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

Good effort, and some is better than none, but missing the point. Where are the stats about the perchlorate and particulate matter generated? Or about increases in both the days after such an event? 

Happy New Year, everyone! Thank you for reading Envirostats. May your year be full of good health, green joy and prosperity. [Envirostats author] 

The City of Sydney New Year’s Eve fireworks display is regarded as the largest and most technologically advanced annual fireworks display on the planet.

* The display draws larger crowds than in New York, London, Paris or Berlin, with more than a million people watching from the Sydney Harbour foreshore.

* Fifteen months of design, planning and preparation for the Bridge Effect.

* Approximately 11,000 shells, 10,000 shooting comets, and a total of 100,000 individual pyrotechnic effects will be incorporated into the display.

* 112 firing points on the Sydney Harbour Bridge itself

* More than 60,000 metres of wires and cables are required to interface with the computers to launch the display

* Fourteen 20 foot shipping containers full of pyrotechnic equating to 112,000kg of equipment.

* A pyrotechnic crew of 40.

* The fireworks on the Bridge and barges are fully digitally launched, requiring 12 computers that will shoot a total of 9,200 cues.

* The 9pm show will use four fireworks barges.

* There are seven barges for the midnight show, including the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

* Fireworks will be seen off eight city rooftops.

* The 2007 Bridge Effect, designed by Brian Thomson and bridge lighting display by Martin Kinnane, is approximately 36m x 36m and weighs more than 40 tonne. It is installed on the bridge in approximately 22 nights over a three month period.

* 9,000m of rope light will be used to construct the effect. It is attached to a panel and truss system which uses over 50,000 cable ties.

* Programming the effect takes a year of planning and five days on-site using over 300 individual circuits.

* More than 4km of power cable is required to power the effect which will use up to 25,000kw of green power from set up to dismantle.

* The fireworks display is designed by Sydney’s Foti International Fireworks. This is the sixth year in a row that the company has been involved in the event. The Fireworks Director for the midnight fireworks is Fortunato Foti and Tino Pangallo for the 9pm Family Fireworks.

The City is doing it’s best to ensure a greener Sydney New Year’s Eve as part of the City’s continuing commitment to a sustainable future by:

• Using GreenPower, which will save approximately 60 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year;
• Recovering and recycling 80 per cent of rubbish collected from the event;
• Using recycled water collected from the City’s rainwater tanks, recycling plants and pits for street cleaning after the event;
• Distributing personal ashtrays on the night to help reduce littering of cigarette butts;
• Nominating WWF-Australia as the official Charity of 2007 Sydney New Year’s Eve. Their vision is to save life on Earth and create a future in which humans live in harmony with nature.

New Year’s Eve is a time for everyone to think about our future and take action to fight global warming.

On the night, please consider the environment by placing your rubbish in the bins provided or taking it with you and disposing of your cigarette butts in the bin.

Please also leave the car at home and catch public transport, walk or cycle.

- City of Sydney, official PDF, Dec 23 2007

Compare to Australia’s 14% total emissions by its sheep, cows and other farm animals in Stat 0645.

The source story was about how the British agriculture industry could be realistically carbon neutral with a whopping 75% of emissions possibly reduced by stimulating both on-farm and centralized anaerobic digestion facilities from current manure management practices in dairy, cattle and fattening pig enterprises.

I’ll believe that when I see it. If it were so effective, why isn’t everyone on this? It’s an intuitive guess, of course, to doubt some scientist’s claim, but I’m posting it. Tell me when I’m wrong. [Envirostats author]

- Reuters, Dec 10 2007

Methane (CH4) has the global warming potential of 21 compared to CO2, meaning a given mass of methane does 21-23 times the global warming damage to the atmosphere as the equivalent mass of CO2, or in another comparison, it’d take 21-23 times the mass of CO2 to do the same damage as a given mass of methane.

Animal flatulence, as well as human, deliver a significant amount of methane, and thus greenhouse gases, to world GHG emissions. The story was about scientists trying to get farm animal stomachs to work the same way as kangaroo stomachs and eliminate methane from those animals’ flatulence.  [Envirostats author]

- Athol Klieve, a senior research scientist with the Queensland state government, via Yahoo!, Dec 5 2007