Saving the planet from climate disaster, one bite at a time
By Lethbridge Herald on April 13, 2022.
By Sylvain Charlebois
The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has provided a roadmap to saving the planet.
For global food security, we must become better environmental stewards. To reduce gas emissions, we need to adhere to sustainable agricultural practices if we are to meet our 2030 targets, according to the report.
And, yes, changes in our dietary choices are also advised.
While some view these reports with a great deal of skepticism, this one from IPCC is worth the read.
The last few reports were all about doom and gloom: they almost seemed to suggest we all need to become vegans. Past reports were meant to lecture the world on how dire the situation was, making some of us feel guilty for our choices.
But to motivate the world to look at food differently, the IPCC’s latest report makes a deliberate effort to use an undertone of optimism. It’s almost impossible for a reader to feel judged by choices made. This new perspective is a welcome change.
But the report does put food and agriculture at the heart of its agenda to mitigate climate change. Most topics were predictable: food waste reduction, protecting and reforesting land, reducing livestock production, stopping more carbon sequestration, eating less meat.
From 21 to 37 per cent of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are attributable to the food system. So our food production methods aren’t sustainable. That’s why a greater number of Canadian-based groups and companies in agri-food are announcing zero-carbon targets. Most plans, however, have set 2050 goals, but IPCC is looking for drastic changes by 2030. But there’s a recognition in Canada that something needs to be done.
The report sees global trade and genetic engineering as part of the solution if gas emissions are reduced simultaneously. Not only is it time to put the anti-GMO rhetoric to rest, but Canada is also poised to do well within such a paradigm. Coupled with high-tech food production systems, the use of modern green technologies to produce more food is being encouraged, which again is a shift in rhetoric from past reports.
The report estimates that almost half of projected 2050 GHG emissions related to food could be cut through demand-side changes, like eating fewer animal proteins. That means less meat, dairy and eggs. The report isn’t asking all of us to adopt a vegan diet, but consumption reduction targets are needed.
This is difficult for Canada. Our addiction to animal proteins is at the core of our traditional lifestyle. Eating meat or cheese in Canada is almost like breathing. So it won’t be easy for many to change.
The report also surprises by encouraging us not only to eat meat analogues such as vegetable protein-based products. It also promotes the development of cultured meat products and the use of precision fermentation to make milk without cows.
And it suggests that insects may help our transition to healthier and more sustainable diets. Again, Canada can do well in this area.
On the industry side, things are more complicated. The hog and cattle sectors in Canada are huge, with the market for both commodities exceeding $20 billion. To make matters worse, Canada has government-sanctioned quotasworth about $30 billion for those producing dairy, eggs and poultry.
Nobody in Ottawa even seems to question the relevance of our supply management system from an environmental perspective. While Canadians have blindly protected and subsidized these sectors for years, this is likely Canada’s biggest environmentally-unfriendly elephant in the room.
And the sector is certainly feeling the heat. Dairy Farmers of Canada was the latest group to reveal goals to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from farm-level dairy production by 2050, with a milestone set for 2030.
Extreme weather events are becoming increasingly frequent and intense, including last year’s heat dome and atmospheric rivers in Canada.
Severe droughts and floods have devastating effects on food and agriculture. Last year’s droughts in Russia, Canada and the United States and floods in Germany are responsible for low grain inventories going into 2022.
In the context of global food security and climate change, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine couldn’t have come at a worse time. Many thought that the region would help boost global food inventory levels. But the war means that many regions of the world will inevitably suffer famine this year.
The IPCC report is a sober and compelling reminder that Canada’s approach to climate change needs to be more consistent, coherent and comprehensive. Otherwise, many of us will just tune out and do nothing.
Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is senior director of the agri-food analytics lab and a professor in food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University.
© Troy Media
24-23
We do have to look after the planet better, I do agree completely! I DO NOT trust anything the United Nations is involved with though!
The UN was formed after the second world war to prevent other war and conflict:
Article 1
The Purposes of the United Nations are:
-To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
-To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;
-To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and
-To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.
I have watched the UN consistantly fail their mandate over and over: Rwanda, Somalia, the Congo, the former Yugoslavia, Syria, Afghanistan, in wars/conflicts and places such as Haiti, where billions were given by nations to rebuild Haiti, but the money was squadered and people still live in tents/shacks in squalor and disease!
The UN wants us all to cut emissions, while we see worldwide emissions increase dramatically because of war, the Ukraine war especially!
They pressure Canada to reduce emissions when we emit only 1.6 % of the world GHG’s while China emits over 30% and if you combine China, the US and the EU that comes to almost 60% of the world GHG’s.
Look at all the petroleum tanks that have been destroyed, spewing black smoke into the atmosphere, while houses/buildings burn and large military equipment that does not have any emission reducing engines/exhaust run around that area and fly in the air, along with all the missiles!
That war alone emits more than Canada in a year!
The UN is a joke and has been closely collaborating with another questionable organization, the Club of Rome who planned decades ago to come up with a plan to unite the world using a common cause, Climate Change to deflect their other plans of controlling the world population in many ways the began in 1965.
1965 An Italian industrialist and Alexander King, Director of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development got together and formed the Club of Rome which was to study world sustainability, getting together with MIT using their computers and other brains.
PM PET was very interested in their studies! In 1968 PET got involved with them, and the reports say he stimulated their thinking on the club’s philosophy and methods.
· They conceived the idea that the New World Order would split the world into 10 regions that would govern everyone.
· What can we do to sustain the population?
· 1971 a meeting in Canada at Montebello, for the Club of Rome and come up with plans to control population by controlling the birthrate.
To prevent growth:
– Encourage homosexuality
– Encourage birth control/abortion
– Prostitution
– Celibacy
Plans to kill people off if there got to be too many:
– Hunger
– Famine
– War
– Disease
Also, in 1971 the came up with this-
“The First Global Revolution. A Report to the Club of Rome”:
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill.
The Club of Rome was invited to join in at the UN Climate Talks, November 03 2021 and they were looking for the G7 and G20 to join in with the Club of Rome . . . building on the legacy of The Limits to Growth – which will have its 50th anniversary next year . . . will discuss alternative approaches to Governance . . . and moving away from traditional ideas on growth and prosperity.
And therefore, create this New World Order. They are the Globalists and the US/Canada is in their way!
So much to say, but that is already too much for you to research and digest!
PM P.E.T. Trudeau at the time made several changes in law to facilitate some of these points to prevent population growth shortly after in the late 1960’s.
The UN allowed over 6 million people to do die due to conflict in the Congo region of Africa between 1996-2008.
A big pile of horse s—t to say the least. This is nothing more than a wealth transfer. Quickest way out of poverty, cheap energy. Proof it different
As I stated, at the end, do your research. I spent two months finding various ‘factual’ papers that made it intelligence, not bad intel or fake news. There is a lot more to be said regarding these groups, but better that you do your own research, as I did, and decide. That is if you know how to collect and analyze information!
One world government plans are not a ‘conspiracy theory’! You will see significant moves towards it in the next decade!
190$ an hour…geez, if you said you worked in the homes of others at that rate i would have guessed you were a plumber.
Did you Know the whole solar system is on a warming cycle?
So? Kindly elaborate.
What would be the point of it?
If you are asking the point of “it” being the point of the solar system warming, science has suggested for years the system is warming or at least most science says so. Fact is, it is irrelevant as to what goes on “out there” which is not entirely connected to planet earth. As science knows and has said steadfastly, of course the planet varies in temperature but it is the degree to which temperatures have risen correlated to increasing CO2 and other greenhouse gasses that is worrisome. Cynical replies do nothing to further this debate.
To suggest the IPCC* and the televangelists are in cahoots is funny , so very funny 🤣🤣🤣🤢, so so funny………
* and please get the abbreviation correct : “ICPP” ???
I wish you would really educate yourself on our solar system and the like. “Its irrelevant as to what goes on out there which is not entirely connected to planet earth.’ This John has got to be one of the most stupid comments I have read of yours yet! The sun goes through warming and cooling cycles on time-scales that make human life-spans look miniscule. the earth has a 26000yr wobble that affects our planets climate. What caused the glaciers to recede 10-15 thousand years ago? You really need to study some science before getting behind a key-board! And as far as abbreviations are concerned: That’s what’s irrelevant within the bigger picture here!
Not sure where you get your science from, but it is certainly not the same sites that I “educate” myself.
That the suns energy out-put has not wavered significantly over periods associated with our planet’s increasing temperatures, indicates that the association is limited to say the least. (Cause and Effect.) Hence my (“stupidest”) suggestion that events “out there” do not necessarily translate to events here. So far as I know, our planet is the only local home of “advanced” creatures and the associated output of global greenhouse gas emissions which correlates to our local temperature spikes. Events on Titan or Uranus are unrelated. Sorry you cannot accept that. Your constant referral to glacial thawing is becoming tired. Why? Because there is no argument from anyone anywhere, that it did not happen or, that it was local earth “wobbling” etc that was the cause. It happened multiple times and will continue to occur, no one needs convincing.
But you need to dig deeper than what Alex Jones of InfoWars and others spews out on a regular basis.
If you do not believe me , perhaps reading the attached reference from NASA might change your mind. (Unless this is bogus science as well.)
https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/14/is-the-sun-causing-global-warming/
The glaciers did recede because of natural warming cycles (fact). You greenies do remind me a lot of the warped Evangelicals in the southern states that only believe in what they are fed regardless of any kind of evidence to the contrary.
Venus has had this green-house warming effect. And guess what Johnny-boy! We had absolutely nothing to do with it! I know its hard to believe but the human race is innocent.
Your statement above that we are not connected in any essential way to the rest of the universe only makes me laugh louder at you! Hmm the dinosaurs did go extinct about 65 million years ago from what Johnny-boy? Something that hit us from out there!
Your cherry-picked sites in no way validate your point.
Apples and oranges. Allow me to clarify. The subject was global warming and man’s impact on this planet. The fact that some planets are warm (Venus) and others cold (minor planet Pluto), to name two, has no current impact on earth. You got one thing correct in that you acknowledge that earth /mankind has had nothing to do with Venus’s warmth. And equally , Venus has had no effect on earth’s atmosphere. (No cause and effect whichever way you look at it) Mass extinctions caused by external forces are a different story altogether. As would a sudden and permanent increase in solar energy output which would effect all of the Solar System including earth, but which has not happened during the rising temperature trends since the mid 1700s.
Laugh as loud as you like – they will likely be heard on faraway Venus unless of course Bruce Coburn was correct!
You have lost the argument Johnny-boy! But still continue to bibble-babble like a lot of these Evangelicals I know. That’s why I make the comparisons between you two.
My main grudge here against you is your believe that what happens “out there” has little or no effect on what happens here on space-ship earth.
If I remember the year correctly-late 1800’s there was a massive solar eruption that took-out primitive power-lines and telegraph systems which originated from-you guessed-it “out there.”
You still have not supplied a satisfactory reason as to WHY the glaciers receded when they did. Its the smoking-gun you greenies conveniently avoid!
A good point regarding the solar eruption of the nineteenth century.
To clarify, events “out there” have and continue to impact this planet and in retrospect, the phrase should not have been used. It was a poor choice of words.
The greenies don’t even realize there’s anything outside of our planet!
What a croc! Not one mention about natural warming and cooling cycles in the environment! Now if we change our eating habits we can save the planet? You can’t dream this kind of BS up! The ICPP must have shown-up at one of the televangelists gatherings in the southern states to get pointers on how to turn people into sheeple. They sure learn fast don’t they!
Meeting climate change targets is nothing more than lining the pockets of friends of the government with cash from the carbon tax. Canada, in reality, is actually carbon negative. Why penalize us with a phony carbon tax?
And, Sylvain, do you still have that big pickup truck?
Watch for a massive rise in greenhouse gases following the next volcanic eruption….. caused by man, no doubt.
just because there are other things that impact our climate, that is no reason we should not acknowledge our actions that have an adverse impact on the planet. and our adverse impact is and too long already has been massive.
we will agree that the strictly carbon focus approach, and the bs carbon cap and trade rubbish, is mostly about optics and ultimately, lining the usual pockets. this is not at all much of any real solution to the issues. we may also agree that the current “green” approach is is rubbish, again mostly about optics and lining the usual pockets. indeed, windmills and solar, at least so far, are borne of toxic mining and further leave us with toxic disposal issues. furthermore, windmills are an eco-disaster, as they kill so much that flies; there is also evidence that they make people sick that live within a certain proximity.
however, so long as the ever increasing billions of humans on the planet feel they are entitled to consume and do as much as their wealth might enable each, we are hooped. that much should be obvious to anyone that is rational.
i will note as much again: even if we discovered an entirely clean source of energy that had not a speck of adverse impact on the planet, our primary issues would remain. rampant and sociopathic consumerism, along with the callous rape and degradation of all things nature, will continue to imperil all things living. the salvation of the planet hinges upon far more needs based approaches to life. we had best consider a simple formula: the more humans, the less wants we can have the less waste each can produce (less people allows a little more latitude, but still, we cannot litter the planet with toxic materials, be it from mined toxic metals or the likes of killer plastics).
it is ridiculous that still so many people are so bought into wants, and will not give up much of anything in order to be sustainable.