Stirring the possum - eat to save the planet

The global average per capita annual greenhouse emission is 6.8 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents, this includes, food, housing, transport ... everything. The average Aussie diet generates 6 tonnes all by itself. It isn’t high because of food miles or artificial fertiliser or pesticides. It is high because of meat and dairy.

Globally, animal products consume the entire output of a third of all arable land, plus 3,400 million hectares of grazing land, plus the entire (but declining) output of all the world’s fisheries, but produce just 17 per cent of global calories. So if anybody is seriously interested in eating to save the planet, then all the issues surrounding meat and dairy production are central.

Apart from being an astonishingly inefficient and polluting food source, livestock is the largest driver of deforestation and biodiversity loss both globally and locally. Livestock has caused 70 per cent of Amazon deforestation compared with just 3 per cent (yes, just three) due to logging. Locally, livestock has caused the bulk of extinctions and deforestation in Australia. Even as late as the 1990s, the Queensland cattle industry was deforesting over 400,000 hectares annually.

It is interesting to compare the panel’s response to the “V” word with the response when people concerned with climate change suggest we should drive less or, better still, be car free and stick to bicycles and public transport. Everybody just recognises this as blindingly obviously the correct thing to do - even if we can’t all manage it. But recommend eating less or no meat and dairy and the irrelevant non-sequiturs pour forth from otherwise rational people like blood from a stuck pig.

But despite the avoidance of its topic, the event was a raging success. Host Alan Holmes, head of the SA Department of Environment, joined the rest of the audience and purred like a kitten at talk of all the positive things which individuals can do to “make a difference”.

Of course he would. Governments and their lackeys love this stuff, just like they love talk of buying new light globes and smaller washing machine to combat global warming. Such attitudes absolve them from tackling the hard issues like replacing the dairy, beef and coal industries. They can continue to let fast food giants supply the bulk of food which poisons the planet and children while treating international guests to $29 ’roo saddle at the Hilton.

Eventually the possum nodded off, hardly shaken and definitely not stirred.