Meat Production and the Environment

During the coming decades changes in the global climate are likely to influence agriculture, including meat production, and may cause a shift in crop production and grazing areas. Regional contamination of soils and feed with heavy metals and organic chemicals, as well as radioactive contamination, might limit animal husbandry to certain regions. Conversely, meat production has a great impact on the environment, its effects ranging from destruction of vegetation and desertification in dry or cold regions to pollution of soil and water by manure in areas with intensive animal husbandry. A more environmentally sound animal husbandry should be promoted, but such a policy will in the immediate future raise conflicts about what is economically feasible and environmentally safe.

14C Activity in Different Sections and Chemical Fractions of Oak Tree Rings, AD 1938–1981

The 14C activity in rings from an oak tree grown in a suburb of Uppsala, Sweden has been studied for the period, AD 1938 to 1981. We compare the results with the atmospheric carbon dioxide records from Abisko, northern Sweden, where local or regional contamination from fossil-fuel combustion can be disregarded. We assess the influence from different chemical pretreatment procedures in use and compare HCl-NaOH-HCl treatment with cellulose extraction. We split each ring into two samples corresponding to early (spring) and late wood. A more refined partitioning has been applied to the years 1963 and 1964.