Addressing Climate Change through Diet

April 13, 2012

A dead ironwood tree (Prosopis africana) in Senegal, West Africa, is one of many trees that have died due to climate change.

A new study says one of the best ways to curb greenhouse gas emissions is to eat less meat. In fact, the study says meat consumption in the developed should be cut by 50 percent per person by 2050.

Meat production and consumption are expected to soar by 2050. That’s because the global population is projected to grow from the current 7 billion to 9 billion. But also, the diets of people in many developing countries are changing. Countries with emerging economies are seeing a sharp rise in protein consumption, especially red meat.

Dr. Eric Davidson said changing how people eat can have a dramatic effect on greenhouse gas emissions. People in developed countries, he said, already eat much more protein than the daily minimum requirement.

“In the developed world there’s considerable room for us to manage our portion sizes and the frequency with which we eat meat. We’re not talking about everybody suddenly needing to become a vegetarian. Rather it’s kind of reversing the supersize trend and being more mindful of the impacts of the amount of meat and the types of meat, both for the environment and our own health,” he said.

Davidson is the president and senior scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts.