Greenhouse gases, meat consumption and the Amazon

The Sunday NY Times has a good story on the global environmental burden of meat production, an issue that's been covered here on and off over the past couple years. Meat production, particularly beef, is responsible for a large proportion of the world's greenhouse gas emissions due to the energy required to grow animal feed, the clearing of land for feed crops, N2O emissions from fertilizer application and both N2O and CH4 emissions from the animals themselves. The graph at right shows the consistent rise in per capita consumption in the Americas and Asia over the past 45 years. Meat production and consumption is expected to continue to rise due to rising demand in China and other parts of Asia.

The demand for animal feed, coupled the demand for biofuels, is being felt most of all in the Amazon, the one large area of "unused" and potentially productive farmland left on the planet. The rate of Amazonian deforestation increased in the last few months, and may increase further in the rainy months to come, when most illegal cutting usually occurs.