term management of threatened forests requiring immediate protection, while at the same time returning the greatest results. CI is establishing forest-carbon projects in Brazil, Colombia, China, Ecuador, Guatemala, Indonesia, Liberia, Madagascar, Mexico, Peru and the Philippines.

CI and partners designed these projects to provide multiple benefits. In addition to storing carbon dioxide, they conserve critical habitat for plant and animal species, and protect important ecosystems that provide sustainable income for local communities and benefits for all people. All of the conservation carbon projects are designed to comply with standards set by the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance, a partnership between leading companies, nonprofit organizations and research institutes. The Alliance was developed to enable independent verification that concrete benefits are realized for climate protection, biodiversity conservation, and local community benefits.

The CI carbon calculator and offset projects respond to public surveys showing that the majority of Americans are concerned about climate change. The calculator was designed to be transferred easily to other sites that wish to offer the tool.

The carbon calculator is available at http://www.conservation.org/carboncalculator.

- Science Daily, Dec 16 2007

This is an interesting statistic, but I would caution haste to associate causality, that is what is causing all this and how they are exactly linked, although some general link is not a doubt in my mind. [Envirostats author]

Regulations are hastening the decline of vegetable varieties.

Remaining traditional species from Britain and abroad are facing extinction due to European Union regulations that ban the sale of seeds unless the variety is registered on a national or EU list.

Garden Organic said the loss of species threatened the diversity and of our food. Relying on a few species also threatened the security of supplies

Garden Organic runs a heritage seed library that aims to conserve and make available varieties that are disappearing. It said it had saved 800 types of vegetable that were on the verge of extinction.

They include oddities such as the Afghan purple carrot, Colonel Murphy beans and another bean called Ryder’s top o’the pole, which are grown by volunteer “seed guardians” to produce the quantities of seeds needed for the library and to keep the varieties adapting to new conditions.

Extinct vegetables

Crimson flowered broad bean, Champion of England pea, Bath cos lettuce, Rowsham park hero onion

Most endangered vegetables

Runner bean McCoy Hill, Dwarf French bean Colonel Murphy’s Kale Daubenton

Rare vegetables on protection list

Afghan purple carrot, Red elephant carrot, Shetland cabbage, Walla Walla sweet onion, Giant tree tomato, Macedonian sweet pepper, Crimson giant radish, Salford black runner bean, Boothby’s blond cucumber, Colossal leek, Loos tennis ball lettuce

- Garden Organic via the Telegraph, Dec 8 2007