A
landmark report has been officially supported by the British
Departments of Health as well as Environment, Food and Rural Affairs,
the United Nations World Health Organization, and others.
Published
in the esteemed medical journal, The Lancet, the report advises that
both meat production and consumption be reduced by one-third, as the
only way to meet the country’s ambitious carbon emission reduction
goals. Furthermore, citizens would be more than compensated by direct
and favorable effects on health. Dr. Alan Dangour - London School of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK: The policy is reduced production,
because our primary aim is to reduce carbon emissions, and we’re saying,
in our series of papers, look at the health co-benefits. I think it is
important for people to become much more aware about the true carbon
costs of food production. Meat and meat products and dairy have an
enormous carbon cost.
Today, the climate savings of plant-based
eating are abundantly known, such as findings that a vegetarian diet
saves more greenhouse gases than a hybrid car, or that an animal-free
vegan diet reduces emissions by 94% compared to one with meat-based
fare.
Regarding health savings, co-author Dr. Alan Dangour of
the UK’s London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine stated that
these could be even greater than the 18,000 lives forecast to be saved
from heart disease alone if other meat-related diseases, such as
colorectal cancer and obesity, were included. The hope is that knowing
the true health costs will prompt the public to voluntarily shift away
from harmful animal products. Dr. Alan Dangour: That information and the
knowledge of the risks of climate change combined should allow them to
make decisions about their future consumption patterns.
Our
thanks Dr. Dangour and all researchers involved, as well as the British
and United Nations officials who are prudently weighing the climate
costs of livestock raising and meat consumption. May we all choose the
plant-based diet to save our lives and the planet. In addressing the
impacts of meat on all areas of our lives, Supreme Master Ching Hai has
for decades urged the remedy of the vegan diet as in a May 2008
videoconference in South Korea.
Supreme
Master Ching Hai: You see the meat diet not only causes the
greatest emission of poisonous gas into the planet atmosphere but many
other costs. There is the transportation energy cost, the electricity
energy cost, there’s water wasting cost, there’s a land resource
occupation cost, there’s a deforestation cost and there’s a related
illness medical cost and there’s the grievance, sorrow of the people who
lost loved ones due to disease related to meat diet cost.
And
because we use food to feed livestock for human consumption instead of
feeding directly to humans, therefore there is the cost of war and
famine due to shortage of food and resources. Add them together, then we
will see the real answer. So, right now, what’s good for our planet –
vegan diet - we do it. We try as best as we can.
Reference:
http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2009/11/25/Brit-official-backs-meat-reduction-report/UPI-81791259183429/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6933045.ece
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