WASHINGTON - Eating less meat will not reduce global warming, and reports that claim it will are distracting society from finding real ways to beat climate change, a leading air quality expert said on Monday.
"We certainly can reduce our greenhouse gas production, but not by consuming less meat and milk," Frank Mitloehner, an air quality expert at the University of California-Davis, said as he presented a report on meat-eating and climate change at a conference of the American Chemical Society in California.
Blaming cows and pigs for climate change is scientifically inaccurate, said Mr. Mitloehner, dismissing several reports, including one issued in 2006 by the United Nations, which he said overstate the role that livestock play in global warming.
The UN report "Livestock's Long Shadow," which said livestock cause more anthropogenic greenhouse gases than all global transportation combined, merely distract from the real issues involved in climate change and are a distraction in the quest for true solutions to global warming, Mr. Mitloehner said.
The notion that eating less meat will help to combat climate change has spawned campaigns for "meatless Mondays" and a European campaign launched late last year, called "Less Meat Less Heat."