Is Organic Environmental?

An article on the BBC’s Radio 4 site by Tom Heap suggests that ‘good’ food alternatives such as organic or vegetarian could have a bigger environmental impact that having a diet of pork and chicken:

Peter Bradnock of the British Poultry Council says: “Organic poultry meat has about 45% more global warming potential than indoor-reared poultry meat. “If you’re rearing outside, then the bird is using a little more of its feed to keep itself warm, or simply to keep itself cool in hot climates.”.

There is a further hiccup with the vegetarian option: most of those who avoid meat source their protein from dairy foods.

And dairy animals pump out gases and gobble up supplementary feed just like the rest.
If you are avoiding meat for climate reasons, you should be shunning dairy too.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Meat in a low-carbon world