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Mitloehner: eating less meat won’t solve climate change
A professor and air quality specialist says consumers can’t eat their way out of climate change.
Frank Mitloehner, with the University of California-Davis, says science shows that if an omnivore decided to go vegan for one year, it would reduce that persons’ carbon footprint by just 0.8 metric tons of greenhouse gases.
“In contrast, one single transatlantic flight per passenger would be 1.6 metric tons of greenhouse gases,” he says. “That means you have to go vegan for two years to make up for the emissions that are put out when you fly to Europe once.”
And, he says another study found that if the entire country participated in meatless Mondays…”that would lead to 0.3 percent reduction of our carbon footprint in this county. They also looked at the extreme what would happen theoretically if all 330 million Americans went vegan, that would lead to a reduction 2.6 percent.”
Mitloehner says these potential reductions in our carbon footprint are minor compared to the reductions that could be achieved by reducing emissions generated by fossil fuels.
