Comment Log Display

Dear CARB Board members:

 
Below, I am submitting additional info regarding the most
egregious omission in the Plan to implement the Global Warming
Solutions Act, which involves livestock.
Thanks for your work on the plan.  Time is of the essence, and the
plan needs to be stronger.  Please consider these suggestions. 

-         Educate and provide incentives for people to stop eating
meat, especially red meat, and most especially beef. Raising
livestock is a huge contributor to greenhouse gases, not only
because of the methane but also because rain forests are felled to
provide grazing land.  Becoming vegetarian, or eating less red
meat, is as effective as not driving, or driving less. (* Please
read statistics below.)

-         Eliminate offsets in the Plan. They are too easily
subject to loopholes or corruption.  Also, providing offsets
encourages continuing emissions in low-income neighborhoods and in
defenseless habitats, and weakens the demand for clean energy
technology innovation. Eliminating offsets will create more
clean-energy jobs, stimulating our state’s economy.
 
-        Auction off all emission allowances. Program revenues
should go toward GHG reduction programs, such as clean
technologies, green jobs, and aid for low-income consumers and
small businesses to reduce their utility bills. 

-        Increase targets for local governments to reduce
emissions.

-        Require businesses to recycle their materials and require
manufacturers to use minimal packaging and-whenever possible-to use
recyclable packaging that is made from recycled materials. 

The consequences of doing "too little too late" are dire for our
economy and for our physical well-being. California must lead with
stronger action to address the worst crisis our species has ever
faced. 
 
Thanks again for your work on behalf California and the planet.



Sincerely,

Phoebe Anne Sorgen


* According to a report published by the United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organization, the livestock sector generates more
greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent – than
transport. It is also a major source of land and water degradation.
When emissions from land use and land use change are included, the
livestock sector accounts for 9% of CO2 deriving from human-related
activities, but produces a much larger share of even more harmful
greenhouse gases. It generates 65% of human-related nitrous oxide,
which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2.  And
it accounts for respectively 37% of all human-induced methane (23
times as warming as CO2), and 64% of ammonia.  Livestock now uses
30% of the earth’s entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture
but also including 33% of the global arable land used to producing
feed for livestock, per the UN report. As forests are cleared to
create new pastures, it is a major driver of deforestation,
especially in Latin America where some 70% of former forests in the
Amazon have been turned over to grazing.  Livestock production also
impacts heavily the world's water supply, accounting for more than
8% of global human water use, mainly for the irrigation of feed
crops. Evidence suggests it is the largest sectoral source of water
pollutants, principally animal wastes, antibiotics, hormones,
chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and pesticides used for feed
crops, and sediments from eroded pastures. In the US, livestock and
feed crop agriculture are responsible for approximately 37% of
pesticide use, 50% of antibiotic use, and a third of the nitrogen
and phosphorus loads in freshwater resources. 

Many are concerned that raising biofuel crops will increase world
hunger. The USDA and the United Nations state that using an acre of
land to raise cattle yields 20 pounds of usable protein when that
acre could yield 356 pounds of soybean protein. Population
biologists Paul and Anne Ehrlich note that a pound of wheat can be
grown with 60 gallons of water, whereas a pound of meat requires
2,500 to 6,000 gallons.   A ten-acre farm can support 60 people
growing soybeans, 24 people growing wheat, 10 people growing corn
and only 2 people producing cattle. Reducing meat production by 10%
in the U.S. would free enough grain to feed 60 million people,
estimates Harvard nutritionist Jean Mayer.  For the air, the
planet, and for our fellow humans, please encourage Californians to
become vegetarian or at least to eat less meat.