Stop Climate Change By Changing What You Eat
COP24 (Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) is underway in Poland but they have reached a stalemate regarding a key scientific report which presents the impacts of temperature rise of 1.5C on the world. The world is doing much worse and is now heading towards a temperature increase of 3C this century rather than 1.5C. In a few decades, there will be 10 billion people to feed on this planet, and more than 50% more food will be needed by 2050.
The biggest change that can be brought about in halting this climate change is by altering our consumption patterns. According to a report by World Research Institute (WRI), Meat and Dairy use 83% of the farmland and produce 60% of the agriculture’s emissions. To feed this humongous population using today’s production systems would lead to eradication of all forests on earth!
This new report presented at COP24 follows other reports which have extolled the benefits of switching to a flexitarian diet or a vegan diet to reduce one’s impact on Earth. Livestock constitutes just 18% of the calories but occupies 83% of the farmland. These numbers show the huge impact our meat eating habits are having on the planet. A report shows that without meat and dairy consumption, global farmland use can be reduced by 75%, and still the global population could be fed.
Lead author of this research Joseph Poore said, “A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use.”
“It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car,” he explained, which would only reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Avoiding consumption of animal products delivers far better environmental benefits than trying to purchase sustainable meat and dairy,” he added.
Ancient India led the world with vegetarianism. It is time it leads the world with veganism and saves earth from the impending catastrophe.
This article is part of a series on climate change action keeping COP24 in view
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