Climate Change Expert: Go Vegetarian to Save Planet

One of the world's leading experts on climate change has said that people becoming vegetarians would help the fight against global warming.

Speaking to the London Times, Lord Stern of Brentford, formerly chief economist with the World Bank, now I. G. Patel Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, and the author of a 2006 review on the economics of climate change, said:

Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better

Lord Stern's assertion is largely based around the fact that methane, the gas emitted by cows and pigs, is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. Data produced by the UN indicates that some 18 percent of global carbon emissions are attributable to meat production. Destroying forest land to enable the creation of cattle ranches and the growing of animal feeds are amongst the activities involved in meat production that contribute to the level of emissions identified by the UN. Lord Stern, who admitted that he is not a strict vegetarian himself, opined that in time people would modify their eating habits as they became more aware of the impact those habits can have on the environment. He noted:

I am 61 now and attitudes towards drinking and driving have changed radically since I was a student. People change their notion of what is responsible. They will increasingly ask about the carbon content of their food

The meat industry in the U.K. does not share Lord Stern's views, with Jonathan Scurlock, responding on behalf of the National Farmers Union, stating:

Going vegetarian is not a worldwide solution. It’s not a view shared by the NFU. Farmers in this country are interested in evidence-based policymaking. We don’t have a methane-free cow or pig available to us

In addition the Farmers Guardian reports that Dr David Garwes, an independent livestock scientist, recently produced a study, it is called Reducing Emissions from Livestock and was released by the Royal Agricultural Society of England, in which he explained:

More than 60 per cent of British agricultural land is grassland and much of it, particularly the hills and uplands, is unsuitable for other crops. Semi-permanent rough grazing and improved grasslands play a vital role in locking up carbon dioxide and regulating the flow of rain into water courses. Without livestock farming, those natural resources would be abandoned and the landscape would soon change beyond recognition

Dr Garwes added that a reduction in livestock numbers, due to more efficient production methods, has led to lower emissions because one cow producing 8,000 litres of milk per year emits less methane than two cows each producing 4,000 litres of milk per year.

White House photo by Pete D'Souza

President Barack Obama reads a document during a break between phone calls in the Oval Office

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According to the London Times Lord Stern sees the presence of U.S. President Barack Obama at the climate change conference in Copenhagen in December as important because leadership from the U.S. will be vital if a meaningful agreement is to be reached. Lord Stern classes a meaningful agreement as one which sees the price of meat and other foods responsible for large quantities of greenhouse gases subsequently rising. A failure to address the issue of climate change, for example by allowing food production to continue in its current form, could, Lord Stern estimates, see temperatures in the early part of the next century 5 degrees Celsius/41 degrees Fahrenheit higher than they are now. The Daily Mail quotes him as saying that, as a result of such a dramatic rise in temperature, "Southern Europe is likely to be a desert; hundreds of millions of people will have to move. There will be severe global conflict".