Tag: meat

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Dutch City Becomes First In The World To Ban Meat Adverts In Public

Haarlem has banned all public advertising for meat due to their impact on the planet

Polly Foreman, PlantBased News, September, 2022

A city in Holland has made history after agreeing to ban advertisements for meat products in public spaces.

Haarlem, which is located roughly 20 miles west of Amsterdam and has a population of 150,000, made the decision due to the link between meat production and the climate crisis.

Meat adverts will be banned on buses, shelters, and screens in public spaces. They will join the list of already-banned adverts for flying, petrol powered cars, and the fossil fuel industry. These are also banned in Amsterdam, Leiden, and The Hague, but Harleem is the first city to add meat to this list.

“Meat is just as harmful to the environment,” a GroenLinks Party councilor Ziggy Klazes told Doutch publication Trouw. “We can’t tell people there’s a climate crisis and encourage them to buy products that are part of the cause.” …

Holland cracks down on animal agriculture

This isn’t the first official stance against animal agriculture in the country.

In July of this year, farmers across Holland staged a number of protests after the government announced plans to reduce livestock herds to combat nitrogen emissions.

Farmers rode their tractors through cities and blocked roads in response, with one being shot at by police after a “threatening” situation arose. The protests ended with three arrests made for attempted murder.

Animal agriculture’s impact on the environment

Animal agriculture is catastrophic for the environment. It’s responsible for at least 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, which is more than the entire transport sector combined.

It is also a leading cause of rainforest destruction, and has contributed to around 91 percent of Amazon deforestation.

[… Read more at ]

 

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Tilting menus towards plants cuts meat eating, study shows

Damian Carrington, The Guardian, Jan. 31, 2022

Making more sustainable choices easier could be a more acceptable approach than meat taxes, say researchers

Tilting menus towards plant-based meals significantly cuts the amount of meat eaten, according to new research.

The experiments in work and university cafeterias showed making it easier to choose meat-free food can be effective and could be a more acceptable approach than other proposals, such as taxing meat or banning it on certain days.

Meat production is an important driver of the climate crisis and red meat in particular is linked to heart disease and other illnesses. Substantial falls in meat consumption are needed in rich nations to curb global heating and ill health.

The new research, published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, involved three separate experiments, including the first scientific online study of plant-based menu choices. This used a representative sample of 2,200 UK adults and found that when three of four meal options were meat-based, 12% chose the plant-based option. But when three of four meal options were vegetarian, 48% chose the vegetarian meal. The effect was the same whether the participants were female or male, rich or poor….

[… Read more at The Guardian ]

 

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Changing Behaviour for Net Zero 2050

Marteau, Theresa M., Nick Chater, Emma E. Garnett, “Changing Behaviour for Net Zero 2050,”  British Medical Journal 375 (2021). doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n2293

Theresa Marteau and colleagues argue for rapid, radical changes to the infrastructure and pricing systems that currently support unhealthy unsustainable behaviour

“Many major economies, including the US, EU, and UK, have committed to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 to limit climate change. Immediate action is needed to hit this target and to minimise cumulative emissions. Current commitments are, however, unmatched by action….

The latest International Panel on Climate Change report estimates that if global emissions are halved by 2030 and net zero is reached by 2050, the current rise in temperatures could be halted and possibly reversed. The 26th UN climate change conference (COP26) in November 2021 offers a precious opportunity to get back on track.

Behaviour change by individuals, commercial entities, and policy makers is critical to achieving net zero in all domains. Here we focus on behaviour concerning diet and land travel, given their importance for both achieving net zero and improving population health, but the approaches we outline are also applicable to other behaviours.

Diet and land travel contribute an estimated 26% and 12% of greenhouse gas emissions, respectively. Cutting these emissions would also benefit health by reducing air pollution—now the greatest external threat to human health—increasing physical activity, and healthier diets, thereby tackling major risk factors for non-communicable disease globally.”

“Dietary change is likely to deliver far greater environmental benefits than can be achieved by food producers.”

This paper considers the behaviour of three groups central to achieving net zero by 2050: the public (both as citizens and consumers), policy makers, and private sector leaders.

Key messages:

  • Current government policies globally are insufficient for the rapid decarbonisation needed for net zero by 2050
  • Changing behaviour across populations is key to achieving this as technological innovation will be insufficient
  • Changing behaviour at scale requires changing the environments that drive the behaviour
  • Changes to diet and land travel can be achieved through policies to increase the availability and affordability of healthier and more sustainable options.
  • Policies for net zero need to be driven by evidence and citizens’ values, safeguarded from corporate interference

[… Read full article at the British Medical Journal ]

 

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Meat accounts for nearly 60% of all greenhouse gases from food production, study finds

Production of meat worldwide emits 28 times as much as growing plants, and most crops are raised to feed animals bound for slaughter

Oliver Milman, The Guardian, Sept. 13, 2021

The global production of food is responsible for a third of all planet-heating gases emitted by human activity, with the use of animals for meat causing twice the pollution of producing plant-based foods, a major new study has found.

The entire system of food production, such as the use of farming machinery, spraying of fertilizer and transportation of products, causes 17.3bn metric tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, according to the research. This enormous release of gases that fuel the climate crisis is more than double the entire emissions of the US and represents 35% of all global emissions, researchers said.

“The emissions are at the higher end of what we expected, it was a little bit of a surprise,” said Atul Jain, a climate scientist at the University of Illinois and co-author of the paper, published in Nature Food. “This study shows the entire cycle of the food production system, and policymakers may want to use the results to think about how to control greenhouse gas emissions.”

The raising and culling of animals for food is far worse for the climate than growing and processing fruits and vegetables for people to eat, the research found, confirming previous findings on the outsized impact that meat production, particularly beef, has on the environment.

The use of cows, pigs and other animals for food, as well as livestock feed, is responsible for 57% of all food production emissions, the research found, with 29% coming from the cultivation of plant-based foods. The rest comes from other uses of land, such as for cotton or rubber. Beef alone accounts for a quarter of emissions produced by raising and growing food….

The paper’s calculations of the climate impact of meat is higher than previous estimates – the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization has said about 14% of all emissions come from meat and diary production. The climate crisis is also itself a cause of hunger, with a recent study finding that a third of global food production will be at risk by the end of the century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at their current rate.

Scientists have consistently stressed that if dangerous global heating is to be avoided, a major rethink of eating habits and farming practices is required. Meat production has now expanded to the point that there are now approximately three chickens for every human on the planet….

[… Read more at The Guardian ]

 

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