Averting climate crisis a meaty challenge
Ignorance really is bliss, particularly when it comes to lifestyle choices. With the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently saying that limiting global warming to a sustainable level will require “far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society”, I thought it necessary to find out how my food choices affect the health of the planet.
Filmmaker Michal Siewierski’s documentary Food Choices seemed like a good place to start. Until I watched it, that is. As someone who eats healthily, exercises regularly and recycles, even I was a little crestfallen by the facts.
While none of this is new information, somehow being confronted with it in a neatly packaged Netflix documentary left nowhere to hide. The newsflash is this: eating a diet that is high in animal protein, including chicken, dairy and fish, is really bad for the planet. Incidentally, it is also bad for your health, as documented in The China Study, the most comprehensive study of nutrition ever undertaken. But let’s leave that aside for now.
It is hardly surprising that the food choices of 7.6-billion people have a profound effect on the planet. Here are some startling facts: the livestock sector contributes 18% to total anthropogenic (originating in human activity) greenhouse gas emissions. This is a higher share than the entire global transport industry, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
Livestock is responsible for 65% of anthropogenic nitrous oxide emissions, mostly from manure which, though of a lower concentration, has far greater potential to trap heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, says the FAO. According to the UN, nearly all deforested land in the Amazon is used by the livestock industry, which destroys millions of acres of rainforest annually. While free-range farming is considered more humane, it is considerably worse for the planet. Not only does it require more land, but studies show that grass-fed cattle emit more greenhouse gasses than grain-fed cows.
The accelerating loss of ocean biodiversity is another frightening consequence of our eating habits. A 2006 study published in the journal Science found that seafood would be depleted by 2048, with dire consequences for the health of the ocean, the planet and humans. In other words, using energy-saving light bulbs and taking short showers is pretty meaningless if you’re eating animal products daily.
Changing our diets by drastically reducing our intake of animal protein is probably the most effective tool we have to mitigate climate change. Unfortunately, it’s an inconvenient truth.
I mean, moving the needle on the most pressing issue of our time and saving the planet is nice and all, but do I really have to give up bacon?
Enter meat taxes. Like sin taxes on alcohol and cigarettes, these would amount to a levy on something considered harmful to individuals, society or the environment in order to cut consumption. These taxes could be used to subsidise healthier food or plant-based protein alternatives. Governments in Sweden, Denmark and Germany have already begun to consider meat taxes.
A recent report from Farm Animal Investment Risk and Return (Fairr), an investor initiative focused on the risks and opportunities linked to intensive livestock production, says institutional investors should prepare for “a behavioural tax on animal protein products”.
Fairr advises investors with $9.2-trillion in assets. In its report “The Livestock Levy”, it says growing consensus over the effect of meat production on health and the environment coincides with mounting evidence of the financial burden these issues place on the public purse. “In the case of tobacco, carbon and sugar, the introduction of taxes came about relatively quickly after the first two factors — consensus and quantification — were accepted,” says Fairr.
With livestock production constituting about 40% of the global value of agriculture, it is an industry that practically anyone invested in a pension fund has exposure to.
All this may sound like bad news for the average braaivleiseating South African. But the alternative — global warming, water scarcity, species extinction and the destruction of oceans and forests — is almost certainly worse.
As for me, while I’m unlikely to forego animal products altogether (I refuse to be that dinner guest), let’s just say I’m relieved I like tofu.
● Ziady writes from Cambridge in the UK.