Defiant Imagination

Eat less meat to stop climate change?

Remember the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that UN group of scientists that said that climate change is due to human activity? Apparently they’ve decided to give the world one or two advices on how to reduce carbon emissions. They want us to eat less meat because meat production generates to much pollution and cows release methane through flatulence. Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the IPCC, said we should start by having one meat-free day a week. Eventually, governments should push us to reduce our meat consumption by 60% by 2020. Of course, the meat industry is angry.

I’m sure the IPCC members are wise people but they are scientists studying climate patterns, not policy-makers. This recommandation is simplistic and doesn’t take into account whether people already make an effort to eat food that is produced locally or not or try to reduce their emissions in other ways. Climate change is a global problem that can’t be solved by isolated measures such as this one. I don’t think this is educating people about what they can do in a proper manner.