Eating less meat would be good for the Earth. Small nudges can change behavior
Associated Press | November 16, 2023 | Jonel Aleccia and Laura Ungar [Felix’s daughter?]NEW YORK (AP) — Preston Cabral eats meat nearly every day at home, but his favorite meals at school are served on “Meatless Mondays” and “Vegan Fridays.”
“Today I ate chips, tangerines and this thing that looked like chili but without the meat — just beans,” the 12-year-old said after lunch.
Programs like these are among the few proven to work for one of the thorniest problems of the 21st century: How to get people to eat less meat.
Experts agree that the urgency of climate change and the demands of a surging global population call for an overhaul of how humans get their protein.
“There has arguably never been a more important time in human history to transform our food system for the sake of humans and nature,” a coalition of United Kingdom climate scientists concluded in a 2020 analysis.
That will require changing consumer behavior around meat, particularly in rich countries, experts said.
Younger people could be key. They may be open to new ways of eating because they’re more aware of climate change and the environmental costs of our current eating patterns, said Dr. Martin Bloem, an environmental health professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
But he’s worried about the pace of change: “I think it goes too slow.”
Changing human behavior, especially regarding something as important and intimate as the food we eat, is challenging, no matter a person’s age.
The comment.
Better than a pangolin, I’ll say…
Pangolins are practically chickens.
As long as there is BACON, people will eat meat.
How about a big bowl of crickets, weevils, and meal worms…that should be a good replacement for steaks and chops.
Toss out the illegals in the US and there will no longer be a need to reduce the need for less. at least here there wont be here, and who gives a sh*t about 3rd world countries. Time for them to fix their own problems
But the world is going to end anyway since we have passed the tipping point of the climate anyway. Several times. It’s true, Greta and AL have told me so. Many times. For many years.
If we had been fed nothing but beans for lunch when I was in the eighth or ninth grade, my afternoon classes would have been very noisy and very, very stinky. But it have been fun.