And then they came for my hamburgers …
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued a new report that, among other things, urges humanity to eat far less meat. The report claims that a less meaty diet will free up valuable land — especially in Amazonia — to soak up more carbon from the air.
The report contends with “high confidence” that diets that are more plant and grain based will not only help mitigate carbon dioxide emissions and lessen global temperature increase — but will also be healthier for mankind. A switch away from meat-based diets will “present major opportunities for adaptation and mitigation while generating significant co-benefits in terms of human health.”
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The report is concerned with land use and agricultural practices, which the authors claim is responsible for more than a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions. “Agriculture, forestry and other types of land use account for 28% of human greenhouse gas emissions,” said Jim Skea, the co-chair of IPCC Working Group 3. “At the same time natural land processes absorb carbon dioxide equivalent to almost a third of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels and industry.”
The report is full of information about how managing land resources in a more sustainable [there’s the UN’s favorite word again] way will be a big part of keeping the predicted rise in global temperature to 1.5C or less. And not only will the Earth remain cooler, the report contends that we can also wipe out global hunger.
“Land already in use could feed the world in a changing climate and provide biomass for renewable energy, but early, far reaching action across several areas is required,” said Hans-Otto Pӧrtner, the co-chair of IPCC Working Group 2.
So, we can feed everyone in the world using only the land now in use, but we need to do it quickly and in exactly the way the IPCC lays out for us, huh?
Color me unconvinced.
Somehow, reports such as these always come back to livestock flatulence. The report states, again with “high confidence,” that “supply-side practices can contribute to climate change mitigation by reducing crop and livestock emissions, sequestering carbon in soils and biomass, and by decreasing emissions intensity within sustainable production systems.”
The report heavily chastises first world countries like the United States about our lifestyle and diet choices. We are accused of wasting food and degrading the land. All through the report is an undercurrent of guilt-tripping rich nations about enjoying the fruits of our labor to the detriment of poorer nations.
“We don’t want to tell people what to eat,” said Pӧrtner. “But it would be beneficial, for both climate and human health, if people in many rich countries would consume less meat, and if politics would create appropriate incentives to that effect.”
So, you don’t want to tell us what to eat, but if we don’t eat how you want global warming is our fault. Also, you want government to create “incentives” in order to get us to eat the right way. Government doesn’t incentivize anything. What Pӧrtner and other climate hysterics want is for governments to tax meat consumption the same way that France tried to tax fuel. At least in that case, French citizens rose up against the onerous carbon tax and French President Emmanuel Macron was forced to back down.
Another key element of the report involves the Amazon rainforest, which they claim is being deforested at an alarming rate. Recently, Trump ally and new Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has been accused by leftists of allowing an “assault” on the rainforest by logging and agricultural interests.
From the report summary: “When land is degraded, it becomes less productive, restricting what can be grown and reducing the soil’s ability to absorb carbon. This exacerbates climate change, while climate change in turn exacerbates land degradation in many ways.”
It sounds as if much of this report is concerned with growing more vegetation, which will cause carbon dioxide to be absorbed at higher rates. If this is the case, why are climate change skeptics often dismissed as being fatuous when they suggest planting more trees to absorb CO2? Wouldn’t more trees be helpful?
With various incarnations of the word “sustainable” peppered throughout the document, this report has the UN’s Agenda 21 program written all over it. The climate change movement is not about environmentalism or saving the world from global warming. It’s all about reorganizing society into a globalist, socialist, communist utopia. Under the guise of “saving the planet,” the United Nations is looking to take our freedoms, including the right to ingest meat, away.
Photo: gbh007/iStock/Getty Images Plus
James Murphy is a freelance journalist who writes on a variety of subjects with a primary focus on the ongoing climate change hoax and cultural issues. He can be reached at [email protected].
