Prayer of Stewardship
God of all Creation,
At the beginning of time, You placed a single mandate on humankind - To be stewards of Creation; To replenish and nurture all generations what you have made.
We kneel today amid that same Creation; A world that is, in many ways, more splendid than ever But, in too many ways, scarred beyond recognition.
Turn us from our unmindfulness Help our touch be light, Help us renew the worlds that supports us, So we may once more know Creation as it was in the beginning.
Amen
Knowledge
In this edition of our Lenten YLBG series on how our food choices affect our health and the planet's health, we will focus on animal agriculture and two greenhouse gasses – Carbon Dioxide and Methane.
Animal agriculture is a great contributor to greenhouse gas. They are produced in the farming, transporting, and processing of animals.
The CO2 comes from animal respiration and soil disturbance as well as the transport and processing of livestock. For every quarter pound of beef you do NOT eat, you keep 6 pounds of greenhouse gas out of the air as well as the amount of CO2 produced on a 55-mile drive. Just a ¼ pound!
Ruminant livestock, such as cattle, produce methane during digestion. In the US, this accounts for over a quarter of the agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, manure management accounts for about 11% of methane emissions. Methane is 20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than CO2.
Action
I hope you will really reflect on the good you are doing on these Fridays of Lent if you are able to go meat-free! Remember, skipping just a ¼ pound of beef will save 6 pounds of greenhouse gas each time.
A newer term you may have heard is CO2e, or Carbon Dioxide Equivalent. This expression takes into consideration all the greenhouse gasses in our carbon footprint. You can see a bar chart of CO2e levels for various foods at CO2 Everything.
The numbers we’ve covered here reference the numbers produced in the US. You can see global data.