Today the Guardian published a useful guide on how to cut your carbon emissions by 10%; which is about 1.5 tonnes for the average person. It’s a long list of 51 different carbon cutting measures and right at the top of the list, beaten only by ‘never fly’, ’sell the second car’, and ‘cut your annual car mileage in half’ is ‘go vegan three days a week‘, which will result in a cut of 0.5 tonnes of carbon emissions per year. ‘Change to an almost entirely vegetarian diet, using mostly unprocessed wholefoods such as grains, seeds and nuts’ will also result in the same saving.

Going vegan for just 3 days a week will save five times more carbon emissions than regularly washing over the sink instead of taking showers or getting rid of your freezer, and over twice as much as installing a solar hot water system or buying a wood burning stove.

Asking people to change their eating habits is always a tough ask, by when you look at the huge impact reducing your meat and dairy consumption can achieve, how can anyone who cares about the future of our planet not at least give it a try?

To see the full list, in order of greatest CO2 saving first, go to;

How to cut your carbon footprint

Today I was contacted by Planeat who are currently making a new movie about the meat industry and it’s impacts on health and the environment.

Sypnopsis
A group of leading international scientists, doctors and professors have spent their lives trying
to find out what is the best way to eat. A pattern has begun to emerge in their research, which shows that our animal-based diets are the cause of our most challenging health and environmental problems. Having to battle against their own beliefs, and those of the institutions they worked for, they have come up with a solution that will change people’s lives forever. They share their ideas on how we can not only prevent prevalent diseases like cancer and heart disease but also cure them. And also how applying the same principles can dramatically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, at the same time as providing more food for the planet. In accordance with this scientific evidence, pioneering farmers and chefs around the world are discovering new ways to produce and prepare the food we should be eating.

This is exciting news; more and more individuals and groups are realising the impacts of the meat industry and taking action - the movement is growing rapidly!

Watch the trailer on their website and sign up for updates.

The weakening of the pound against the euro and a strong overseas demand for beef has resulted in an increase in UK beef exports. According to HM Revenue and Customs figures, exports are currently almost double what they were two years ago.

In the period from January to November 2008, the UK exported 73,746 tonnes of beef. The main importers of British beef were the Republic of Ireland, which imported over 28,000 tonnes and the Netherlands, which imported 23,578 tonnes. Most of the beef we exported was from dairy cows, who are slaughtered when they no longer produce adequate quantities of milk.

This is where it really makes no sense. During the same period in 2008, we imported a total of 224,988 tonnes fo beef; including 140,000 tonnes from Ireland and 6,213 tonnes from Brazil. Why are we exporting nearly 74,000 tonnes of beef but then importing around 225,000?

The same applies to other types of meat. Last year we exported 76,000 tonnes of sheep meat whilst importing 105,646 tonnes (80,000 of which from New Zealand). In the first 11 months of last year we exported 253,679 tonnes and imported 300,185. Last year we exported 103,462 tonnes of pork and imported 358,000.

Let us not forget that around 20% of animal feed in the UK is imported from outside the EU - this includes millions of tonnes of soy from North and South America, maize from the USA, cotton seed meal from China and India and palm kernels from Malaysia. This is ‘food miles’ gone completely mad! (More info on animal feeds).

These figures not only reveal the nonsensical practice of sending meat backwards and forwards between nations (using vast amounts of fuel for transportation and energy for refrigeration) but also show that the UK consumes way more meat than it produces. This is simply not sustainable and has to change.

Figures from Scotman article.

Following Jamie Oliver’s latest programme ‘Jamie Saves our Bacon‘, which aired 29 January and was watched by 2 million people; supermarkets are already reporting increased sales in pork. The programme revealed the appalling conditions of pigs raised in factory farms in Europe, the meat from which is imported to the UK. Jamie urged people to buy British pork due to higher welfare standards. He also promoted cheaper cuts of pork.

According to The Telegraph, “sales of pork belly joints have risen by 66 per cent and shoulder joints by almost 270 per cent”.

Jamie is perhaps best known for his school dinners project, which aims to get rid of the junk food served in schools and replace them with healthy meals. Through the campaign Jamie raises awareness of the huge issue of obesity in the UK, noting that “one quarter of teenagers are already obese”.

Regarding his new pig campaign he says on his website “The list of pork products stocked by the average supermarket is huge; bacon, sausages, ham, pies, gammon, Scotch eggs and even ice cream!”. This is where it becomes very confusing. How can a chef who claims to be concerned with the nation’s health promote foods which are strongly linked to heart disease, obesity and cancer? In particular, sausages, bacon and other processed meats are extremely damaging to health, so much so that the World Cancer Research Fund have warned that there is no safe level of consumption.

The environmental impact of pig farming can also not be ignored, as reported by DEFRA, the impacts include; soil compaction and erosion, toxic levels of zinc in soils, soil and water contamination with heavy metals and antimicrobial drugs, leaching of manure heaps leading to nitrate pollution and pathogen transfer, methane emissions from manure, adverse affects on biodiversity due to pigs destroying outdoor spaces and ammonia emissions which can acidify the surrounding area, and for those living close to the pigs, issues of noise and odour.

Whilst Jamie’s efforts to lessen suffering and support local farmers is commendable, his claim that pigs are raised under better conditions in the UK than in Europe and his plea to buy British pork has no doubt resulted in people buying pork who would not normally do so. Unfortunately, the reality is that British pig farms are far from being ‘high welfare’, as numerous investigations have shown, but not only that, by promoting pork Jamie is also promoting disease and environmental destruction.

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Clearing for cattle grazing and to grow crops to feed animals is the main cause of deforestation. We all know that the destruction of forests is damaging to biodiversity and to the indigenous peoples who live there. However, many are unaware of the huge impact deforestation has on climate change.

According to Conservation International, the burning and clearing of tropical forests emits at least 20 percent of global greenhouse gases, more than all of the world’s cars, trucks and aeroplanes combined. Sound familiar? Animal agriculture is responsible for 18% of greenhouse gases, also more than all the world’s transport systems. Or are these figures actually reflecting the very same problem?

The number one driver of deforesation is the meat industry - the vast majority of forest is cleared for pasture or for growing grains to feed animals. If deforestation is responsible for 20% of all greenhouse gases, then 18% is a huge underestimate of the greenhouse gases accountable to animal agriculture. Deforestation is just one impact of the meat industry, but then we also have to remember the massive amounts of methane that animals produce and the transportation of soy and grain from Brazil, Argentina and the US to all the farmers around the world who rely on this protein-rich food to feed their animals.

Then, aside from climate change, if we add to the equation water use and pollution (it is estimated that in the USA livestock and feed crop agriculture are responsible for 37 percent of pesticide use, 50 percent of antibiotic use, and a third of the nitrogen and phosphorus loads in freshwater resources) and land degradation (about 70 percent of all grazing land in dry areas is considered degraded, mostly because of overgrazing, compaction and erosion attributable to livestock activity) - then we have a big problem.

The impact of the meat industry on the world is far far greater than anyone is willing to accept. When will people accept the facts and take the right action? Is a steak really worth destroying the planet for?

I have no doubt that this year’s National Vegetarian Week (19-25 May) will be a great success, even despite the carefully planned release of research to show that some veggie burgers and sausages have as much salt in them as meaty ones (seriously, who cares? They are still the healthier option because they don’t contain animal fats that cause heart disease and cancer and they will always be the best ethical choice for animals, people and the environment).

This year more than ever, vegetarianism is about much more than animals. Climate change and the current food crisis are also making people consider their dietary choices.

The Guardian’s Tony Naylor, a ‘committed carnivore’, in his own words, sums it up well. He says on his blog “I’m no economist, but if we eat less meat, the demand for grain for animal feed (and finished meat prices, slightly paradoxically) should fall. Which, in turn, should enable poorer populations to access cheaper grain. Moreover, it would seem to be something we each can effect immediately, today, by just eating and buying less meat”.

Going vegetarian is a great step towards creating a better world, but environmental and social impacts are not just restricted to meat. Dairy cows produce methane, need grazing space and grain just like cows reared for meat. The same goes for egg producing hens, they also live off grains (corn and soy mostly) just as egg raised for meat do.

Environmentalists have been telling us to eat locally produced food for years. However, we now know what we already suspected, eating local means nothing if you still eat meat.

A study by the Carnegie Mellon University shows “that a completely local diet would reduce a household’s greenhouse emissions by an amount equivalent to driving a car 1,600 km less per year. Switching from red meat to veggies just one day per week would spare 1,860 km of driving”. And this is just for switching to veggies one day per week, do it every day and that makes it equivalent to 13,020 km less of driving - almost the same amount of km an average American or Brit drives per year. That’s HUGE!

Despite Alistair Darling admitting that tackling climate change is “our greatest obligation to future generations”, the 2008 budget has done little to halt the “catastrophic economic and social consequences” he predicts as a result of inaction.

Darling’s focus has been on higher duties for planes, energy efficient homes and increased taxes for gas guzzling cars. Charges for plastic bags will also be introduced.

Environmental groups have complained that not enough has been done to combat the “biggest challenge the world faces”. Whilst they complain about the airport expansions and the like, no one has uttered a word about the cause of 18% of the world’s greenhouse gases - the one source which accounts for more greenhouse gases than all the gas guzzling cars, ships and planes in the world all put together - meat and dairy (2).

The UK population is currently around 61 million. A typical meat eater is responsible for 1.5 tonnes more carbon dioxide per year than the average vegan (6). Therefore, if the nation became vegan, we could save 91.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year.

Darling predicts that his measures to create homes with zero carbon emission by 2016 could save 75 million tonnes of carbon dioxide over the next 30 years. 75 million tonnes over 30 years - big deal!

Let’s concentrate on where we can make the most impact and introduce measures to encourage the nation’s transition to a plant based diet. If the results of Denmark’s meat-free period during WWI are anything to go by, we could also see a decrease of 34% in heart disease as well. (18)

At last Greenpeace joins the vegan and vegetarian campaigning groups and tells us we should go vegetarian to reduce our carbon footprint.

The scientists from the university of Aberdeen who wrote the report rightly point out that ‘a vegetarian diet produces much less Greenhouse House Gas over a lifetime’. They go on to look at the huge amounts of grain and forage required to produce just one kg of meat, the methane produced by sheep and cows and the fact that ‘the average amount of kcal fossil energy used per kcal of meat produced is 25. This is more than 11 times that of plant-based products, with an average input/output ratio of 2.2′

The energy needed to produce one kg of sheep meat is around 20 times more than that for potatoes, chicken meat uses around 11 times more.

For individuals wishing to reduce their GHG footprint, adopting a vegetarian diet, or at least reducing the quantity of meat products in the diet, would have beneficial GHG impacts.

Read the report.

The South African Mail & Guardian published an annoying article today. The journalist talks of Western animal rights groups telling Africa’s poor that they shouldn’t keep cows because they contribute to climate change.

Let’s make one point clear - Western animal rights groups target a Western audience. There is no question that the reduction in Western consumption of meat would hugely benefit the earth, animals and people. No-one is blaming developing countries, with their low meat consumption rates, of causing climate change as this article misleadingly suggests.

I wonder if the journalist has also told Africans that Western environmental groups are telling them to replace all their light bulbs with energy saving brands and to recycle their glass and paper?

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