Surely these are the "inconvenient truths", livestock industries and population blow-out!

Al Gore has been involved in the business of raising Black Angus cattle for most of his life.

Not once during the 96 minute presentation, An Inconvenient Truth, did Al Gore mention livestock and our diets as a cause of global warming, or suggest any form of solution or alternatives. This omission would be similar to not mentioning cigarette smoking in a discussion of lung cancer!

According to a report, Livestock’s Long Shadow –Environmental Issues and Options, released in November of 2006 from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, livestock emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to every one of the most serious environmental problems. Additionally, animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalents.

It's not just the well-known and frequently joked-about flatulence and manure of grass-chewing cattle that's the problem, according to a recent report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
Livestock:

With a burgeoning world population, and rising middle classes in Asia, the demand for meat and dairy will continue to grow.

The loss of species is estimated to be running 50 to 500 times higher than background rates found in the fossil record, largely due to the land required by livestock.

Land-use changes, especially deforestation to expand pastures and to create arable land for feed crops, is a big part of the industry's damage. So is the use of energy to produce fertilizers, to run the slaughterhouses and meat-processing plants, and to pump water.

"Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems," Henning Steinfeld, senior author of the report, said when the FAO findings were released in November.

With a burgeoning world population, and rising middle classes in Asia, the demand for meat and dairy will continue to grow.

The twin "elephants in the room", livestock production and population growth, are avoided by Al Gore and by many environmental and climate change groups.

Surely these "inconvenient truths" need to be debated at Copenhagen if there are to be any realistic gains made?

Al Gore's web site