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Dr. Helen Harwatt, farmed animal law and policy fellow at Harvard Law School, advises that getting protein from plant sources instead of animal sources would drastically help in meeting climate targets and reduce the risk of overshooting temperature goals.
For the first time, Dr. Harwatt proposes a three-step strategy to gradually replace animal proteins with plant-sourced proteins, as part of the commitment to mitigate climate change. These are:
1) Acknowledging that current numbers of livestock are at their peak and will need to decline ('peak livestock').
2) Set targets to transition away from livestock products starting with foods linked with the highest greenhouse gas emissions such as beef, then cow's milk and pig meat ('worst-first' approach).
3) Assessing suitable replacement products against a range of criteria including greenhouse gas emission targets, land usage, and public health benefits ('best available food' approach).
Harwatt further elaborates that recent evidence shows, in comparison with the current food system, switching from animals to plants proteins, could potentially feed an additional 350 million people in the US alone.
You can eat plants or insects, but not meat.
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Wednesday November 28 2018, @12:40PM (4 children)
I'm emphatically against bureaucrats of any stripe forcing people to stop eating meat, because I'm against bureaucrats, period.
But I'm in favor of education programs on the environmental and ethical impact of raising meats - the free range stuff is rare and expensive and not any better for the environment, most meat is factory farmed. I'm also in favor of work on vegetarian and vegan replacements. Meat production is a huge factor in environmental damage. It takes 10-30 pounds of vegetables to raise chickens, cows, sheep, and pigs enough to yield 1 pound of edible meat. Every day you voluntarily eat vegan foods you cut your environmental impact a huge amount.
If you haven't tried it, the vegan "Beyond Meat" burger, when cooked right, is the closest I've found to an adequate replacement for real meat. Most veggie burgers fall into two categories, those that don't even try to taste like meat and those that imitate meat. The ones that don't try to be like meat are edible but not great. The ones that imitate meat are usually awful, that "Beyond Meat" one is the first one I could finish without treating it like a test of willpower.
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Wednesday November 28 2018, @03:15PM (3 children)
I thought I had a reliable source for that 10-30 pounds figure, but now I can't find it. Unfortunately I can't edit that post. Sorry for the misinformation.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 28 2018, @04:33PM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Wednesday November 28 2018, @08:22PM (1 child)
Right. And in some parts of the world, grass and other crops fit for cows, pigs, and chickens will grow where other crops fit for humans will not. But my understanding is that there are an awful lot of places growing feedstocks that could be growing fruits, vegetables, legumes, and grains humans can eat.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 28 2018, @09:19PM
Doesn't work so well with another proposed policy of expensive transportation.