EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
UN Urges Global Move to Meat and Dairy-Free Diet
Lesser consumption of animal products is necessary to save the world from the worst impacts of climate change, UN report says
A global shift towards a vegan diet is vital to save the world from hunger, fuel poverty and the worst impacts of climate change, a UN report said today.
An cattle ranch in Mato Grosso, Brazil. The UN says agriculture is on a par with fossil fuel consumption because both rise rapidly with increased economic growth. (Photograph: HO/Reuters) As the global population surges towards a predicted
9.1 billion people by 2050, western tastes for diets rich in meat and
dairy products are unsustainable, says the report from United Nations Environment
Programme's (UNEP) international panel of sustainable resource management.
It says: "Impacts from agriculture are expected to increase substantially due to population growth increasing consumption of animal products. Unlike fossil fuels, it is difficult to look for alternatives: people have to eat. A substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal products."
Professor Edgar Hertwich, the lead author of the report, said: "Animal products cause more damage than [producing] construction minerals such as sand or cement, plastics or metals. Biomass and crops for animals are as damaging as [burning] fossil fuels."
The recommendation follows advice last year that a vegetarian diet was better for the planet from Lord Nicholas Stern, former adviser to the Labour government on the economics of climate change. Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has also urged people to observe one meat-free day a week to curb carbon emissions.
The panel of experts ranked products, resources, economic activities and transport according to their environmental impacts. Agriculture was on a par with fossil fuel consumption because both rise rapidly with increased economic growth, they said.
Ernst von Weizsaecker, an environmental scientist who co-chaired the panel, said: "Rising affluence is triggering a shift in diets towards meat and dairy products - livestock now consumes much of the world's crops and by inference a great deal of freshwater, fertilisers and pesticides."
Both energy and agriculture need to be "decoupled" from economic growth because environmental impacts rise roughly 80% with a doubling of income, the report found.
Achim Steiner, the UN under-secretary general and executive director of the UNEP, said: "Decoupling growth from environmental degradation is the number one challenge facing governments in a world of rising numbers of people, rising incomes, rising consumption demands and the persistent challenge of poverty alleviation."
The panel, which drew on numerous studies including the Millennium ecosystem assessment, cites the following pressures on the environment as priorities for governments around the world: climate change, habitat change, wasteful use of nitrogen and phosphorus in fertilisers, over-exploitation of fisheries, forests and other resources, invasive species, unsafe drinking water and sanitation, lead exposure, urban air pollution and occupational exposure to particulate matter.
Agriculture, particularly meat and dairy products, accounts for 70% of global freshwater consumption, 38% of the total land use and 19% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, says the report, which has been launched to coincide with UN World Environment day on Saturday.
Last year the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation said that food production would have to increase globally by 70% by 2050 to feed the world's surging population. The panel says that efficiency gains in agriculture will be overwhelmed by the expected population growth.
Prof Hertwich, who is also the director of the industrial ecology programme at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, said that developing countries – where much of this population growth will take place – must not follow the western world's pattern of increasing consumption: "Developing countries should not follow our model. But it's up to us to develop the technologies in, say, renewable energy or irrigation methods."
- Posted in
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
141 Comments so far
Show AllNo, we need a global move back to local and sustainable livestock grazing, and local food in general. No CAFOs/feedlots, no feeding ruminants grain. Feed them their natural food -- grass -- which people can't eat. Then people can eat them and their milk, as they have always done since livestock were first domesticated.
I think part of the problem is, land use. How many forests will have to be razed to provide the pasture all those ruminants need? The same amount of land could produce veggies to feed a lot more people ....
There were a lot fewer people and a lot more land when livestock was first domesticated .....
I'd prefer to raze suburbia and turn it back into grassland and forests :-)
But if people -- especially Americans and other Westerners, which consume on average far more meat products than other people -- severely reduce their consumption of animal products, it won't be as big an issue.
Meat is not as heavily consumed in Europe as it is in the states. Despite the corporate farms getting more subsidies than the small farmers in Europe, at least the small farmers are not persecuted so they have a chance to compete fair and square unlike in the US.
"Meat is not as heavily consumed in Europe as it is in the states."
You must have never been to Spain. When I lived in Germany they ate pork with every meal.
I have been to Germany but not Spain. I am aware of the common meat eaters but even when they eat meat every time, I have seen smaller amounts per lunch/dinner for each individual compared to what each American eats per lunch/dinner. Don't forget that the quality of the food is better in Europe because they don't do as much artificial producing and adding dangerous chemicals such as hormones plus the food does not lose its nutrients upon getting through production compared to the meat produced in the US where animals are force-fed GMO corn, injected with antibiotics and hormones, and over-processed. Meat or whatever, I would rather eat less but higher quality over "cheap" and mediocre.
Thank you zmann for bringing this up. I would add that this same UN defends Big Agri and therefore have no business preaching their diet recommendations. In fact, it has been proven that grassfed meat and diary consume little to no oil for producing while most vegan products are processed and this require more oil. Being mainly vegetarian is reasonable enough but vegan I couldn't do.
"In fact, it has been proven that grassfed meat and diary consume little to no oil for producing while most vegan products are processed and this require more oil."
No disrespect but this is a ridiculous sentence. Most vegan "products" are fruits and vegetables. Vegans don't eat "soyrizo" for every meal.
Actually, I should have been a little more specific. I was compared those "no-meat" versions to grass-fed meat. The "no-meat" frozen and packaged foods that are supposed to be for vegans consume more oil for production compared to grass-fed meat. Before the age of oil, vegans did not have many choices other than fruits and vegetables but most of them eat more than just fruits and vegetables, not that there is anything wrong with that. I am mainly vegetarian but believe that going vegan is unsustainable.
Why "unsustainable"?
Unsustainable? Possibly the single silliest comment I've read on CD.
Hmmm, can the U.N. be sued, as Oprah was, for disparaging meat products?
This will be interesting .....
Let's just have a global nuclear war. If anyone survives, problems solved.
Does anyone take the U.N. seriously?
DCH: Perhaps no one takes the U.N. seriously enough. I believe we desperately need a comprehensive, non-biased, monitoring global organization to act as referee in order to deter super-powers from reeking havoc on the world.
agreed with a correction:::::>
I believe we desperately need a comprehensive, non-biased, monitoring global organization to act as referee in order to deter super-powers AND CORPORATIONS from reeking havoc on the world.
I'm glad I've been a vegetarian for lo these many years. I've done quite well by it. Also, I desperately need the good karma.
I have tried veganism, and found it to be delightful and healthy, except that it was next to impossible for me to keep weight on my skinny frame. So I'm a lacto-ovo-vegetarian (not to be mistaken for a lacto-Oreo-Spaghettio vegetarian).
I've been having so much trouble trying to be a vegetarian. Thanks for mentioning that I can be a lacto-Oreo-Spaghettio vegetarian!
I believe that's called a junk food vegetarian.
When I was a teenager for almost an entire year I ate little more than M&M's, Doritos and Pac Man Cereal.
I don't think the CD headline expressed the conclusions of the report. The report did not promote a vegan diet for all. It simply pointed out that eating meat has serious environmental costs and that people should eat less of it. That is different from insisting everyone head towards a meat, egg, and milk-free diet. One way to turn off the world's people to sustainable agriculture is to shame them into giving up meat, fish, eggs, and dairy. A more successful approach would be--as suggested in the report--to give up meat one day per week. A vegan diet is a non-starter for most of the world's people--give it up and ask them to make a sacrifice they can accept.
Actually, I think meat in their diet is a non-starter for most of the world's people .....
Except for about a billion people in India.
Last time I checked, most people from India are not vegan. They eat plenty of dairy and eggs and butter.
He said meat
Unless you are Sami(Lap) or Inuit,dependant on hunting ruminant grazers Buffalo(Sioux), Caribou,Salmon,Elk ,or any other hunter herder(Masai),subsistence whaling or fishing tradition.Almost all indigenous hunting practises were sustainable with a few exceptions.IE. one tribe used to drive small herds of Buffalo of a cliff!I have been a vegetarian by choice for almost 40 years,but I think there is a place for sustainably humanely raised animal protein .
That said ,I believe that "meat" will be grown in a lab soon and doled out like soy-lent green to the starving proles.That should solve the land use issues,and they can culture all sorts of tissues into interesting fillets,yum!
peas on earth
yep, why waste time and effort generating lips, udders, intestines, fur, bones, and brains when you can have just plain old steak in the test tube. Petri dish pork. Beaker beef. Nutrient plate poultry. It's gonna be great and absolutely no suffering for the animals.
Given the choice, most people would refuse to eat GMO foods. What makes you think people will choose to eat cloned meat?
"What makes you think people will choose to eat cloned meat?"
Ignorance and falling for GMO propaganda. Sadly, it is too easy in this country. :(
Sure sure, and a life without cheap petroleum is a non-starter too. Life without the glory of empire is a non-starter too. And life without economic growth is a non-starter too. We've heard it all before.
So, eating meat is the same as consuming lots of petroleum? Seems to me Native Americans ate plenty of meat and fish and managed to do it without screwing up the planet. What's wrong with range-fed beef or bison? Wild caught fish (provided harvesting is done at sensible levels)? Removing deer from the woods when numbers get too high? Animals are one way of obtaining nutrients from organisms we cannot digest--namely grass and diatoms and such. Consumption of meat by itself does not imply anything about a person's plugging into the capitalist system.
That would work if there were only a couple million people on N America and a few million bison.
Those numbers may well be incorrect/outdated.
Tens of millions of people in N. America (and maybe that in just the "Aztec" influence zone!) and moderately heavy management of the buffalo herds who then underwent a population explosion after the die-back/off of the (first) humans.
That's the general understanding amongst the Profs now.
-matti.
Now would be a good time to promote the use of tempeh, a high protein alternative to meat. It would be great if funds could be found to help this healthy food get wider acceptance. Normally the people who benefit from the use of a resource will promote its use (remember the big push for Yogurt?) However in this case the soy bean growers are in league with the meat industry and there are few that are growing organic beans for soy food.
So we would need an angel to give this effort a push - there are no other funds available to help something along that benefits the public in general.
Twenty years or so ago we developed a new system to produce tempeh and it was highly successful in the "meat and potato" midwest - can you imagine how it would sell on the east or west coast?
Betsy's Tempeh Foundation
www.maketempeh.org
But what IS it?
Rainborowe,Tempeh is made of parboiled soybeans or other bean grain mixtures.The beans are inoculated with a fungal spore.The mold spreads through the "steak" knitting it together in a few days and voila!A little marination and moldy soybeans are delicious.
peace
I've cooked with it, it's not bad. The texture reminded me of chicken in a stir-fry, but it is a little crumbly.
Gotta use non-GMO soybeans!
And watch the psuedo-estrogen intake period.
My thoughts exactly. But as soybeans, more than any other veg, are produced by Big Ag and therefore uniformly genetically modified, I'll just stick to rice, bread, various beans and pulses, other veg. and fruit.
Of course if you drop meat cold turkey you won't need a substitute. Just remind yourself that meat is not, actually, necessary and is bad for the earth, bad for the health and bad for the soul. Quitting smoking is much harder, believe me.
Intelligent discussion of of the environment, agriculture, and diet needs to be a lot more specific than this article.
* Agribusiness is totally different from small-scale 'family'-type farming.
* Cattle ranching (beef) is different from dairy farming.
* Organic farming is different from chemical fertilizer, herbicide, pesticide farming & ranching.
* Sustainable agriculture doesn't necessarily use irrigation at all.
It's ridiculous to suggest that I and others totally change our diets to vegetarian because of the excesses of agribusiness.
And I doubt vegetables grow well on forest land, some of which is hill/mountainside with dry and rough terrain. Anyway, trees are important in maintaining watersheds as well as controlling erosion.
I vote we keep poultry and dairy, and more sensibly curtail the horrid factory farms, huge feedlots, and agribusiness in general. Oh, yeah, and take the GM seeds out of circulation, too.
Some marginal lands which can not easily support crops can be used by goats and chickens.
"And I doubt vegetables grow well on forest land, some of which is hill/mountainside with dry and rough terrain. Anyway, trees are important in maintaining watersheds as well as controlling erosion."
Forest soil is inadequate for agriculture. The nutrients are tied up in the trees and attendant flora. Mountains with trees get enough rain otherwise they couldn't support trees. It takes more rain to support a forest than prairie. The best soils are former prairie, which builds humus faster than any other system; and river bottoms due to periodic flood deposits. It was the annual floods that allowed Mesopotamia to develop into the Cradle of Civilization. It was former prairie that made the midwest the breadbasket.
Anyway, efficiently feeding the masses is about the trophic levels, see above.
Please it's not what we eat it's how it's grown that's the problem. Let the cows eat grass and not fatten them up with grain, grow the food more locally so your not transporting it 1000's of miles and this problem is solved.
Or we could stop eating cows. Where in the US are all these millions of acres of "local" grasslands for the cows to graze on?
Levittown.
Joe
Nailed It!
Why does this seem like the issue du jour. Enough already. Moderation is the key. Let's get rid of mass farming, go back to individual farms and try and not let everything become a "big business."
Yes, tempeh. I made a great tempeh strogonoff recently. It wasn't vegan (sour cream) but very very good.
If we in the US don't change our carnivorous ways by ourselves, circumstances will force the change.
I'm getting tired of writing this.
There is a 90% loss of energy in each step up the trophic levels.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophic_level
soon we will all be fighting for the last can of dog food.
mad max style
Good point, I better sharpen my metal boomerang