Food
A very big component of UNSUSTAINABILITY

ENVIRONMENT Humanity's Meat and Dairy Intake Must Be Cut in Half by 2050 to Avoid Dangerous Climate Change Going vegan will help reduce animal suffering, protect your health and halve your carbon footprint. So what are you waiting for?

Burgess COMMENTARY

This looks really good ... but the social and environmental cost is huge, not to mention the pretty high money price.
Peter Burgess

ENVIRONMENT ... Humanity's Meat and Dairy Intake Must Be Cut in Half by 2050 to Avoid Dangerous Climate Change ... Going vegan will help reduce animal suffering, protect your health and halve your carbon footprint. So what are you waiting for?


Photo Credit: Peter Hermes Furian/Shutterstock

In a recent press release on its website, Greenpeace called for a reduction in meat, dairy, and egg consumption. A new report by the organization states that 'global meat and dairy production and consumption must be cut in half by 2050 to avoid dangerous climate change.' The report also confirms what many health professionals have said for years: Eating meat and dairy raises various health risks, including risk of cancer, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. Indeed, calling for such a reduction is vital to the fight against global warming, as animal agriculture is the number-one driver of climate change.

Why are meat, dairy and eggs so harmful to the environment? Every year we raise and kill at least 56 billion land animals for food worldwide. We feed enormous amounts of corn, soy, and wheat to each of them. Much of this animal feed is grown on deforested land whose precious rainforests and wildlife have been wiped out. These animals excrete untold amounts of feces, which pollute local waterways and accelerate climate change by emitting methane into the atmosphere. They must be transported to slaughter and their meat packaged and shipped. The process not only kills billions of animals and inflicts unspeakable cruelty but literally kills our planet.

The Environmental Protection Agency reports that the livestock sector is one of the largest sources of carbon dioxide pollution and the single largest source of methane and nitrous oxide. And according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, carbon dioxide emissions from raising farmed animals make up about 15 percent of global human-induced emissions.

Raising animals for food is also culpable for more than 90 percent of Amazon rainforest destruction and uses more than one-third of the earth’s landmass. More than 80,000 acres of tropical rainforest—and 135 animal, plant, and insect species—are lost to animal agriculture each day.

Animal agriculture also takes a devastating toll on wildlife through habitat loss and hunting. Because it uses such a massive amount of land, wild animals are pushed out of their natural environments or violently killed because they are viewed as a predatory threat to the meat and dairy industries.

The good news? By going vegan you not only help protect animals but cut your carbon footprint in half.

Climate change is real and animal agriculture is undoubtedly a leading contributor. If you’re serious about the environment, it’s time to take action. Don’t just say you care about the planet, prove it by leaving all animal products off your plate.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
by Sarah Von Alt - December 7, 2015

http://www.mercyforanimals.org/killing-animals-is-killing-the-planet-heres

Believe it or not, many people who care about the environment still have no idea that raising animals for food is so incredibly destructive.

Consider some of these facts:

Animal agriculture uses a whopping 56 percent of water in the United States. In fact, just one hamburger requires 660 gallons of water to produce—the equivalent of 2 months’ worth of showers.

Because animals are so densely packed on today's industrial farms, they produce more manure than can be absorbed by the land as fertilizer. The runoff from these facilities grossly contaminates rivers and ground water.

Animal agriculture is culpable for nearly 91 percent of Amazon destruction according to The World Bank.

Raising animals for food (including land for grazing and growing feed crops) now uses over one-thirdof the earth’s landmass.

Factory farms have created more than 500 nitrogen-flooded dead zones throughout the world’s oceans.

Raising animals for food produces more greenhouse gas emissions than all of the cars, planes, and other forms of transportation combined.

Animals raised for food produce 7 million pounds of excrement every minute.

A pound of beef requires 13 percent more fossil fuels to produce than a pound of soy.

Overfishing is pushing our oceans to the brink of collapse, with over 90 percent of large fish at risk for total extinction.

But there’s good news too! Going vegan immediately cuts your CO2 emissions in half and spares countless animals from a lifetime of suffering on factory farms. So what are you waiting for? Click here to order your FREE Vegetarian Starter Guide.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------


PRESS RELEASE #Climate #Consumption #Food #Health

Greenpeace calls for decrease in meat and dairy production and consumption for a healthier planet

by Greenpeace International 5 March 2018

Amsterdam, Netherlands – Global meat and dairy production and consumption must be cut in half by 2050 to avoid dangerous climate change and keep the Paris Agreement on track, says a new Greenpeace report. If left unchecked, agriculture is projected to produce 52% of global greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades, 70% of which will come from meat and dairy. [1]

The report also finds that increased production and consumption of meat is behind a latent global health crisis. High red meat consumption has been linked to cancer, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes, while millions of lives could be saved each year if people had access to a diet rich in plant-based foods. Industrial animal agriculture is also associated with antimicrobial resistance – which the World Health Organization declared a “global health emergency” – and is a significant source of foodborne pathogens. [2]

Bunny McDiarmid, Executive Director of Greenpeace International said:
“Something is rotten in our food system. Governments continue to support massive meat and dairy operations, leading to more and more meat consumption while putting our health, our children’s health, and the health of our planet at risk. Instead, they should be supporting the increasing numbers of farmers shifting towards ecological production of healthy foods, and helping people access healthy plant-based foods.

“A new, diverse global movement is growing: one hungry for a better way of eating and producing food that is in tune with ourselves and the environment. Together, we can loosen the grip of industrial animal agriculture on our food system and build a healthier world for our generation and the next.”

In response to the rising impacts of animal agriculture on public health, the environment, and the climate, Greenpeace is launching a new global campaign calling for a major shift in the way we eat and the way we farm. Greenpeace calls for a 50% reduction of meat and dairy and a significant increase of plant-based in both production and consumption by 2050.

Pete Smith, Former Convening Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said: “The need to reduce demand for livestock products is now a scientifically mainstream view. Only a significant decrease in meat and milk consumption will allow us to deliver a food system fit for the future – for the benefit of humans and the planet as a whole. Producing the same mix of foods as we consume now, even if we were to do so more sustainably, cannot deliver the reduction in environmental impacts we need to protect the planet for our children and their children.”

The report also explores other environmental impacts of animal agriculture’s rapid expansion in the last several decades. Since 1970, the Earth has lost half of its wildlife but tripled its livestock population. Livestock production now occupies 26% of land on Earth. [3]

Greenpeace calls on governments to end policies that support industrial meat and dairy production, and instead help farmers shift towards ecological methods of growing crops and raising an amount of livestock that the planet can sustain. Greenpeace also urges governments to make healthy, plant-based foods more available, and calls on people around the world to join the movement for less meat and dairy and a healthier planet.

“What we decide to eat, as individuals and as a global society, is one of the most powerful tools we have in the fight against climate change and environmental destruction,” added McDiarmid.

ENDS

Notes:

[1] Less is More: Reducing meat and dairy for a healthier life and planet, Greenpeace International.
www.greenpeace.org/livestock_vision

[2] World Health Organization,
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2017/running-out-antibiotics/en/

[3] Less is More: Reducing meat and dairy for a healthier life and planet, Greenpeace International.
www.greenpeace.org/livestock_vision

Read our vision, Less is More: Reducing meat and dairy for a healthier life and planet, and the scientific background here:
www.greenpeace.org/livestock_vision

Images available here:
http://media.greenpeace.org/collection/27MZIFJXWWYYQ

Contacts:

Dawn Bickett, Meat and Dairy Comms Lead, Greenpeace International (based in the US), dawn.bickett@greenpeace.org, +1 510 552 4984

Christina Koll, Meat and Dairy Comms Lead, Greenpeace Nordic (based in Denmark), christina.koll@greenpeace.org, +45 2810 9021

Greenpeace International Press Desk (available 24 hours): pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org, +31 (0) 20 718 2470