Green Daily

187 countries are getting together in Poland to discuss what will replace the Kyoto Protocol which is set to expire in 2012. Farm emissions, especially from giant factory farms, will be one of the big issues on the table. The UN has released figures that point to agriculture, along with transportation, as being among the most "problematic" sectors related to global warming.

Farm animals have always been, as this NYT piece calls them, "living smokestacks". But as the global consumption of meat skyrockets, the population of farm animals has shot up into the trillions. The UN now estimates that 18% of emissions come from farm animals, which is even more than the usual suspects of cars, buses and airplanes.

While there are some innovative projects to reduce farm animal emissions -- a Dutch project that makes electricity from methane captured from heating pig manure, for instance -- the consumption of meat remains huge in the western world and is soaring in the developing world. China, India and Brazil, for instance, have increased red meat consumption by 33% in the last decade. Global meat consumption is expected to double in the first half of this century.