SUSTAINABLE DIET

Sustainability requires the reconciliation of environmental, social, and economic demands.  Architecture, planning and interior design play integrate roles in this balance as our observations fuel the important public debate.  In this ongoing series of articles we will share our observations, opinions, and solutions that we encounter.  As we have begun a new adventure in China, the ground for work is even greater. Sometimes the choices are not what we expect- as I ran across this debate in London on my trip to Shanghai-

“CLIMATE CHIEF LORD STERN: GIVE UP MEAT TO SAVE THE PLANET”
People will need to turn vegetarian if the world is to conquer climate change, according to a leading authority on global warming.

In an interview with The Times <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6891362.ece> , Lord Stern of Brentford said: “Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.” Direct emissions of methane from cows and pigs are a significant source of greenhouse gases. Methane is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a global warming gas.

Lord Stern, the author of the influential 2006 Stern Review on the cost of tackling global warming, said that a successful deal at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December would lead to soaring costs for meat and other foods that generate large quantities of greenhouse gases. He predicted that people’s attitudes would evolve until meat eating became unacceptable. “I think it’s important that people think about what they are doing and that includes what they are eating,” he said. “I am 61 now and attitudes towards drinking and driving have changed radically since I was a student. People change their notion of what is responsible. They will increasingly ask about the carbon content of their food.” Lord Stern, who said that he was not a strict vegetarian himself, was speaking on the eve of an all-parliamentary debate on climate change. His remarks provoked anger from the meat industry.

As an avid meat eater, and one that had no idea of this danger, I must admit that the choices presented to each of us are quite difficult.  I had really only considered as my personal contribution that reducing fuel consumption, recycling, etc. were the extent of those direct items that I could control that impacted on sustainable.  I now am on a search for the less obvious and will continue to post.