Because climate change is seriously uncool.
Important News: Vegetarian diet is better for the planet, says Lord Stern
There is some very good news out of the UK (see article below). Lord Stern is now promoting a vegetarian diet in the fight against catastrophic climate change.
In case you don’t know; according to a report from the United Nations animal agriculture accounts for 18% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. Another study since then has concluded that animal agriculture accounts for 51% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. Either way there is no action an individual can take to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions as much as becoming a vegetarian can.
Animal Agriculture accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than all the trains, planes, boats, cars, trucks, and buses in the world.
To learn more about the impact of animal agriculture on our environment and what you can do about it visit the Go Veggie Group right here on A Climate for Change.
Below I’ve listed some key points form the article with a link to the complete article at the bottom of the post.
Ronnie Wright
World Change Café
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Vegetarian diet is better for the planet, says Lord Stern
Meat wastes water, creates greenhouse gases and could become as socially unacceptable as drink-driving
Eating meat could become as socially unacceptable as drink-driving because of the impact it has on global warming, according to a senior authority on climate change.
Lord Stern of Brentford, former adviser to the government on the economics of climate change, said people will have to consider turning vegetarian to help reduce global carbon emissions.
"Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world's resources. A vegetarian diet is better," Stern said.
Farmed ruminant animals, including cattle and sheep, are thought to be responsible for up to a quarter of "man-made" methane emissions worldwide.
Stern, whose 2006 Stern Review warned that countries needed to spend 1% of their GDP to stop greenhouse gases rising to dangerous levels, said a successful deal at the climate change conference in Copenhagen in December would massively increase the cost of producing meat.
People's concerns about climate change would lead to meat eating becoming unacceptable, he predicted.
"I think it's important that people think about what they are doing and that includes what they are eating," he told the Times.
[…]
To read the complete article go here.
In case you don’t know; according to a report from the United Nations animal agriculture accounts for 18% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. Another study since then has concluded that animal agriculture accounts for 51% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. Either way there is no action an individual can take to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions as much as becoming a vegetarian can.
Animal Agriculture accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than all the trains, planes, boats, cars, trucks, and buses in the world.
To learn more about the impact of animal agriculture on our environment and what you can do about it visit the Go Veggie Group right here on A Climate for Change.
Below I’ve listed some key points form the article with a link to the complete article at the bottom of the post.
Ronnie Wright
World Change Café
----------
Vegetarian diet is better for the planet, says Lord Stern
Meat wastes water, creates greenhouse gases and could become as socially unacceptable as drink-driving
Eating meat could become as socially unacceptable as drink-driving because of the impact it has on global warming, according to a senior authority on climate change.
Lord Stern of Brentford, former adviser to the government on the economics of climate change, said people will have to consider turning vegetarian to help reduce global carbon emissions.
"Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world's resources. A vegetarian diet is better," Stern said.
Farmed ruminant animals, including cattle and sheep, are thought to be responsible for up to a quarter of "man-made" methane emissions worldwide.
Stern, whose 2006 Stern Review warned that countries needed to spend 1% of their GDP to stop greenhouse gases rising to dangerous levels, said a successful deal at the climate change conference in Copenhagen in December would massively increase the cost of producing meat.
People's concerns about climate change would lead to meat eating becoming unacceptable, he predicted.
"I think it's important that people think about what they are doing and that includes what they are eating," he told the Times.
[…]
To read the complete article go here.
Views: 19
Tags: Agriculture, Animal, Carbon, Diet, Foot, Print, Vegan, Veganism, Vegetarian, Vegetarianism
Add a Comment
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Comment by Ronnie Wright on November 3, 2009 at 7:49 -
Of course kangaroos are leaner and don’t emit methane like cows do so replacing cow with kangaroo meat would be both healthier and better for the atmosphere.
Such suggestions may sound like a great idea; unfortunately, they don't stand up to scrutiny. Consider we currently kill about 20% of our kangaroo population annually and get a mere 1500 tonnes of meat for human consumption. That's about 1/2 a kg per animal. Even if we add in the additional meat sold as pet food, each kangaroo yields only 2 kg per animal. Even if we stop leaving kangaroos shot for the skin trade to rot in paddocks, we still have to realise that they are small animals. The biggest of our kangaroos, the male reds, have an average live weight of only 65 kg, with the females a mere 25 kg. Take out the bones, skin and the other inedibles, and there just isn't much left. Grey kangaroos are even smaller at about 2/3 of this weight. In comparison, cattle yield a thousand times the meat - really. We get 1,700,000 tonnes of beef each year. To get this from kangaroos we would need, at present efficiency rates, 200 times the entire kangaroo population annually.
You should also keep in mind that humans don’t need to eat meat in order to maintain a healthy diet. Eating meat in the developed countries is a luxury and not a necessity.
Kangaroos have just as much right to live on this land as we do. I feel that it is not our place to needlessly kill and eat them.
If we are to heal our planet we must learn to live as part of, and in harmony with, nature. We must learn to stop controlling and destroying nature in order to satisfy our greed; instead we should concentrate on what we need and how to work with nature to provide those needs.
It is the attitude that we can conquer, control or use nature any way we see fit that has gotten us into the mess we are in today.
What we need is a paradigm shift in the way we view nature. That shift is happening all over the world and is being carried forward by the Cultural Creatives. Let us hope that this shift will take place before it’s too late for human kind.
I think that we need to adopt the eight principles of Deep Ecology which are:
1. The well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman life on Earth have value in themselves (synonyms: intrinsic value, inherent value). These values are independent of the usefulness of the nonhuman world for human purposes.
2. Richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realization of these values and are also values in themselves.
3. Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital human needs.
4. The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease of the human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a decrease.
5. Present human interference with the nonhuman world is excessive, and the situation is rapidly worsening.
6. Policies must therefore be changed. These policies affect basic economic, technological, and ideological structures. The resulting state of affairs will be deeply different from the present.
7. The ideological change is mainly that of appreciating life quality (dwelling in situations of inherent value) rather than adhering to an increasingly higher standard of living. There will be a profound awareness of the difference between big and great.
8. Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation directly or indirectly to try to implement the necessary changes.
Cheers,
Ronnie Wright
World Change Café
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Comment by YakShiDeva on October 30, 2009 at 13:12 -
In Australia we are exporting kangaroo to Russia. Kanga are soft footed animals, much softer on Australian soil than cattle. I eat kangaroo for this reason, and also because they are lean meat, and in many places they are in plague proportion. If Australians stopped eating cattle and relied more on native meats (that are in plague, like crocodile) and stopped exporting at enormous transport/climate costs, I reckon that'd be an improvement too.
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