A food expert whose “research spans issues from farm to fork,” states that Americans will have to “dramatically reduce” their consumption of meat and dairy products in order to “avoid the most catastrophic climate change scenarios.”
Brent Kim of the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future told the Daily Mail:
To avoid the most catastrophic climate change scenarios, the evidence is clear that citizens in high-meat consuming countries – such as the United States – need to dramatically reduce their meat and dairy intake. … I’m not talking about banning certain foods or force-feeding anyone broccoli… but our food choices don’t occur within a vacuum. For better or for worse, what Americans choose to eat is heavily influenced by the availability of certain foods in their community, how much they cost, and whether healthy plant-based options are offered in our schools and institutions.
“These are all factors that are affected, directly or indirectly, by local, state, and federal policy,” he continued. “So there is a strong case to be made that when our tax dollars are being used to fund meals at public institutions, for example, people should be given the option of choosing healthy, climate-friendly, plant-based meals.”
Kim lauded President Biden’s plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions by half by 2030, asserting, “The plan also alludes to many opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within the agriculture sector, including helping farmers to reduce soil erosion and store carbon in soils – ideas that are good for farmers, and good for the environment.”
After various figures recently accused Biden of wanting to radically cut Americans’ meat diet, AFP published a fact check debunking that claim, writing, “Biden’s climate plan does not call for putting America on a meat diet.”
Nebraska GOP Governor Pete Ricketts still does want to know what Biden’s plans are for the beef production industry. He told The Daily Mail, “Green New Deal climate activists have put meat production and consumption in the crosshairs. So far President Joe Biden has failed to make clear statements about what his plans mean for agriculture and meat production. It’s time for President Biden to decide whose side he’s on: Radical climate activists or America’s farmers and ranchers.”
In 2019, teen environmental activist Greta Thunberg stated that she told her parents to become vegans, wailing, “I just kept telling them that they were stealing our future and that you cannot stand up for human rights while you are living that lifestyle. And then they decided to do those changes.”
The United Nations Environment Programme stated in 2018, “Our use of animals as a food-production technology has brought us to the verge of catastrophe. The greenhouse gas footprint of animal agriculture rivals that of every car, truck, bus, ship, airplane, and rocket ship combined … There is no pathway to achieve the Paris climate objectives without a massive decrease in the scale of animal agriculture.”
At a climate change town hall in September 2019, after someone claimed, “Climate change has been linked to — to agriculture and the over consumption of red meat and also the over production of crops,” they asked then-California Senator Kamala Harris, “If elected, are you — will you be supporting change in dietary guidelines and then how will you plan on implementing the changes so that people effectively change the diets?”
Harris answered, “The balance that we have to strike here, frankly, is about what government can and should do around creating incentives and then banning certain behaviors.”
That led to this exchange between Harris and CNN’s Erin Burnett:
BURNETT: But would you support changing the dietary guidelines?”
HARRIS: Yes.
BURNETT: You know, the food pyramid.
HARRIS: Yes.
BURNETT: To reduce red meat specifically?
HARRIS: Yes, I would.