5 min read

To avoid climate breakdown, we must embrace a plant based diet 🥑🌏

The climate crisis is your fault and you should really reduce your carbon footprint - says the fossil fuel industry as they continue to generate billions of dollars from the extraction of fossil fuels; manipulatively lobbying governments to keep us locked into an outdated energy system, knowing all too well what's at stake.

Most of the climate crisis can be attributed to the inaction of governments and big corporations worldwide. No matter how much we each try to reduce our 'individual carbon footprint', a term embraced by the fossil fuel industry, we've been locked into such a carbon-intensive system in our day-to-day lives that it is very difficult to escape.

The responsibility to pull us out of this system rests mostly with those who have caused the problem: governments and multinational corporations. That is why we are seeing climate litigation all around the world to hold them to account:

In 2019, a landmark decision was made in the Dutch Supreme Court, the highest court in the Netherlands, finding that the Dutch Government has obligations to urgently and significantly reduce emissions in line with its human rights obligations.

However there's one area which arguably affords a high level of autonomy to the individual in order to have a significant impact. You guessed it, it's what we eat.

Meat and dairy are currently responsible for approximately:

14% of global greenhouse gas emissions
60% of deforestation
90 billion land animal deaths annually

But the good news is that just by switching to a plant based diet, we can reduce agricultural land-use by 75% and diet related emissions by 50%.

Animal agriculture is responsible for 60% of global deforestation. Image: Pexels

The land-use burden

We currently use 44% of habitable land on Earth to feed ourselves. That's about 5 times the size of the United States. But here's the thing - of this 44%, only about one third is used to grow crops, and the other two thirds is used for meat and dairy production. What is even more shocking is that only half of the crops grown are actually consumed by humans, as the rest is used to feed livestock, and to produce biofuels and other industrial products.

In the Amazon, roughly 80% of deforestation is driven by beef production. This reality is extremely shocking, considering that the Amazon is home to roughly one tenth of the world’s known biodiversity.

How do we use less land?

If everyone decided to go plant based, we would reduce the land we use to feed ourselves to just one quarter of what we use today. So what would we do with all the extra farmland? Well, it can be returned to nature. For example, rather than governments providing subsidies to farmers to keep the meat and dairy industry running, governments could pay farmers to re-wild their land. This forms a critical step in restoring biodiversity to combat climate breakdown.

“We must radically reduce the area we use to farm, so that we can make space for returning wilderness. And the quickest and most effective way to do that, is for us to change our diet” - Sir David Attenborough.

The warming effects of methane

Roughly 14% of global greenhouse gases are from farming animals, which is about the same as the emissions from all the cars, trucks and buses combined. Isn’t that mind-blowing?

The biggest greenhouse gas culprit from farming animals is methane, mainly from burping and farting cows. The problem with methane is that it’s incredibly potent; it has about 85x more warming potential than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.

So while the cattle roaming the countryside might make for a beautiful sight, it’s a massive contributor to climate breakdown, through the methane they produce, and the huge amount of land that has been cleared to raise them.

Roughly 14% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from farming animals. Image: Pexels

The water-use burden

Meat and dairy consumption also puts a huge strain on our water use. It takes about 15,000 litres of water to produce 1kg of beef, compared to 2,500 litres for 1kg of tofu and 1,300 litres for chickpeas. As the climate crisis further exacerbates water scarcity, it's vital that we turn towards solutions that reduce the burden on our precious water sources.

Image: Pexels

"It's not the cow, it's the how!"

Many argue that it's not the meat we're eating, it's how the meat is being farmed. They argue that we can use regenerative grazing practices that help to restore degraded land and put carbon back into the soil. While it's true that regenerative agriculture is a far better practice than current feedlot or pasture-fed practices, it's not a single solution. One study found that even with regenerative grazing, at best it can only offset 20% to 60% of the emissions from the grazing cattle, and then we've still got a land-use problem.

By reducing our burden on the land through transitioning to plant-based foods, we could return land that isn't needed for farming back to its natural state to sequester much more carbon, and restore biodiversity in those areas. Regenerative grazing practices have a place, but they are definitely not the be-all solution.

A plant based diet can be better for your health and better for the planet. Image: Pexels - Ella Olsson

Avoiding climate breakdown

The IPCC has outlined the need to shift to plant based diets to avoid climate breakdown. So whilst the responsibility to phase out fossil fuels rests on the shoulders of governments and multinational corporations, the responsibility of reducing meat and dairy consumption rests largely with individuals.

It is arguably one of the easiest choices we can make, with huge benefits to our health and the planet’s health. So, let’s all do our best to go plant based, and ensure we educate those around us of the urgent need to change our diets.

With the global population currently hurtling towards 10 billion, it's vital that we alter the way we use the land. A big part of that means shifting towards a largely plant based diet. We cannot cut down forests to make way for grazing livestock forever.

With the global population currently hurtling towards 10 billion, it's vital that we alter the way we use the land, and a big part of that means shifting towards a largely plant based diet. We cannot cut down forests to make way for grazing livestock forever.

"Saving the planet is now a communications challenge"- Sir David Attenborough.