Chicken or beef? Think carefully: your choice could help determine the future of the planet.
After raising the alarm on Friday about the fight for survival of many animal and plant species, responsibility for which they laid at the door of humanity, scientists stressed that humans can still redeem themselves.
And it does not have to be that hard.
“We don’t all have to become vegetarians,” said Robert Watson, an atmospheric scientist and head of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), which published the first major global species assessment in 13 years. “But a more balanced diet — less beef, more chicken, more vegetables — can really help relieve the pressure.”
The IPBES reports, released at a major environmental conference in Medellin, are meant to guide governments in policymaking.
However, the authors of the reports stressed that everyone has a role to play.
For example, when it comes to diet, Mark Rounsevell, a professor of sustainability who coauthored one of the four IPBES reports, pointed out that it takes about 25kg of plant matter to produce 1kg of beef.
Cows are also major emitters of methane, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming, which the IPBES warned is now one of the major threats to the planet’s biodiversity.
“Stop food waste,” was Watson’s next tip.
“Make sure you don’t buy too much from the supermarket... Get restaurants to have appropriate amounts of food on the plate,” he said.
The clearing of land for farming is a major enemy of biodiversity, driving animals and plants from their habitats.
Yet an estimated 40 percent of all farmed food goes to waste, and predictions are that production will have to double to feed an exploding human population.
The four IPBES reports, covering the entire planet except for Antarctica and the open oceans, said that irresponsible consumption by humans has driven species into decline in every region of the world.
However, the stakes are higher than just preserving nature.
“We’re undermining our own future well-being,” Watson said.
Nature provides humans with food, clean water, energy and regulates Earth’s climate — just about everything needed to survive and thrive.
It is not too late to halt the rate of destruction, and maybe even reverse some of it, the experts said.
Governments must lead the way: expand protected areas, restore degraded land and lead the switch from polluting coal, oil and natural gas to wind and solar power.
Biodiversity must find its way into all public policy, the reports said.
“At the moment, we tend to have very siloed policy. We have agricultural policy, we have fisheries policy, we have manufacturing policy, transport policy. They’re all very sectoral,” Rounsevell said. “We need to integrate concern for nature right across those different policies, because we know that those different sectors have substantial influence on nature.”
Some changes will require tough choices.
“Get rid of the subsidies in agriculture, transportation and energy that only distort the economic system and lead quite often to unsustainability in a way we manage our biodiversity,” Watson said.
Taxes might be needed, and goods might become more expensive.
Today, the “true cost” of producing many goods is not factored into their sales price, Rounsevell said.
These include greenhouse gas emissions from raising cows, and the land area required to produce the fodder to feed them.
“Taxes is one way of embedding the costs that are not part of the direct market,” Rounsevell said.
Jake Rice, who coauthored the Americas report, said the remedy for species decline might be a bitter pill for some.
“Yes, it will take fundamental changes in how we live as individuals, how we live as communities and how we live as corporations,” Rice said in Medellin. “We keep making choices to borrow from the future to live well today. We do not need to make those choices. There are other options available, but they will require political will, individual will and foresight.”
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