Would you like to do a challenge with me?
The simplest, quickest, and most effective individual climate action
Dear Solution-aries,
This month, I spoke with Kris Cameron for Rotary International Magazine, where I’m a contributing editor. “A year ago, I had no idea that what we eat had anything to do with the climate or environment!” Kris told me. Now she’s a member of the Plant-Rich Diet Task Force at Rotary. “I liken adopting plant-based diets to Dorothy's ruby slippers – we've had the power all along to mitigate climate change; we just need to use it.”
Honestly, the research floored me. Here are the facts: The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization attributes over a third of all greenhouse gas emissions to global food systems. According to Project Drawdown, a world-renowned research organization, “If cattle were their own nation, they would be the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases.”
A worldwide shift toward plant-based diets would likely keep global warming to 1.5 Celsius, according to a 2021 study published in the scientific journal Nature Sustainability. Similar to the Paris Agreement, where nations agreed to limit their CO2 emissions, climate activists are advocating for the Plant Based Treaty, a food-focused pledge to help mitigate climate change by changing what we eat. Already, more than 80,000 individuals, including five Nobel laureates, nearly 1,000 NGOs and more than 20 cities and states have signed up.
“Therefore, simply shifting our food preferences towards a more plant-rich diet can be the simplest, quickest and probably the most effective individual climate action that we can take to alleviate the immense stress that our planet is under due to industrialized animal agriculture,” the Rotary Task Force writes.
According to a study by the University of Bonn, balancing environmental, health and food injustice issues would require rich countries to cut meat consumption by at least 75 percent. Americans are the world’s top meat eaters, consuming around 124 kilograms of meat per person per year.
A plant-rich diet is rich in foods sourced from plants – whole grains, legumes, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds and minimum in foods sourced from animals – meat, dairy, eggs and seafood.
Like me, Kris Cameron grew up in cattle-ranching land, where a meal without meat wasn’t a meal. But two years ago, she brought home four baby chicks. Researching how to best care for them made her aware of the “horrors of industrial factory farming.”
Cameron developed a standalone version of the 15-day plant-based Rotary diet challenge communities or individuals can do at any time. It is such a success that Rotary now offers it online worldwide, and you can do it, too, whether you’re a Rotary member or not: https://esrag.org/plant-rich-diet/
Initially, animal welfare was Cameron’s main motivation, but after a year of mostly plant-based eating, the trim retired school teacher notices how her health has improved, “My husband and I’ve both lost weight; our cholesterol has dropped through the basement; we both have more energy.“ Apart from the physical benefits, she feels better about their new lifestyle.
Cameron is convinced that eating animal products will eventually become as shunned as tobacco is now. “People are always asking, ‘Don’t you miss anything?’ No, I don’t! There’s this whole push by Big Ag to say, you need dairy, you need meat, just like big tobacco used to say, smoking is really good for your health. And they know it isn’t.”
I was a vegetarian for 13 years. Similarly to Kris, I had grown up in the countryside and as a child, I thought all cows happily grazed in green meadows and all chicken ran free. When I saw my first documentary about mass chicken farming, that was it. I stopped eating chicken and soon all meat.
The research reminds me to return to the plant-based dishes I love. I’m attaching the starter kit. It’s free.
Also, many thanks to the LA Press Club for awarding me first place as a columnist at the Awards 2023 for my viewpoint about gun safety:
“What Growing Up in Rural Germany Taught Me About Gun Safety”
The jury called it, “A very interesting and insightful perspective of American gun culture coming from a non-native now living in this country. Well written and backed up by data.”
Happy Fourth!
Michaela