India’s environment minister Jairam Ramesh has urged the West to stop eating beef. According to the Telegraph he said “The solution to cut emissions is to stop eating beef. It leads to emission of methane which is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide.”

Most people in India are Hindu and believe that cows are sacred. Ramesh said “What India has going for it is the fact that we are not a major beef eating nation.”

This message from India is a reminder that climate change is not just an environmental issue but one of social justice too. The way we live our lives in developed countries directly impacts the lives of others. Eating meat causes climate change; climate change causes extreme weather, rises in sea levels, droughts and food shortages - and those that suffer the most are those least responsible for climate change.

Read the Telegraph article here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/6615422/India-tells-West-to-stop-eating-beef.html

Whilst the media hype regarding biofuels and the food crisis continues, the European Union defended them yesterday. EU Commissioner for agriculture and rural development Mariann Fischer Boel said that biofuels are being unfairly blamed for the recent food price increases and that two other factors, which are much more significant, have been overlooked.

She went on to explain that the increase in demand from China and India for meat and dairy, both of which have populations over 1 billion, has a huge impact on food prices. “It takes about 4 kg of cereals to produce one kg of pork, and about two kg of cereals to make one kg of poultry meat.”, she explained.

The other factor is the weather, and its effect on production. In 2006 and 2007 bad weather hit cereal production in many parts of the world. There is no doubt that climate change has played it’s part in the recent weather changes.

We know eating meat is an inefficient use of precious resources, we know that it is also a leading cause of climate change. Adopting a vegan diet is the most important step an individual can take to help solve the food crisis.