Sure, I like yummy, juicy hamburgers. I still do. The taste developed for the food since my elementary grades.

However, I seldom eat the junk nowadays. Somehow, I lost the craving. I'm trying to consume more health foods like veggies, fruits and fish.

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I'm reducing my consumption of burgers-and generally of beef, for that matter-on ecological grounds. That means burgers, corned beef, beef jerky or tapa, and even those tender, juicy steaks are literally off my plate or in greatly reduced amounts.

A good diet is good not only for personal health, but for the world's ecological health. Meat production creates an impact on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Livestock produce methane as they digest food.

A 2006 Stern Review for the British government put to task the "enormous pressure" that meat production puts on the world's resources. It said that a head of western cattle raised for consumption produces 160 kilos of methane, a non-western breed, 60. Compare their emissions with a hog that exudes 1.5 kilos, and humans, .12 emissions.

Manure produces the GHG nitrous oxide, largely from cattle reared for meat and the methane, another greenhouse gas, in their flatulence. Molecule for molecule, methane has a much larger warming effect than carbon dioxide.

If people think the figures I cited are chicken feed, think about this.

A UN 2006 Food and Agriculture Organization report concluded that worldwide livestock farming generates 18 percent of the planet's GHG emissions. The FAO compared that figure with the GHG emissions of the world's cars, trains, planes and boats that accounted only for 13 percent.

Also think of beef products as the end product of a value chain that is bad for the environment.

The GHG emissions linked with meat eating consist of different components, foremost of which is land use change. Forests are cleared for pasture or for the production of, now largely genetically modified, soya for animal feed.

On the other hand, the environmental pressure group Friends of the Earth said that methane from livestock accounts for 6 percent of GHG emissions, with another 6 percent from CO2 released when forests are cleared for pasture and to produce soya for feeds.

In Asia, the rapid development of the fastfood industry created huge demands from the livestock industry that has to increase livestock feed imports. Feed costs are not only a burden on the national budget of nearly every Asian country, but also strains the budgets of livestock farms, which often constitute 60 percent or more of total production costs.

The larger western cows actually produce more methane per cow than their smaller non-western breeds. But because there are fewer of them, they only account for about 15 percent of all the methane produced by cows in general.

Meat handling also creates an impact on emissions that come from the rearing and slaughter of livestock, and the transport, refrigeration and cooking of meat.

Global meat production is projected to more than double from 229 million tons baseline at the turn of the 21st century to 465 million tons in 2050, while milk output is set to climb from 580 to 1 billion tons.

So, should we stop eating meat altogether? Going vegetarian is the ideal. I must confess, though, that I'm not aspiring to reach the ideal. But reduced intake of meat products, especially of beef, could be our contribution to reduced GHG emissions. Those are sacrifices we can make to help save the world and humanity from global warming.

Please email comments to bqsanc@yahoo.com