Links tagged “agriculture”

British Medical Journal study: "To meet the planetary health diet recommendations, average meat consumption in Africa can slightly increase (2%), whereas in North America and Europe it needs to fall by 79% and 68%, respectively. ... "Sustainable land travel will involve substantially fewer journeys by car and more journeys taken by foot, bicycle, and public transport, ensuring that all transport is carbon neutral and powered by renewable energy."

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Breitbart News: A report produced by Cambridge University academics has called for foods with so-called high carbon footprints, such as dairy and meat, to be made more expensive in order to save the planet. The Cambridge University-led study published by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) says that “education” alone on changing diets towards more plant-based habits and abandoning car ownership is not enough. The report, “Changing Behaviour for Net Zero 2050” instead suggests there be “rapid, radical changes” to pricing in order to make normal food consumption and travel prohibitively expensive. In forcing people to abandon their cars, the scientists suggest increasing prices of fossil fuels and charging private car owners for road use, including “congestion zone charging and increased parking costs”. “Restricting availability and attractiveness of car use — eg, car-free zones, limited parking, traffic calming measures, and low-speed limits” was also recommended.

Time Mag: Global food production accounts for one-third of all greenhouse-gas emissions, according to a comprehensive study published this year in the journal Nature Food that looked at every aspect of food production from transportation to packaging. Meat production alone makes up nearly 60% of that total. The study underscores the growing consensus that in order to stave off the worst impacts of climate change, the world needs a dramatic rethinking of how food is produced and consumed...

Increasingly, companies and scientists are viewing insects as an environmentally sustainable alternative source of protein. Crickets, grasshoppers and beetles are already commercially produced and processed for human and animal consumption. Ynsect, a 10-year-old French company, is focused on mealworms, the larval stage of beetles.

Ynsect co-founder and CEO Antoine Hubert: "We are not far from reaching tipping points where then things get worse and it cascades and waterfalls—you can’t stop it anymore. Time is very critical...There is a huge need to reduce our consumption of beef. We should keep beef consumption, grazing, on a smaller scale with high levels of fresh products. But everything that is a processed meat should be 100% replaced at some point by alternatives. Insects will be a part of the answer."

The Conversation: "We ran global climate model projections based on Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP), which are “time-dependent projections of atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations.” Our projections modelled low (RCP6.0), medium (RCP4.5) and high mitigation scenarios (RCP2.6, which corresponds to the “well-below 2 degrees Celsius” Paris Agreement goal) up to the year 2500. We also modelled vegetation distribution, heat stress and growing conditions for our current major crop plants, to get a sense of the kind of environmental challenges today’s children and their descendants might have to adapt to from the 22nd century onward. ... 

The Earth of our high-end projections is alien to humans. The choice we face is to urgently reduce emissions, while continuing to adapt to the warming we cannot escape as a result of emissions up to now, or begin to consider life on an Earth very different to this one."

Fmr. UN Climate Chief CHRISTIANA FIGUERES: "Changing what we put on our plates has become an urgent priority" ... "The pandemic has taught us that rapid change is possible. Now, we must bring the same urgency (and even more follow-through) to fixing our relationship with food and how we produce it." ...

"Changing what we eat is a radical act that will make us and nature healthier and happier. By making nature-conscious eating choices and helping to spread the word, each of us can contribute to keeping planetary warming within the 1.5° Celsius limit laid out in the Paris agreement. A healthier plate makes for a safer planet."

A jump in gas prices has forced several domestic energy suppliers out of business and has shut fertiliser plants that also make CO2 as a by-product of their production process.

The CO2 gas is used to stun animals before slaughter, in the vacuum packing of food products to extend their shelf life, and to put the fizz into beer, cider and soft drinks. CO2's solid form is dry ice, which is used in food deliveries.

The CO2 crisis has compounded an acute shortage of truck drivers in the UK, which has been blamed on the impact of COVID-19 and Brexit.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is calling for “urgent action” on climate change in a bid to tackle “abnormal” weather that he blames for the nation’s crippling food shortage. Kim ordered his officials to clamp down on climate change during a Politburo meeting last Thursday, according to the Korean Central News Agency. Kim said the “danger” of climate change had increased in recent years and “disastrous weather” was only getting worse. “Our country is also lying vulnerable to its danger,” Kim said.

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Flashback: Newsweek Headline Celebrates Taliban Vow to ‘Fight Terror and Climate Change’ & Seek ‘World Recognition’