Pitch
Diet can change the world..
Description
Change in diet pattern mitigate the impact of climate
___________________________________________________________________________________
Summary
Nothing more than important to humanity and the stability of societies than a reliable and affordable supply of food .One of the great challenge of 21st century will be to increase the global food supply to accommodates a world growing to 10 billion or more people while preserving a safe operating space for humanity by avoiding dangerous environmental change (Rockstrom et al.,2009)
Of the 14 billion hectares of ice-free land on earth, 10% are used for crop cultivation, while an additional 25% of land is used for pasture. Over 2 billion tonnes of grains are produces yearly for food and feed, providing roughly two –third of total direct and indirect protein intake; a mere 10% of this total, or 200 million tonnes, is traded internationally .For instance although irrigated land occupies only 17% of total arable land, irrigated crops supply a much higher proportion of total production and consume 2,500 billion m3 of water, or 75% of the total fresh water resources consumed annually. Finally agriculture is a significant contributor to land degradation and anthropogenic global GHG emission, being responsible for more than 75% of N2O emitted annually by human activities (Tubiello et al., 2007).
Human have a great influence on the global carbon cycle and utilise about 40% of the earth net primary production (Rojstaczer et al., 2001).Globally about 2,150 gigatonnes of carbon are stored in plants and soil. A fraction of this amount could be released in the next century through climate change and land use change, which would in turn further accelerate climate change.
Body
Over all discussion infer that the human’s dietary patterns are directly related to climate change and finally depend on agricultural products which are either grains, livestock or fisheries produce. Each types of food has its own carbon footprint which varies in intensity and when even slightly change in the diet pattern of human being ,change the carbon foot print and affect the natural environment. Livestock (meat) and fish are water intensive food product which requires 20 times more water to be produce and create extra pressure on our ground water resources. The current example like African countries facing the problems of water scarcity, only due to change in their diet pattern i.e. more dependent on water intensive diets; meat and fishes. Now a day’s an overwhelming proportion of GHG emission is produced by the raising of livestock for meat. In Sweden people take too much meat in their diets, which are neither environmentally nor nutritionally sustainable.
Difference between final production of agricultural product and livestock product:
As we take a simple example of food grain production which life cycle start from with growing on the field.The input like ploughing the field with tractor,weeding,harvesting and so on and an emission of GHG(Co2) in huge amount when fuel is used in tractor.And further these grains are cooked which require gas or electricity and then we eat.So it has very simple life cycle.But when we see the life cycle of meat ,the grains are made into feed to fed the animals which further taken into slaughterhouse,chilling,packaging.retailing and finally being cooked.Thus the life cycle of meat is much more complicated than for any vegetarian products and that’s why it is more polluting to produce beef or pork/chicken than any vegetarian food products.
As for example there are 10 kilo of feed needed to produces one kilo of beef, so the large amount of carbon dioxide, methane emitted from stomach of animals which leads to climate change.
Eat more locally available food, to reduce the carbon emission caused by transportation
Highly processed food required more amount of energy consumption to make the final product which is mainly made for transporting from one place to other and finally leads to greater amount emission of carbon dioxide. So if we it locally available food products, then not much but the emission of GHG can be reduce at greater extent.
Increase dependency on seasonal food products:
Day by day changing diet patterns of people and availability of all types of food product year the round has created a major threat to climate change. As unseasonal availability food products require extra input of energy consumption like electricity supply in vegetable production in green house, refrigeration, cooling in cold storage which contributes to GHG and carbon dioxide emission. So it will be better to eat seasonal food products to reduce the carbon foot print per person.
Avoid eating of Junk and excess packaged food,
Excessive packed and junk food is neither more nutritional nor environmental friendly. In packaged food products mainly ,there is used of plastic for easy handling and keeping for long time and when these products is consumed by people ,the unwanted plastic is thrown away in environment which is neither decomposed nor be utilised again. As the life cycle of plastic is more than 100 of years which remain undcomposed in the soil and pollute the environment. So people should avoid the use of packaged food as much as possible and try to eat fresh food products.
There is no doubt the diet habits of people directly contribute to climate change in a various way .As huge population of human being resides on earth as compare to other animal and also more dependent on scarce natural resource which day by day reducing and antagonistically population is increasing exponentially .Considering these scenario we must have to compromise with our diet patter which is a major contribution of carbon dioxide emission and finally leads to climate change. So if we change our dependency of diets pattern from livestock products to vegetarian products, the pattern of climate change can be mitigate at greater extent.
References
1,Piere jacquet,R.K.Pachaury and Laurence Tubiana 2012,towards agricultural change.
. http://www.thepep.org/ClearingHouse/docfiles/wise_moves.pdf
3.http://www.naturskyddsforeningen.se/upload/Foreningsdokument/Broschyrer/matfolder_engelska_l%C3%A5guppl%C3%B6st.pdf
Summary
Category of the action
Reducing GHG-emitting consumption
What actions do you propose?
Change in diet pattern mitigate the impact of climate
___________________________________________________________________________________
Summary
Nothing more than important to humanity and the stability of societies than a reliable and affordable supply of food .One of the great challenge of 21st century will be to increase the global food supply to accommodates a world growing to 10 billion or more people while preserving a safe operating space for humanity by avoiding dangerous environmental change (Rockstrom et al.,2009)
Of the 14 billion hectares of ice-free land on earth, 10% are used for crop cultivation, while an additional 25% of land is used for pasture. Over 2 billion tonnes of grains are produces yearly for food and feed, providing roughly two –third of total direct and indirect protein intake; a mere 10% of this total, or 200 million tonnes, is traded internationally .For instance although irrigated land occupies only 17% of total arable land, irrigated crops supply a much higher proportion of total production and consume 2,500 billion m3 of water, or 75% of the total fresh water resources consumed annually. Finally agriculture is a significant contributor to land degradation and anthropogenic global GHG emission, being responsible for more than 75% of N2O emitted annually by human activities (Tubiello et al., 2007).
Human have a great influence on the global carbon cycle and utilise about 40% of the earth net primary production (Rojstaczer et al., 2001).Globally about 2,150 gigatonnes of carbon are stored in plants and soil. A fraction of this amount could be released in the next century through climate change and land use change, which would in turn further accelerate climate change.
Body
Over all discussion infer that the human’s dietary patterns are directly related to climate change and finally depend on agricultural products which are either grains, livestock or fisheries produce. Each types of food has its own carbon footprint which varies in intensity and when even slightly change in the diet pattern of human being ,change the carbon foot print and affect the natural environment. Livestock (meat) and fish are water intensive food product which requires 20 times more water to be produce and create extra pressure on our ground water resources. The current example like African countries facing the problems of water scarcity, only due to change in their diet pattern i.e. more dependent on water intensive diets; meat and fishes. Now a day’s an overwhelming proportion of GHG emission is produced by the raising of livestock for meat. In Sweden people take too much meat in their diets, which are neither environmentally nor nutritionally sustainable.
Difference between final production of agricultural product and livestock product:
As we take a simple example of food grain production which life cycle start from with growing on the field.The input like ploughing the field with tractor,weeding,harvesting and so on and an emission of GHG(Co2) in huge amount when fuel is used in tractor.And further these grains are cooked which require gas or electricity and then we eat.So it has very simple life cycle.But when we see the life cycle of meat ,the grains are made into feed to fed the animals which further taken into slaughterhouse,chilling,packaging.retailing and finally being cooked.Thus the life cycle of meat is much more complicated than for any vegetarian products and that’s why it is more polluting to produce beef or pork/chicken than any vegetarian food products.
As for example there are 10 kilo of feed needed to produces one kilo of beef, so the large amount of carbon dioxide, methane emitted from stomach of animals which leads to climate change.
Eat more locally available food, to reduce the carbon emission caused by transportation
Highly processed food required more amount of energy consumption to make the final product which is mainly made for transporting from one place to other and finally leads to greater amount emission of carbon dioxide. So if we it locally available food products, then not much but the emission of GHG can be reduce at greater extent.
Increase dependency on seasonal food products:
Day by day changing diet patterns of people and availability of all types of food product year the round has created a major threat to climate change. As unseasonal availability food products require extra input of energy consumption like electricity supply in vegetable production in green house, refrigeration, cooling in cold storage which contributes to GHG and carbon dioxide emission. So it will be better to eat seasonal food products to reduce the carbon foot print per person.
Avoid eating of Junk and excess packaged food,
Excessive packed and junk food is neither more nutritional nor environmental friendly. In packaged food products mainly ,there is used of plastic for easy handling and keeping for long time and when these products is consumed by people ,the unwanted plastic is thrown away in environment which is neither decomposed nor be utilised again. As the life cycle of plastic is more than 100 of years which remain undcomposed in the soil and pollute the environment. So people should avoid the use of packaged food as much as possible and try to eat fresh food products.
There is no doubt the diet habits of people directly contribute to climate change in a various way .As huge population of human being resides on earth as compare to other animal and also more dependent on scarce natural resource which day by day reducing and antagonistically population is increasing exponentially .Considering these scenario we must have to compromise with our diet patter which is a major contribution of carbon dioxide emission and finally leads to climate change. So if we change our dependency of diets pattern from livestock products to vegetarian products, the pattern of climate change can be mitigate at greater extent.
References
1,Piere jacquet,R.K.Pachaury and Laurence Tubiana 2012,towards agricultural change.
. http://www.thepep.org/ClearingHouse/docfiles/wise_moves.pdf
3.http://www.naturskyddsforeningen.se/upload/Foreningsdokument/Broschyrer/matfolder_engelska_l%C3%A5guppl%C3%B6st.pdf
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