Thursday, September 18, 2008

Fighting climate change by reducing meat consumption

The average household can do more to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions if it cuts its meat consumption in half than if it cuts car use in half, according to a U.N. expert and winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Rajendra Pachauri is also challenging food manufacturers to use less meat in packaged products, and meat raised according to higher animal welfare standards when it is used, to also help combat climate change.

Read more from this recent foodnavigator.com article by Jess Halliday. Thanks to my colleague, University of Illinois Ag Law Professor A. Bryan Endres for the heads-up on the article.

1 comment:

MondayCampaigns said...

Yeah those stats about meat consumption are staggering. I just found out about them when I started working for a public health campaign called Meatless Mondays – it’s so easy to do so much for the environment and for your own health. According to Environmental Defense, if every American replaced one chicken meal per week with a vegetarian one, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than a half-million cars off U.S. roads. Check out www.meatlessmonday.com/dyk_environment for more info!