Livestock now use 30 percent of the earths entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 percent of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock, the report notes.
As forests are cleared to create new pastures, it is a major driver of deforestation, especially in Latin America where, for example, some 70 percent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing.
At the same time herds cause wide-scale land degradation, with about 20 percent of pastures considered as degraded through overgrazing, compaction and erosion.
The livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the earths increasingly scarce water resources, contributing among
other things to water pollution, and the
degeneration of coral reefs.
The major polluting agents are animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and the pesticides used to spray feed crops. Widespread overgrazing disturbs water cycles, reducing replenishment of above and below ground
water resources.
Significant amounts of water are withdrawn for the production of feed. Livestock’s presence in vast tracts of land and its demand for feed crops also contribute to biodiversity loss. 15 out of 24 important ecosystem services are assessed as in decline, with livestock identified as the main culprit.
Nuclear Power: Following are some solid reasons why using nuclear power to fight global warming would be a costly and dangerous mistake.
The world has approximately 440 operating power reactors, with about 364,000 MWe of total capacity, which produce about 16% of the world's electricity.
Coal, gas and oil account for four times that amount — about 64%. So to replace fossil fuel generated electricity with nuclear power would require a fivefold increase in the number of reactors, from 440 to about 2200.
The cost of the additional 1760 reactors would be several trillion dollars.
The 2200 reactors would produce enough
plutonium each year to build roughly 60,000
nuclear weapons.
The annual production of high-level radioactive waste in the form of spent fuel would increase to about 50,000 tonnes — to be safely and securely stored in those repositories that don't currently exist.
Electricity generation is responsible for only
a modest percentage of global greenhouse
gas emissions, as low as 9% by some
accounts.
In broad terms the replacement of all fossil fuel fired electricity plants with nuclear power would be unlikely to reduce global greenhouse emissions by more than 5-10% not even close to the 60% reduction required to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases.
More dangers: The more reactors, the more accidents. The more accidents, the more likely significant off-site releases of radioactivity. The perennial problems of plant malfunction and human error and terrorism looms large as a threat to nuclear plants and everyone working and living in their vicinity.
Nuclear power proponents deny the likelihood that the 1986 Chernobyl disaster has killed thousands and will kill thousands more.
As forests are cleared to create new pastures, it is a major driver of deforestation, especially in Latin America where, for example, some 70 percent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing.
At the same time herds cause wide-scale land degradation, with about 20 percent of pastures considered as degraded through overgrazing, compaction and erosion.
The livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the earths increasingly scarce water resources, contributing among
other things to water pollution, and the
degeneration of coral reefs.
water resources.
Significant amounts of water are withdrawn for the production of feed. Livestock’s presence in vast tracts of land and its demand for feed crops also contribute to biodiversity loss. 15 out of 24 important ecosystem services are assessed as in decline, with livestock identified as the main culprit.
Nuclear Power: Following are some solid reasons why using nuclear power to fight global warming would be a costly and dangerous mistake.
The world has approximately 440 operating power reactors, with about 364,000 MWe of total capacity, which produce about 16% of the world's electricity.
Coal, gas and oil account for four times that amount — about 64%. So to replace fossil fuel generated electricity with nuclear power would require a fivefold increase in the number of reactors, from 440 to about 2200.
The cost of the additional 1760 reactors would be several trillion dollars.
The 2200 reactors would produce enough
plutonium each year to build roughly 60,000
nuclear weapons.
The annual production of high-level radioactive waste in the form of spent fuel would increase to about 50,000 tonnes — to be safely and securely stored in those repositories that don't currently exist.
Electricity generation is responsible for only
a modest percentage of global greenhouse
gas emissions, as low as 9% by some
accounts.
In broad terms the replacement of all fossil fuel fired electricity plants with nuclear power would be unlikely to reduce global greenhouse emissions by more than 5-10% not even close to the 60% reduction required to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases.
More dangers: The more reactors, the more accidents. The more accidents, the more likely significant off-site releases of radioactivity. The perennial problems of plant malfunction and human error and terrorism looms large as a threat to nuclear plants and everyone working and living in their vicinity.
Nuclear power proponents deny the likelihood that the 1986 Chernobyl disaster has killed thousands and will kill thousands more.
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