07/03/2019
Our climate crisis is in the news almost everyday and the connection to food is frequently ignored by mainstream media. I want to share with you what many experts and organizations are saying about the impacts of our food choices have on the planet. Individually their voices may be difficult to hear, but together, they demand attention and action by anyone who cares about the future;
“It is rare that a single choice of ours can have a broad and decisive impact on the climate crisis. We have a moral imperative to choose and advocate for plant-based diets for the health of our planet and the well-being and survival of generations to come.” ~ George C. Wang, M.D., Ph.D. is an integrative medicine physician, assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University Medical Center, and adjunct assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
"Adopting a plant-based diet is one of the most powerful choices an individual can make in mitigating environmental degradation and depletion of Earth's natural resources." ~ National Academy of Sciences
“If cattle and dairy cows were a country, they would have more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire EU 28.” ~ Steven Chu, President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, former Energy Secretary, Nobel Prize winning physicist
"The only way to have a truly sustainable diet is to eat more plant-based foods and less meat and dairy. All this new research shows that we don’t have a choice — there simply isn’t the land to feed the U.S. or the world any other way." ~ Center for Biological Diversity
“A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use... It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car." ~ Joseph Poore, University of Oxford, Department of Zoology and the School of Geography and Environment
"A 1% reduction in world-wide meat intake has the same benefit as a three trillion-dollar investment in solar energy." ~ Chris Mentzel, CEO of Clean Energy
"As environmental science has advanced, it has become apparent that the human appetite for animal flesh is a driving force behind virtually every major category of environmental damage now threatening the human future: deforestation, erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice, the destabilization of communities, and the spread of disease." ~ Worldwatch Institute, "Is Meat Sustainable?"
“If every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetables and grains... the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. roads.” ~ Environmental Defense Fund
"The growth in [animal agriculture] coupled with an increased need for protein and energy-rich animal feed has had a devastating impact on nature. Feed crops threaten the biodiversity of many of Earth’s most valuable and vulnerable areas." ~ Appetite for Destruction, World Wildlife Fund
"The livestock sector emerges as one of the top contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. The findings of this report suggest that it should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity. The impact is so significant that it needs to be addressed with urgency." ~ UN Food and Agricultural Organization's report "Livestock's Long Shadow"
“Our use of animals as a food-production technology has brought us to the verge of catastrophe.” ~ United Nations Environment Programme
"However they are achieved, plant-based diets are a compelling win-win for society... Few climate solutions of this magnitude lie in the hands of individuals or are as close as the dinner plate." ~ Paul Hawken, environmentalist, entrepreneur, author and activist
