The UN's meatless drive

[Guest guest]

EDITORIAL

The U.N.'s meatless drive

Our appetite for steaks and burgers is a huge contributor to global warming.

September 9, 2008

So it turns out that meatless Fridays, which for generations inflicted fish

sticks and tuna

casseroles on millions of school-age children, Catholic and otherwise, were

actually

saving the planet. The United Nations is now urging wealthy nations to make a

dramatic

shift in eating habits, saying the best way to curb climate change is for people

to go at

least one day a week without meat.

And Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change -

- which shared the Nobel Peace Prize last year -- isn't just asking diners to

bypass a

burger now and then. After achieving a weekly day without meat, he said, they

should

embark on a progressive reduction of their meat intake.

The problem isn't so much with hamburger patties as it is with cow patties. Meat

production accounts for nearly a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions,

according to

the United Nations. Cows and other ruminants, such as sheep and goats, release

methane

and nitrous oxide in amounts that put to shame the carbon dioxide belched out by

cars. In

fact, a red-meat-eater in a Prius is probably hurting the environment more than

a vegan

in a Hummer.

The U.N. also is calling for governments to launch campaigns to reduce meat

eating. If

they do, such efforts will probably start in Europe, then sweep through every

city, town,

village and hamlet in Asia, Africa, Australia and Antarctica before the U.S.

Department of

Agriculture stops propagandizing on behalf of meat without any regard for human

or

environmental health.

Which brings us back to individual abstinence. We're not calling for a vegan

revolution, but

this page has noted that a sincere personal effort to fight global warming must

include a

reduction in eating red meat. Were fish sticks on Fridays really that bad?