Stop eating meat (and rice) to save the planet?

AlJ article on how to personally save the planet

Walk don't drive, of course, And stop eating so much meat and dairy are in there.

the usual meme is to become vegetarian to stop greenhouse gases from cow flatulance, but the dirty little secret is that rice growing produces just as much methane as cattle.

Saunois said that while the reasons behind the methane surge are not well understood, the most likely sources are cattle ranching and rice farming. Cows expel large quantities of methane and the flooded soils of rice paddies are homes for microbes that produce the gas.

the paddies are flooded with slowly running water to drown weeds (which is why you see all those photos of peasants plating rice seedlings).



this film is a bit long, but shows how one farmer does it:

.
.............

here is a film from IRR that instructs the alternate method: intermittant flooding, which not only saves the use of water but lowers the greenhouse gas produced.



so that manages to cut methane emissions. Hooray!

uh oh: UKIndependent notes this cuts methane, but increases another Greenhouse gas: Nitrous oxide.

“The full climate impact of rice farming has been significantly underestimated because up to this point, nitrous dioxide emissions from intermittently flooded farms have not been included,” said Dr Kritee Kritee from the Environmental Defense Fund, who led the research. Analysis by the team showed that process of alternately wetting and drying rice fields – while reducing methane levels – is producing up to 45 times more nitrous oxide than constantly flooded fields.

Sigh. Back to the drawing board.

note: Our family grows and cells organic brown rice.

which is why I haven't even gotten into the argument about the pros and cons of  using traditional flooding vs pesiticide/herbicide and the use of GM plants in growing rice.