Climate One podcast

Today on my commute into university, I listened to a podcast by 'Climate One at The Commonwealth Club' which discussed the relationship between climate change and various foods. It was entitled 'C1 Revue: Climate Change on your Kitchen Table' and lead by Greg Dalton, the founder of Climate One. Within the podcast, there were two parts that I found particular interesting and relevant to this blog.

16 minutes into the podcast...

Greg Dalton and others were discussing the notion of veganism and dairy products, and their influences on climatic change. What was most fascinating to me was the notion that rather than global population driving the demand for food, it is in fact wealth. Countries like India and China, and regions such as south-east Asia are gradually developing into middle class areas and following similar consumption patterns to western countries by eating more expensive foods. Other studies have noted this trend also, stating that there has been an increase in high meat diets and that ruminant meat consumption is becoming a symbol of growing affluence in countries (McAlpine et al., 2008; Lambin and Meyfroid, 2011).

27 minutes into the podcast...

Joining Greg Dalton in this part of the podcast was Kip Anderson, producer of Cowspiracy, Jonathan Kaplan, director of the food and agriculture program at NRDC, and Nicolette Hahn Niman, author of the book 'Defending Beef'. Various aspects of Cowspiracy were discussed and critiqued, which I found engaging as I have watched the documentary and have written a blog post about it. Kaplan mentioned that there was no evidence to support the allegation in Cowspiracy which was that environmentalist groups have been taking money from the livestock industry to cover up agricultural emissions. In addition, Hahn Niman disagreed with a notion in the documentary which was that livestock is inherently problematic. She discusses that if livestock agriculture is conducted well, it can have a positive environmental impact because livestock plays a role in aspects of soil, such as its fertility and microbiology. 

I found that the overall message from the podcast was that sustainable food production and consumption is necessary to reduce our environmental impact. Additionally, this does not have to be done through a zero-meat diet or drastic changes to one's lifestyle. Instead small steps, for example cutting down on meat or cheese consumption, can have a positive environmental impact; the phrase 'eat less, enjoy more' that was stated during the podcast definitely promotes this attitude. I highly recommend giving this a listen - click the photo below to get going!

(source: stitcher.com)