Hallo, bright viewers, and welcome to Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants. Today, October 24, is the International Day of Climate Action, during which people around the world are participating in thousands of grass roots events to raise awareness of the need for urgent action on global warming and to ask world leaders to halt it at the United Nations Climate Change Conference this December in Copenhagen, Denmark.
According to the 2006 United Nations report 『Livestock's Long Shadow,』 meat production is the single largest contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that the fastest and most effective way to halt climate change is to 『eat less meat.』 Some studies now estimate that the meat production cycle is responsible for 60 percent or more of all greenhouse gases released on Earth.
Based on such research, many livestock farmers are coming to realize the extremely negative environmental impact of their work, and are switching to raising food crops. On today's program we’ll visit three of these farmers, whose benevolent decision to leave the livestock industry is helping to save the planet. First, we travel to Formosa (Taiwan) to meet Mr. Luo Hon-Xian of Lin Ko Township, who has recently stopped raising pigs for slaughter. Mr. Luo discusses why he made this wonderful change.