THE GREEN NEW ‘DIET’: Why the UK Should Adopt a Plant-Based Food System
With the country on track to miss its 2050 climate change targets, according to the UK’s Climate Change Committee, it urgently needs to address animal agriculture’s role in the climate emergency.
MATTHEW ZAMPA: ‘The UK’s food and farming systems are in crisis. For years, climate groups and scientists around the world have called for a plant-based food system to avert climate breakdown. When will the government act?… The Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affair (DEFRA)… DEFRA is the UK’s chief government body supporting the animal farming industry… The Department announced that it will be conducting an independent review of the future of the country’s food system as part of a National Food Strategy – a strategy that has not been updated in 75 years…
To bring attention to the failings of the current food system, Animal Rebellion began occupying animal exploitation sites around the city earlier this month. This strong-willed band of Rebels found itself at the center of the media’s growing attention for plant-based and alternative food systems. Since Animal Rebellion’s founding back in July, the press has written 290 stories about the group. The bottom line of each story is clear: The government urgently needs to address animal agriculture’s role in the climate emergency. With the country on track to miss its 2050 climate change targets, according to the UK’s Climate Change Committee, the agricultural sector, which contributes to 11 percent of the UK’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, must play a vital role in reaching carbon zero…
“Animal agriculture is a leading cause of climate breakdown, ecosystem collapse, biodiversity loss, soil, air, and water degradation, eutrophication, flooding, deforestation, nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, species extinction and animal rights abuses,” said Suzy Bond, a spokesperson for Animal Rebellion. “It is of the utmost importance that we urgently transition away from animal agriculture and fishing if we are going to build a resilient, sustainable and humane agriculture sector”… Central to Animal Rebellion’s demands is that the government wakes up to the fact that that the world is already in a state of climate and ecological emergency wreaking havoc and afflicting millions, and that without urgent and radical action the conditions on which human civilization and other life on earth depend will be lost within the near future’. SOURCE…
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