India’s environment minister Jairam Ramesh has urged the West to stop eating beef. According to the Telegraph he said “The solution to cut emissions is to stop eating beef. It leads to emission of methane which is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide.”

Most people in India are Hindu and believe that cows are sacred. Ramesh said “What India has going for it is the fact that we are not a major beef eating nation.”

This message from India is a reminder that climate change is not just an environmental issue but one of social justice too. The way we live our lives in developed countries directly impacts the lives of others. Eating meat causes climate change; climate change causes extreme weather, rises in sea levels, droughts and food shortages - and those that suffer the most are those least responsible for climate change.

Read the Telegraph article here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/6615422/India-tells-West-to-stop-eating-beef.html

Everyone’s talking about cows this week. In the US, plans commenced to produce an environmentally friendly cow, which will produce less methane. If they are successful in creating this ‘cow of the future’, I’d be interested to hear what they’re going to do about the other impacts of the dairy industry, such as deforestation to grow soy feeds, water pollution and of course, the male dairy calves – the often forgotten rejects of the trade who end up in veal crates or killed at birth as their flesh in not good enough for human consumption.

Here in the UK, Blade Farming think they may have the solution to the male dairy calf problem. They have launched a breeding scheme with eight of their top Holstein bulls who produce cows suitable for the dairy industry but also bull calves which are suitable to be used for beef. Farmers can buy semen from specially chosen bulls and the offspring will be tagged with an orange tag to identify them. Blade have said they would ‘love to buy the calves’ to raise for beef and their main customers, Tesco and McDonalds, are supporting the scheme. Compassion in World Farming apparently are pleased since the scheme may reduce the number of calves shot at birth.

The whole problem is that we have selectively bred cows for years to create those which produce high quantities of milk and those which produce what we deem to be high quality beef. All our messing with nature has created suffering and waste. Blade Farming’s scheme will only make the unsustainable and environmentally damaging dairy and meat industries more profitable, driving prices down and fuelling higher consumption.

It seems we are always looking for ways we can maintain the status quo and we keep coming up with all these crazy ideas when the answer is staring us in the face; it’s all about consumption. We cannot maintain the status quo, we need to consume less if we are to create sustainable societies. According to a report released by Canadean Ltd, global milk consumption is down 0.5% from last year, so it looks like we’re heading in the right direction at last!