Oscar-winning director James Cameron is promoting the best way to fight climate change—eliminating animal meat and dairy from one’s diet.
James Cameron is a famed director, a well-known climate change activist and he has a message for the masses: go vegan to fight climate change. Cameron spoke at the US-China Climate Leaders Summit in Los Angeles on 15th of September. During the summit, leading cities from both countries will share city-level experiences with planning, policies, and use of technologies for sustainable, resilient, low-carbon growth.
Cameron conducted his talk titled “Food for Sustainable Nations”, with Sam Kass, the former White House senior nutrition policy adviser. Cameron, who went completely vegan four years ago along with his family, focused on food systems (consumption and production) and the relationship between food and climate change. He explained how cutting out meat and dairy products can help lower carbon emissions in an interview with Fortune.
The thing that became abundantly clear to us when we met with the experts who are working in nutrition and energy sustainability and climate change is that we can’t actually meet our emission goals if we don’t address animal agriculture, and that’s the thing that’s been left out of the conversation. Everybody’s focusing on the energy sector, which of course is huge, and to a lesser extent the transportation section, but they’re missing the second biggest single contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. This is a thermostat that we can turn down just by our personal choices. We can do it instantly.
— James Cameron
This message is crucial because many people who care about the environment still have no idea that raising animals for food is so incredibly destructive. Animal agriculture is actually responsible for a much higher amount of global greenhouse gas emissions than what is most commonly quoted. At the 2014 UN Climate Summit, startling new estimates by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) put the estimates of agriculture being responsible for 43-57% of global emissions.
It takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce just one pound of beef. Agriculture operations on land have created more than 500 nitrogen flooded dead zones around the world in our oceans. Farmed animal production accounts for 70% of all agricultural land and 30% of the land surface of the planet. 80% of land deforested in the Amazon is for raising cattle. The rapid deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest is actually causing a drought in many major urban communities in South America.
Our world is in a big feedback loop where climate will effect food security among many things because of drought, desertification, saltification, loss of acreage and deltas, which are some of our most fertile areas because of sea water rise. It’s going to negatively impact our food supply and our food security at exactly the same time that we need to increase our food production by 70%. By 2050 we’re supposed to have 9 billion people on this planet. These two things are moving in the wrong direction and yet the second biggest way we can control climate change is by reducing our reliance on animal meat and dairy.
While the outlook may look grim, James Cameron’s advice echoes that of many people:
The simple resounding message is you can be healthier and your planet can be healthier based on a very simple thing that you can do today. It’s cheaper to produce plants. It’s less carbon footprint, less water footprint, less money footprint and better for you.
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