Meeting stated goals for Earth’s climate requires not only using pricey energy but also spurning animal protein.
As a United Nations summit on climate change began in Lima, Peru, meat and milk joined gasoline and coal on the list of substances destined for official condemnation.
“Recent analyses have shown that it is unlikely global temperature rises can be kept below 2° C. without a shift in global meat and dairy consumption,” according to researchers at Chatham House, London.
Emissions of greenhouse gases from livestock represent an estimated 14.5% of the global total, “more than direct emissions from the transport sector,” the researchers find in a new report.
Livestock production is the largest source of two greenhouse gases: methane and nitrous oxide. And expansion of land used for pasture or to grow feed crops shrinks forests able to lower ambient levels of carbon dioxide.
If eating habits don’t change, warns one of the researchers in an article on the Chatham House web site, consumption of greenhouse-gassy foods will grow.
“By 2050, global consumption of meat and dairy is expected to have risen by 76% and 65% respectively against a 2005-07 baseline,” warns Rob Bailey, acting research director, energy, environment, and resources.
A survey conducted for the think tank shows most people don’t know the extent to which their carnivorous and lactic tastes contribute to climate change.
“If we are serious about avoiding dangerous climate change,” Bailey writes, “this is a problem we cannot afford to ignore any longer.”
That statement makes splendid sense to someone convinced beyond doubt the climate will change dangerously without centrally planned and officially induced overhauls of human behavior.
But doubters exist. Attesting to their large numbers are political results around the world contrasting strikingly with the climatological grandiosity of political elites, such as those meeting in Lima.
When news spreads about what elites have in store for diets, those numbers will grow.
Most people like beefsteak and cheese as much as they like affordable energy.
(From the subscription area of www.ogj.com, posted Dec. 5, 2014; author’s e-mail: [email protected])