yes but as I pointed out, cows are worse than SUVs. I hate the fact that people just pick on the motorist and blame everything on them, when in fact, heating your home is worse for the enviroment than driving 13000 miles a year.

But as also pointed out, vegetarians' farts are worse than non-veg.'s farts for the environment. I suppose cows are even  worse, but probably not as much as studies conclude when they ignore this factor.

Well, at least the cows were "designed" to only eat vegetables, so is it possible that an equivalent amount of vegetarians emits even more methane and CO2 than a cow. I suppose this is not the case, but it would be interesting to see a quantitative study on that.

I don't really care about this issue, but from a logical standpoint I have to intervene. I  think it's more about excess than actual percentile harm done. A person that is driving a H2 two blocks in a crowded city and then let's it idle for an hour would be considered worse than the person living in a one bedroom apartment with his thermostat set on 71 regardless of which is doing more harm over all. It's the being callous and needlessly excessive polluter that is focused on, rather than the person going about their daily business in a moderate and concientious way.

As I said, I don't care about the whole global warming issue.  I don't think it doesn't exist, I just don't care.  So I simply picked SUV's because those are something that make polution.  If it makes you happy then just pretend I posted this:

Except veggie eating cows eat 10 times the Veggies that a vegitarian does.

A cow emits much more methane then a person does.

The average cow releases 280 liters of methane.

The average person... 1/2 a liter.

But a kg of cow meat feeds many more people than a kg of veggies does. The energy (i.e. calories) has to come from somewhere.

The average person emits 1/2 a liter of methane per day... vs 280.

10KGs of veggies feeds more people then 1KG of cow meat.

The calories the cows intake mostly go to the bones and teeth and other stuff that isn't harvestable.

Ok, we can kill 5 billion people and all the cows.

Yeah but its easier to grow Veggies than meat cows

Yeast doesn't have the capacity to organize augment it's production method for obtain food beyond the natural environment allows.

From irrigation, to nitrogen-based fertalizers, genetics, hormones and mechanization, the food supply is ample to feed the whole human population; the problem is cost and transportation (within borders).  Most hunger is caused by war.

If you go to http://www.wfp.org/country_brief/index_region.asp and look where the world food program work almost all of those are engaged in some type of long term conflict or are under the control of a corrupt or weak government.

Rising energy costs are a sign of more people using energy, which means more people have modern heating and lighting.  India still has almost half a billion people with out electricity but it less than 10 years ago.

Often as countries develop they leap frog the steps industrialized nations had to take, saving money and impacting the environment less.  Cell phones, computerized banking, credit cards, and renewable energy allow rapid change without the large industrial infrastructure investment with out massive temporary employment that displaced major portions of the population in the US.

Don't confuse fossil fuels with fuel.  Brasil has built its economy on biodiesel.  Small remote villages are installing solar panels, The US and Canada depend on an almost unlimited source of coal and natural gas for electricity.  The minute we have a viable portable unlimited fuel for transportation, the problem is solved.  The world enters a new age of movement.  Renewable resources are coming; profitability ensures this.

I don't understand how anybody can look at the progress in India, China, or Vietnam and think things are getting worse.

Now, don't take this to mean that I think there are no problems, there is a long way to go but progress is being made.