NEWS

Call to 'reject meat' to reduce global warming
By Steven Moore

A leading authority on global warming has raised the temperatures of farmers by suggesting that people should become vegetarian to defeat climate change.
Lord Stern of Brentford, author of the influential Stern Review in 2006 which looked at the cost of global warming, claims meat is a wasteful use of water and creates, through the methane from cows and pigs, a lot of greenhouse gases.
He told The Times: "It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”
Lord Stern also warned that should a deal be agreed at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December the price of meat and other foods that generate large amounts of greenhouse gases were soar.
The former chief economist of the World Bank, who is not himself a strict vegetarian, has predicted that attitudes will change with meat eating becoming more and more unacceptable.
He said: “I think it’s important that people think about what they are doing and that includes what they are eating."
UN figures suggest that meat production is responsible for about 18 per cent of global carbon emissions.
This includes the destruction of forests to create more land to graze cattle and the production of animal feeds.
The National Beef Association said it was appalled at the simplicity of Lord Sterne’s argument, claiming he had the wrong target.

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October 30th 2009
October th 2009