New Carbon Calculus: What's Our Meatprint?
by Sangamithra Iyer
B.Y.O.M—bring your own meat—is the strategy the U.S. Olympic committee plans to implement this summer in Beijing. Wary of steroid-laden proteins from China, U.S. Olympians are relying on Tyson Foods to send them 25,000 pounds of American meat—beef, chicken and pork—for the summer games.

Meat produced in the U.S. won’t fully alleviate their concerns. Remember the recent massive beef recall? And let’s not ignore the carbon footprint of this Olympic strategy, which is not limited to the gas-guzzling transport of goods across the globe. The other downer—the inconvenient truth the other Nobel Laureate spoke—is that “meat is a very carbon intensive commodity.” Even before you fly it across an ocean.

Meat generates greenhouse gases in every aspect of its production. Clearing land, growing grain, transporting feed and processing meat all produce carbon dioxide. And as animals are fattened for slaughter, their digestive processes and waste produce methane and nitrous oxide emissions, which are far more potent global warming pollutants than CO2.
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