11/29/07 Greenhouse Gas and Organic Cattle

It always baffles me when environmentalists point their fingers at livestock in feedlot and farms as a "major" source for greenhouse gasses. What a crock! If the Al Gore groupies would simply tootle through cattle country in their hybrids then compare the air quality to their daily commute though any city, they might stop running up and down their chain. Now there is new evidence from the prestigious Hudson Institute in conjunction with the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture that proves beef produced with grain and growth hormones produces 40 percent less greenhouse gasses and uses two thirds less land than organic grass-fed beef. Wow! Despite the fact that 95 percent of all of our US beef is feedlot raised this is first study of it's kind to compare their emissions against organic beef. This should serve as a wake up call for environmentally conscious consumers who believe grass-raised beef is more ecologically friendly to take much of what they are told with grain of salt, in the case of their beef purchases, keep the grain and hold the salt.