20 May 2008
Superefficient Frankencrops Could Put a Real Dent in Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Mark my words: we're watching here another ethanol fiasco in the making. Properly fed and raised livestock produce less greenhouse gases than intensive grain agriculture, and mucking about in the nitrogen chain is a sure fire way to initiate a bio-disaster of historic proportions.

If we keeping shooting from the hip and refusing to think about the long term, we're going to solve the greenhouse gas problem by writing ourselves and ou progeny right out of the equation.

Keeping 6 billion people fed boosts global warming more than all the world's cars, trucks, trains, ships, and planes put together. Agriculture accounts for almost 14 percent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, according to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. One response is to eat fewer of the two- and four-legged greenhouse gas factories known as animals. Before you send back that T-bone, though, call in the bioengineers.

(link) [Wired: Top Stories]

06:35 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link