(EA) The Most Inconvenient Truth of All?

http://www.truthout.org/al-gore-still-wont-talk-about-meat57513

An excerpt:

Al Gore penned a lengthy New York Times op-ed entitled, "We Can't Wish Away Climate Change," on February 28, 2010. As expected, Gore was wordy, made no effort to discuss the planet's top polluter (US Department of Defense), and, most of all, the former vice president once again opted to ignore the No. 1 cause of climate change: the meat-based diet. In fact, I ran a search on the nearly 2,000 words, but none of the following terms were found: meat, cow, livestock, methane, farm, diet or vegan.

Accepting the (unfortunate) reality that Al Gore is the planet's best-known climate change spokesperson, he has yet again squandered an ideal opportunity to educate, inform and provoke real change. Just as they served burgers and hot dogs at the Gore-inspired Live Earth concerts in 2007, the high-profile, green crowd simply refused to accept the convenient truth: According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, "the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent - 18 percent - than transport. It is also a major source of land and water degradation."

Yes, it's much more than just climate change. What about the aforementioned water degradation? As the Sierra Club explained, groundwater is "frequently contaminated by factory farm pollution, generally in the form of nitrates. Nitrate pollution, which can cause serious human health problems, seeps out of manure lagoons and into community sources of drinking water."

Let's consider deforestation. "In the Amazon the cattle sector is the largest driver of rainforest destruction, accounting for 60 to 70 percent of deforestation," wrote Nikolas Kozloff, author of "No Rain in the Amazon: How South America's Climate Change Affects the Entire Planet." "To put it in concrete terms: every eighteen seconds on average one hectare of Amazon rainforest is being lost to cattle ranchers. As if the carbon emissions resulting from cattle deforestation were not enough, consider bovine methane emissions."

As a result, the meat-based diet also plays a role in habitat destruction, animal and plant extinctions, world hunger and corporate welfare. Still, since climate change is the eco-topic most familiar to the general public, it may be the ideal place for Al Gore to start this discussion....