As I opened my laptop earlier this week I was struck by the chilling Special Report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The message was loud and clear:
either we act now, or it will be too late.
Climate scientists around the world are urging governments and individuals to take action in order to limit global warming to 1.5°C. The report highlights the significant difference that only a few degrees can have on the state of our planet’s climate. At the current pace we are heading in the opposite direction. We are on a catastrophic trajectory towards 3°C. But there is hope, a narrow window of opportunity to curb the current trend before it is too late.
It is evident that major changes are required on government and policy level, but what can we as individuals do besides using our vote and demand policy change? This is a question I started asking myself a couple of years ago when I realised I had to do something about my huge ecological footprint requiring around 2.6 planets to sustain my "average European" lifestyle. I knew about the importance of flying less, changing lightbulbs and recycling, to name a few, but I had not heard of the environmental cost of animal agriculture, until I watched the documentary Cowspiracy: the sustainability secret.
This documentary unveiled a chocking connection between the beef burger I had had for lunch and global environmental change. It blames the livestock industry for emitting more greenhouse gases than the whole transportation section combined, being the main driver of deforestation, desertification, global fresh water depletion, biodiversity loss and species extinction, water pollution as well as ocean acidification.
Even though some facts and figures in the documentary are debatable (which I will look into in upcoming posts), this was a turning point for me. It was evident that one of the leading causes of environmental degradation was in fact something I had not heard of - animal agriculture. The environmental cost of food seemed to be vastly underrepresented in the discussion on sustainable lifestyles, and as an environmentally conscious (at least what I thought I was) geography student, I knew I had to do something. I have since then, step by step, excluded different animal products from my diet.
Food is so much more than just nutrition. It is an ingrained cultural, personal and social habit and is thus often a touchy subject. The aim of this blog is to delve into the scientific research behind the impacts of animal agriculture to find out if this industry actually is the root of the most pressing environmental problems that we are facing today. And if we, in fact, should rethink our everyday habits for the sake of our planet and future generations.
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