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LINK Americans Need to Eat 90% Less Meat for Planet to Survive, Report Says

Killing our animal brothers and sisters is killing the planet.
Going plant-based is good for your health, good for the animals, and good for the Earth.


Humanity’s growing meat consumption is undermining the planet’s ability to produce food, according to a new report published in the science journal Nature.

In fact, humans need to eat 75% less red meat, 90% less pork, and half as many eggs on average to both prevent the environment-ravaging consequences of climate change and ensure that there will be enough food to go around when the global population surges to 10 billion later in the century.

“It is pretty shocking,” Marco Springmann at the University of Oxford, who led the research team, told the Guardian. “We are really risking the sustainability of the whole system. If we are interested in people being able to farm and eat, then we better not do that.”

The authors of the study stressed that people in some countries need to make more drastic changes to their diets than others.

In the US and UK, for example, people need to eat 90% less red meat and 60% less milk, while some low-income countries are encouraged to eat more meat in the years ahead to improve nutrition standards, but the authors note that such an increase would be paltry compared to eating habits in Western countries.

SkotlandSkye 8 Feb 16
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5 comments

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0

Good luck convincing the U.S. to stop eating meat or even less meat. Want to start a war? because that's how you start one. I'm all for stopping and even reversing climate change but changing meat consumption just isn't going to happen. I could see giant green house gas capture systems on all factory farms before meat consumption changes.

0

From the abstract of the Nature article this article cites:
"We analyse several options for reducing the environmental effects of the food system, including dietary changes towards healthier, more plant-based diets, improvements in technologies and management, and reductions in food loss and waste. We find that no single measure is enough to keep these effects within all planetary boundaries simultaneously, and that a synergistic combination of measures will be needed to sufficiently mitigate the projected increase in environmental pressures."

So it isn't a study purely about reducing meat intake. Quite the contrary.

I also find percentages in this regard are not helpful. Hard numbers of actual amounts is much more useful. As a practical matter, and let's face reality, asking people to give up meat entirely isn't realistic. Asking everyone to reduce to a certain level is more realistic, but that requires actual amounts, not percentages.

2

I have friends who recycle like crazy, carry reusable straws, use reusable shopping bags, drive electric vehicles, etc. yet they devour triple cheeseburgers without a thought.

crazy right? The disconnect is real....

I don't seem to be able to control my eating habits- at the same time I would never kill an other residence of this rock. That makes me a proven hypocrite! I couldn't imagine going into a pasture and taking a sharp stick and poking the eye out of a cow though. We so casually live in a world of cruelty!

2

Also use less coal,oil and more sun, wind and water.

1

So many people can't seem to let go the idea that they need/want/deserve it every day.

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