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Climate panel has a beef with meat lovers
Green groups criticized for being bashful about attacking greenhouse gas source
Nicholas Read
Canwest News Service
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Illustration Omitted:
When all aspects are taken into account --
from deforestation for pasture to methane from dung, our addiction to
meat accounts for 18 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions.
CREDIT: Grant Black, Canwest News Service
When all aspects are taken into account -- from deforestation for pasture to methane from dung, our addiction to meat accounts for 18 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions.
Want to lead a greener life? We all know the mantra: Drive a fuel-efficient car, insulate your house, change your light bulbs, reuse those grocery bags.
How about this: Eat less meat? It's a message we hardly ever hear. Yet according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, livestock production is responsible for significantly more greenhouse gas emissions worldwide than transportation.
That's why Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Nobel-Prize-winning body that collates and interprets climate change data for the world's governments, is now asking people in the developed world to reduce their meat intake by a meal or more each week.
Like the UN, the IPCC says that transportation -- all those SUVs, 4x4s and RVs we hear so much about -- account for 13 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions, while burgers, ribs and chicken strips account for 18 per cent.
Simon Donner, a University of B.C. specialist in the effects of climate change and land use, says simply: "In terms of personal bang for your environmental buck, just eat less meat."
But if eating less meat is that critical to the planet's future, why do environmental groups say next to nothing about it?
It depends on who you ask. Aaron Freeman, a policy director with Toronto-based Environmental Defence Canada, suggested it's because "I'm not a dietitian."
He's not an auto engineer either, yet he's tells people not to drive a Hummer. What's the difference?
"Diets balance a range of factors, some environmental or health or cultural or geographic," Freeman said in an interview. "When it comes to driving a Hummer, that's pretty much a straight-up environment-versus-comfort issue."
That kind of talk confounds Peter Fricker, communications director of the Vancouver Humane Society, an animal-protection group that launched its own "Eat less meat" campaign earlier this year. The group cites strong environmental reasons for giving up a burger or three, among them deforestation due to the need for more pasture land, burning fossil fuels to produce fertilizers used in feed production and the release of methane from the breakdown of those fertilizers and manure.
With that in mind, Fricker wrote to 10 environmental groups in Canada inviting them to support the "Eat less meat" campaign. Only two replied: Greenpeace and the David Suzuki Foundation, both of which do mention meat consumption in their literature and websites. "It's not a priority with either of them," said Fricker. "But at least they've made an issue of it."
But not a big issue. Go to any website of any major environmental group in Canada, and you will not find meat consumption listed as a key issue in any of their platforms.
Dale Marshall, a climate-change policy analyst with the David Suzuki Foundation, was at a loss to explain why, but suggested it may have something to do with a reluctance on the part of green groups to broach such a personal concern.
"Food is something that's very personal," Marshall said. "I think there may be a reluctance to start talking about people changing what they eat. When you start telling people to sell their car and jump on the bus, that's a little more out there. But when you start talking about diet and what they eat, that becomes even more personal. So that raises some difficulty in organizations not wanting to go there."
Climate panel has a beef with meat lovers
Green groups criticized for being bashful about attacking greenhouse gas source
Nicholas Read
Canwest News Service
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Illustration Omitted:
When all aspects are taken into account -- from deforestation for pasture to methane from dung, our addiction to meat accounts for 18 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions.
Want to lead a greener life? We all know the mantra: Drive a fuel-efficient car, insulate your house, change your light bulbs, reuse those grocery bags.
How about this: Eat less meat? It's a message we hardly ever hear. Yet according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, livestock production is responsible for significantly more greenhouse gas emissions worldwide than transportation.
That's why Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Nobel-Prize-winning body that collates and interprets climate change data for the world's governments, is now asking people in the developed world to reduce their meat intake by a meal or more each week.
Like the UN, the IPCC says that transportation -- all those SUVs, 4x4s and RVs we hear so much about -- account for 13 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions, while burgers, ribs and chicken strips account for 18 per cent.
Simon Donner, a University of B.C. specialist in the effects of climate change and land use, says simply: "In terms of personal bang for your environmental buck, just eat less meat."
But if eating less meat is that critical to the planet's future, why do environmental groups say next to nothing about it?
It depends on who you ask. Aaron Freeman, a policy director with Toronto-based Environmental Defence Canada, suggested it's because "I'm not a dietitian."
He's not an auto engineer either, yet he's tells people not to drive a Hummer. What's the difference?
"Diets balance a range of factors, some environmental or health or cultural or geographic," Freeman said in an interview. "When it comes to driving a Hummer, that's pretty much a straight-up environment-versus-comfort issue."
That kind of talk confounds Peter Fricker, communications director of the Vancouver Humane Society, an animal-protection group that launched its own "Eat less meat" campaign earlier this year. The group cites strong environmental reasons for giving up a burger or three, among them deforestation due to the need for more pasture land, burning fossil fuels to produce fertilizers used in feed production and the release of methane from the breakdown of those fertilizers and manure.
With that in mind, Fricker wrote to 10 environmental groups in Canada inviting them to support the "Eat less meat" campaign. Only two replied: Greenpeace and the David Suzuki Foundation, both of which do mention meat consumption in their literature and websites. "It's not a priority with either of them," said Fricker. "But at least they've made an issue of it."
But not a big issue. Go to any website of any major environmental group in Canada, and you will not find meat consumption listed as a key issue in any of their platforms.
Dale Marshall, a climate-change policy analyst with the David Suzuki Foundation, was at a loss to explain why, but suggested it may have something to do with a reluctance on the part of green groups to broach such a personal concern.
"Food is something that's very personal," Marshall said. "I think there may be a reluctance to start talking about people changing what they eat. When you start telling people to sell their car and jump on the bus, that's a little more out there. But when you start talking about diet and what they eat, that becomes even more personal. So that raises some difficulty in organizations not wanting to go there."
However, at the same time he agrees it is something environmental groups have overlooked. "It obviously does reveal a hole that needs to be filled somehow."
Gideon Forman, executive director of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, said: "There's no question that eating less meat is a good thing. And it probably is something we should be doing more about."
At the same time he cautioned: "It's a difficult sell. We're a culture that eats a lot of meat. Unlike in Europe, where it's often a side dish, for North Americans, unfortunately, it's the main attraction. So that's a problem. But I agree, eating less meat would be a big step."
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2008
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