globeandmail.com: Care about the environment? Eat less meat

Last week, Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the United Nation's Nobel Prize-winning scientific panel on climate change, asked the world to "please eat less meat." Speaking at a press conference in Paris, he said meat was a very carbon-intensive commodity, a fact established by UN research showing that livestock production creates more greenhouse gases than all forms of transport combined.

So the top man at the world's most important agency dealing with climate change (the planet's biggest problem) is urging us all to cut meat consumption to address the issue. Is the Prime Minister ordering Environment Canada to draft guidelines for Canadian consumers? Is Parliament debating the matter? Are environmental groups demanding immediate action?

Unfortunately, Mr. Pachauri's plea will cause barely a ripple in political, media or environmental circles. Even being chair of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) doesn't guarantee many people will want to hear this particular inconvenient truth. It's interesting to note that he followed his statement by saying: "This is something that the IPCC was afraid to say earlier, but now we have said it."

What was the IPCC afraid of? This hasn't been reported, but one could speculate that the global livestock industry and others with a vested interest in meat production will not take kindly to Mr. Pachauri's remarks. Neither will the politicians they lobby, who also hate having to tell citizens they need to make lifestyle changes to save the planet.

Even environmental groups are shy about touching this one. Some don't even mention limiting meat consumption as a means of combatting global warming. Others relegate it to a list of minor energy-saving actions consumers can take, just below keeping your car's tires properly inflated. The suspicion (especially among animal-welfare groups) is that environmentalists are afraid they'll be open to charges of hypocrisy if they raise the meat issue and get caught wolfing down a Wendy's burger after the press conference.

Then there are the dreaded V-words: vegetarian and vegan. Few politicians or environmentalists want to face the jokes, media backlash and libertarian "consumer freedom" zealots who will accuse them of forcing Canadians to eat only salad and lentils. The same sort of people who fought against mandatory seatbelts and restrictions on tobacco would shift their public relations and spin machines into high gear.

Yet all the IPCC is asking for is a reduction in meat consumption. A recent study in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet called for a 10-per-cent cut in meat consumption, which it said would slow global warming considerably. It would also slow the growth of factory farming, which is alarming animal welfarists around the world. Global demand for meat is projected to double between 2001 and 2050, meaning billions more animals will be raised in intensive, inhumane conditions. While many animal activists are "abolitionists" and want a meat-free world, others would welcome anything that would put the brakes on a trend that is resulting in animal suffering on a mind-boggling scale. For example, the international farm-animal welfare organization Compassion in World Farming is calling for meat consumption and production in developed countries to be cut by a third by 2020. This would mean someone who eats meat every day would cut back to eating meat five days a week — not exactly a hardship.

Encouraging the public to cut back on meat would also have major health benefits. The World Cancer Research Fund recently urged consumers to limit consumption of red meat to 500 grams per week and to avoid processed meats completely. (Vegetarians and vegans figured out the health advantages of a meatless diet long ago. That's why they have lower rates of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, colon cancer, hypertension and other diseases.)

Cutting down or cutting out meat is a win-win-win policy. Not only does it help the fight against global warming, but it saves countless animals from factory-farm suffering and it's good for you.

It's just too bad so many people are afraid to talk about it.

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I CARRIED A WATERMELON

"but, but, but it's natural to eat animals. I mean, we're at the top of the food chain and that's why God put them here, so we could eat them and stuff. Besides, they're pretty stupid and what, are we supposed to just let them roam around and be wild? Where would all the cows go if we didn't eat them? If we stop eating so much animals then we won't be doing God's good work and if we're not stewards exercising our dominion over the Earth, then what are we really doing here???"

Yeah, this one ain't gonna catch on. Some new york times writer who recently wrote a book called "How to cook everything vegetarian" has been hawking it in various places, and wrote an article just this week about the environmental degradation of factory farming and the links to global warming. Each time, in the radio interview i heard and on his bio tagline at the end of the NYT article, they made sure to clarify that he wasn't a vegetarian. Because if he was a vegetarian then he would have no credibility. It's rather fucked up.

Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler - New York Times

^ That's quite sad. All vegetarians/vegans know first hand that there are a ton of people that just react horribly when they discover you're a vegetarian. I can't even tell you how many times I was challenged for not eating meat. People respond horribly to animal rights activists (or even those not active in their concerns about animal rights) in general, probably b/c we've had beaten into us how militant and nutso some of them can be (setting off car bombs, digging up corpses, etc). As always, the minority has ruined everything for the majority. It's no wonder this guy has to distance himself from all of that.

And that is a true shame, b/c even if you don't believe in animal rights, and even if you don't believe in man-made climate change (although I'd submit that this cattle situation IS man-made), this is a really important justification for cutting down meat consumption, and one that shouldn't be tainted by the impression most people have of vegetarians/vegans.

Thanks for posting, both of you. I've heard this being bandied about by those who want to discredit the concept of man-made climate change, and they can continue doing so till the cows come home (npi), but hopefully someone's going to point out that there's a reason we have so much cattle on this planet, and it's not b/c "god put them there".

awesome article. i am sick to death of people saying that it is "NATURAL" for humans to eat meat and that we apparently can't get along without it. total bullshit. i understand that some people will actually get sick and possibly die if they don't have enough iron etc so fine, eat meat. but the majority of meat eaters seem to be lazy, ignorant gluttons and it makes me sick. there needs to be more and more coverage about this because the situation is insanely urgent and EVERYONE needs to know about it.

yeah, some of them are pretty much mental but i don't think it's fair for the media to generalise them with the blanket statement that all animal rights activists are "terrorists".
i am continually sickened by the negative attitude that people seem to have towards animals these days - like showing them being killed on tv, making jokes about hurting them in "comedy" shows etc etc. if it wasn't for animals, especially horses for transport in the old days, dogs to protect us etc we'd be completely fucked. i'm sick of people with lax and cruel attitudes about this.