[GWSG] Vegan emissions; w/charts; heat destabilizing; Greenland less stable; Hanson's response; cleaner steel

[Tilley, Al]

1. Vegan diets cut greenhouse gas emissions from food by 75%, wildlife destruction by 66%, and water use by 54%. The global food system is responsible for a third of greenhouse heating, according to the Nature Food study. Food production accounts for 70% of our water use, 80% of river and lake pollution, and 70% of our land use, influencing biodiversity and wildlife habitat. Vegan diets cut methane emissions by 93% compared to high-meat diets. Low-meat, pescatarian, and vegetarian diets all had about half the impact of vegan diets. The article ends with a timid statement from the British government, but the study clearly implies that we will have no sustainable world to live in without a change in our diets, globally. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/20/vegan-diet-cuts-environmental-damage-climate-heating-emissions-study

2. A BBC story on the study above provides comparative charts of the environmental footprint of different diets. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-66238584

3. Heat waves are endangering the security of the entire planet, from crop failures on land to the death of coral reefs to extinctions on both land and sea. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/21/rampant-heatwaves-threaten-food-security-of-entire-planet-scientists-warn

4. Most of Greenland was ice-free about 400,000 years ago when CO2 and temperatures were up moderately. The finding indicates that Greenland is less stable than we thought but provides no time table for sea level rise. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-greenland-years-high-sea-today.html

5. I linked two articles which appeared to be in conflict in the last issue, James Hansen’s “damned fools” article and Michael Mann’s, which criticized Hansen’s “Global Warming in the Pipeline” on the issue of acceleration vs. growth of heating. Hansen has responded, surely to Mann among other critics. https://mailchi.mp/caa/peer-public-review-of-global-warming-in-the-pipeline?e=6b45dc359d

6. The steel industry has made a turn toward electric arc furnaces and away from coal which could eventually lead to a 1.5C compatible pathway. However, it is not yet on that pathway. China and, to a lesser extent, India pose the greatest challenge.   https://www.carbonbrief.org/steel-industry-makes-pivotal-shift-towards-lower-carbon-production/

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.unf.edu/pipermail/gwsg/attachments/20230723/a71abeaa/attachment.htm>