Twice this week I received notifications about how our broken food systems are feeding the climate crisis.
The first was from my friend, Jyoti who shared this article from the NY Times. The title is:
Save the Planet, Put Down that Hamburger.
Researchers examined the diets of 55,500 people and found that vegans are responsible for 75 percent less in greenhouse gases than meat-eaters.
Even if you aren’t quite ready to go fully vegan, dramatically reducing the amount of animal products you consume can make a difference, says the Oxford Study.
The second notification I received was from the people at The Plant-Based Treaty. Researcher, Dr. Joseph Poore, also from Oxford, did a beautiful job explaining all of this in a webinar titled: Reducing the Environmental Impact from Food.
(Starting at 3:55 you’ll find an introduction from the Mayor of Stockholm. Dr. Poore begins at 7:00)
Dr. Poore makes it all very easy to understand, and he included graphs and images (which The Plant-Based Treaty people are making available to anyone who is interested. Let me know if you want them and I can share.) Even if you only watch the first bit, you’ll get a sense of the power of his study. I learned a lot by watching the whole webinar.
And I have quoted the book, The Carbon Almanac, foreward by Seth Godin, a few times. The book discusses many of the ways we can make a difference to the environment. Here are a few quotes about how animal agriculture does harm:
- Raising beef for consumption requires 15,415 liters of water per kg- nearly 48 times as much as the average amount needed to grow vegetables. p. 200
- If everyone on the planet became a vegetarian, we could save an estimated $1.6 trillion in CO2 and health damages by the year 2050. If we all went vegan, that number could jump to nearly $1.8 trillion. p. 200
- If all humans followed the diet of the United States, every hectare of the world’s habitable land would need to be converted to agriculture and we would still be 38 percent short of the land needed to feed everyone. p. 203
- Livestock takes up nearly 80 percent of global agricultural land yet produces less than 20 percent of the world’s supply of calories. Alternatively, if everyone adopted the plant-based diets consumed across South Asia, Sub-Saharan African and some Latin American countries, the newly available landmass could feed the entire planet. p. 203
- Milk is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than all airplanes combined. p. 207
And the following is from, Jonathan Safran Foer, the author of We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast:
- The four highest-impact things an individual can do to tackle climate change are eat a plant-based diet, avoid air travel, live car-free and have fewer children. Of those four actions, only plant-based eating immediately addresses methane and nitrous oxide, the most urgently important greenhouse gases.
- Changing how we eat will not be enough, on its own, to save the planet, but we cannot save the planet without changing how we eat.
- Animal agriculture is responsible for 91 percent of the Amazonian deforestation.
- About 80% of [total] deforestation occurs to clear land for crops for livestock and grazing.
- According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, if cows were a country, they would rank third in greenhouse gas emissions after China and the United States
Whether you go fully vegan for the animals, or plant-based for your health, or even reduce animal product consumption for the environment, you are making a difference. If you need help getting there, we have free recipes in our free Facebook group, we offer cooking classes and one on one coaching.
Reach out and let us know how we can be helpful!
Let’s not look away. We are all responsible. Our children will have to live on this planet after we’re gone and it’s already getting scary. Let’s do what we can while we are here.