Our appetite (for meat) affects climate change; it determines whether we can stay under a 2 degree Celsius change.
By Sarah Dassinger, Student Writer, Rhodes College ‘25
Peter Singer, a Bioethics professor at Princeton, wrote in Chapter 4 of his recent book Animal Liberation Now that global meat consumption is forecast to grow by 76% by the mid-century, “without a reduction in meat consumption, we won’t be able to stay under the danger level of 2 degrees Celsius.” A 2-degree rise in global temperatures is considered a critical threshold above which the dangerous and cascading effects of human-generated climate change will occur.
Eating less meat can help keep climate change under the 2-degree threshold.
According to the 2022 study by the Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “diets high in plant protein and low in meat and dairy are associated with lower GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions [which contribute to climate change].”
The rise in factory farming (mass cultivation of livestock) accounts for such emissions. Factory farms emit methane and nitrous oxide, which are up to 300 times more damaging greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide.
Singer concludes that “avoiding factory farming products is the clearest case of all.”
Additionally, for those who fear a diet with reduced meat will negatively impact their health, a major North American study referenced in Singer’s book tracked 700,000 people for 6 years and found that the mortality rate of omnivores was actually 12% higher than that of vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, and semi-vegetarian people.
A plant based diet like those mentioned above would consist of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, plant protein sources, and unsaturated plant oils. None of which tax the environment in the same way as meat.
