Politicians need to be braver about the biggest issues – like our consumption of meat

At a time when scientific evidence on the environmental effects of the meat industry, and how those effects can be reduced, has been compellingly presented, politicians often go to great lengths to avoid the topic.

COLIN ALEXANDER: ‘Scientists, environmentalists and animal rights activists have said it for many years. Now conclusive analysis has confirmed their argument. The global meat industry not only damages our health and is ethically dubious – it is unsustainable because of the damage it does to the environmental prospects of our planet. Yet politicians have little desire to do anything meaningful about it. Instead, they have a long history of ignoring or suppressing inconvenient evidence that is detrimental to the major industries of a free market economy…

The meat industry is one of the largest political lobby groups across the world, providing financial support to many mainstream political parties and their candidates. Politicians, many of whom are meat eaters, stay clear. They likely conclude that confronting such a powerful interest group is not in their career (or meal time) interests. The mainstream media also regularly falls short. Earlier this year, the BBC’s Today programme included an interview with a sheep farmer from Northumberland… The interview was essentially the meat industry’s PR response – broadcast on Radio 4’s flagship news show…

This at a time when scientific evidence on the environmental effects of the meat industry, and how those effects can be reduced, has been compellingly presented. That this debate continues to sit in the sphere of “legitimate controversy” is a bit like having a debate in 2018 on whether smoking is detrimental to your health… Instead politicians often go to great lengths to avoid the topic. When they do engage, they do so begrudgingly, putting all their rigour into a division of responsibility that excuses themselves to the greatest extent’. SOURCE…

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