Lancet article says cut meat consumption to reduce greenhouse gases

[Guest guest]

found this on another list...

 

The important sentence: " To prevent increased greenhouse-gas

emissions from this production sector, both the average worldwide

consumption level of animal products and the intensity of emissions

from livestock production must be reduced. "

 

The *must* is a surprise -- usually articles like this are quite

tentative and use " should " instead.

 

______

Lancet 2007

doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(07)61256-2

Food, livestock production, energy, climate change, and health

Prof Anthony J McMichael PhD, John W Powles PhDb, Colin D Butler PhD and

Prof Ricardo Uauy PhD

 

Food provides energy and nutrients, but its acquisition requires energy

expenditure. In post-hunter-gatherer societies, extra-somatic energy has

greatly expanded and intensified the catching, gathering, and production

of food. Modern relations between energy, food, and health are very

complex, raising serious, high-level policy challenges. Together with

persistent widespread under-nutrition, over-nutrition (and sedentarism)

is causing obesity and associated serious health consequences.

Worldwide, agricultural activity, especially livestock production,

accounts for about a fifth of total greenhouse-gas emissions, thus

contributing to climate change and its adverse health consequences,

including the threat to food yields in many regions. Particular policy

attention should be paid to the health risks posed by the rapid

worldwide growth in meat consumption, both by exacerbating climate

change and by directly contributing to certain diseases. To prevent

increased greenhouse-gas emissions from this production sector, both the

average worldwide consumption level of animal products and the intensity

of emissions from livestock production must be reduced. An international

contraction and convergence strategy offers a feasible route to such a

goal. The current global average meat consumption is 100 g per person

per day, with about a ten-fold variation between high-consuming and

low-consuming populations. 90 g per day is proposed as a working global

target, shared more evenly, with not more than 50 g per day coming from

red meat from ruminants (ie, cattle, sheep, goats, and other digastric

grazers).