Food we eat has major implications on climate change!

Scenario-1

“Mahaprasad” or “Abadha” is food for the gods, steam-cooked in earthen vessels, and is unique to Odisha’s temple culture. This food cannot be cooked in any other medium. Pockets of artisans belonging to “kumbhar” or potter community have been making these earthenware for generations and supplying them to Shri Jagannath Temple at Puri, and, Ananta Vasudev temple at Bhubaneswar.

In the aftermath of Cyclone Fani in May 2019, Chasapada, a pottery village near Chandanpur in Puri, was completely decimated. Five families of kumbhars in this village, who make the earthen cookware for Shri  Jagannath Temple and Ananta Vasudev temple, were left homeless, as the cyclone razed their huts to the ground. More helplessness and hopelessness followed, when they realized that along with their homes, their studios which housed the kilns, which were the only means of livelihood for them, were also destroyed.

This potter community of Odisha has been a victim of ‘climate change’.                 

Scenario-2

“Can a Hamburger Help Solve Climate Change?” - As a clueless kid, Kavya, aged 5, read this on a doodled wall hanging in a restaurant and quizzed her mother seating beside her. ‘It might be a good idea to watch what you put on your plate, because it will ultimately affect our beautiful planet’ – mother replied to Kavya firmly.  The mother said again, so we must fight climate change with our diet change.

A recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) foretells a grim future if humans don’t reduce their impact on climate. If average global temperatures rise 2 degrees Celsius over the pre-industrial average, weather will continue to become more extreme, posing a risk to agricultural food supplies that could trigger a global food crisis, the report states. About 25 percent of climate change today is fueled by agriculture and factory farming, according to Johnathan Foley, a world-renowned environmental scientist, sustainability expert.

It’s important to understand that food and climate both influence each other. If we make small changes in our daily lives, especially the way we eat, we can alleviate much of the effects of climate change.

                                                          In this write-up, we will briefly examine ‘What exactly do we mean by climate change?’ and ‘How our diets impact climate change?’ In the end, we will explore sustainable solutions as to how we can overcome this challenge of climate change and build a sustainable ecosystem.

Climate Change – A Daunting Challenge

Let’s keep the science lesson simple: Gases in the atmosphere act like a blanket to keep the planet warm and habitable. Some human activities release harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and cause the Earth to warm too much, significantly changing climate patterns around the world. You know what releases more greenhouse gases than any other human activity? Raising animals for food, transporting them to slaughter, and processing their bodies.

More powerful hurricanes, intense rain, flooding, severe droughts, more wildfires, insect irruptions, and record temperatures are some of the signs of climate change that we’re currently experiencing. Melting glaciers, rising sea levels, a warmer and more acidic ocean, and shrinking sea ice are also symptoms of a warming planet, with serious global impacts on coastal and marine life.

Changing Dietary Patterns

A slew of high-level reports produced over the last few months all argues that if the world is to make an impact on the climate crisis, the food system needs to be radically reshaped.

‘The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAOSTAT) analysed the consumption patterns of countries across the world over a period of 50 years (1961-2011). The average daily protein consumption has risen from 55g per day to 59g per day in the past 25 years (from 1990-2015) with the protein from animal consumption increasing from 9g per day to 12g. The share of dietary energy supplied from cereals and roots has decreased from an average of 66g per day to 59g.’ – The above statistics show that the consumption of meat and animal-based products has increased and the consumption of grains has decreased whilst the average daily sugar and fat intake has also increased.

Food systems contribute 21% to 37% of global greenhouse gases, and are significant contributors to deforestation, biodiversity loss and declining water tables. The recent incident of Amazon forest fires in Brazil are directly related one way or another to food production.

Animal Agriculture vs. Climate Change

Feeding massive amounts of grain and water to farmed animals and then killing them and processing, transporting, and storing their flesh is extremely energy-intensive. And forests, which absorb greenhouse gases, are cut down in order to supply pastureland and grow crops for farmed animals. Finally, the animals themselves and all the manure that they produce release even more greenhouse gases into our atmosphere.

Producing animal feed requires significant amounts of fertilizer. Every year, growing feed for cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals requires 17 billion pounds of nitrogen fertilizer, which, when applied to the soil, generates nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that has 300 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide are all-powerful GHGs, and together, they cause the vast majority of climate change.

‘BACK TO BASICS’ - Sustainable healthy diets

We can all develop better more sustainable habits around food.

·        Adopt a more plant-based diet – Fewer animal products we consume, the more sustainable our diet. If we collectively adopt a more plant-based diet we could reduce the equivalent of up to 8 gigatons of carbon dioxide per year, according to the IPCC report.

·        Go 'flexitarian' - The “flexitarian” diet is a semi-vegetarian diet where vegetables, fruits, grains and pulses (like beans, peas and lentils) are the main portion of the meal. “Three-fourths of your plate would be filled with plants, and maybe one-fourth would have your animal food.”

·        Adopt a Mediterranean Diet - The Mediterranean Diet replaces meat with fish, which has a smaller environmental impact and it’s very plant-based, filled with whole grains and vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, pulses, with just small amounts of fish as the main animal protein.

·        Eat more whole and locally grown foods - Processed foods require more harvesting, processing, and transportation, and have a much larger impact on climate than whole foods. Buy more whole foods from local farms.

·        Reduce food waste - An estimated 1.3 billion tons - about 30 percent of the world’s food goes to waste annually, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization. Landfills are oxygen-starved environments where food cannot decompose properly, causing it to leak methane into the atmosphere.

·        Eat smaller portions - Eating too much makes us unhealthy and overeating contributes to food waste.

·        Compost your plant-based food waste - Putting plant-based food scraps in a composter recycles your food waste and returns it back to the ground as vital nutrients for plant life.

Tryst with Nature

The Chinese philosophy of Daoism tells us that “if the pursuit of development runs counter to the harmony and balance of nature, even if it is of great immediate interest and profit, people should restrain themselves from it.”

Insatiable human desire and diet will lead to the over-exploitation of natural resources. To be too successful is to be on the path to defeat. In the long run, the excessive use of nature will bring about disaster, even the extinction of humanity. Daoism has a unique sense of value in that it judges affluence by the number of different species. If all things in the universe grow well, then a society is a community of affluence. If not, this kingdom is on the decline.

Eat as if the Earth Matters … Because It Does!!!

Climate change is already threatening life on Earth, and if we don’t change our ways far more significantly than by just changing our light bulbs, we will destroy the planet. Raising animals for food is “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global” - says IPCC. 

Anyone who cares about the planet and the future of its inhabitants can make one simple choice to help halt climate change: Eat plant-based diet. The United Nations has said that “a substantial reduction of climate-change impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal products.”

By,

Somesh Ranabijuli
Madhusudan Law College, Cuttack, Odisha