2nd August 2024
The Earth Overshoot Day website talks about the ‘power of possibility’ and hosts examples of many and various ways in which we could reduce our annual overshoot and so organise our care and use of resources that we could both maintain and enhance the world’s fruitfulness.
One area is food.
If we – prevent food loss and waste
– opt for plant-based foods
– adopt agroecological and regenerative practices
we could, they suggest, shift Earth Overshoot Day by 32 days.
29th April 2024
For a change of emphasis, I plan over the next few weeks to look at some of the things we do as a household to live more sustainably. Maybe what we do might prompt some thoughts for you, and maybe you will have some ideas to share as well.
I follow a vegan diet and as I am the main cook, all home cooking is vegan!
Vegan diets have a smaller carbon footprint and cause less damage to the climate – research suggests somewhere in the region of 75% less! The food grown for vegan diets uses less water and less land – largely because of the significant amounts of land and water needed to grow feed for farm animals. Needing less land has two benefits – first the ability to grow more food for a growing population, and second the ability to set aside more farm land for rewilding and restoring levels of biodiversity.
I also chose a vegan diet on the grounds of animal welfare. Even eating a vegetarian diet involves the slaughter of young animals – principally male chicks and male calves – as well as the likelihood that the females will have stressful lives of repeated birthing.
I can see that for some people raising low intensity livestock can be a key part of a farm’s ecology, and that eating small amounts of meat and dairy would be consistent with that.
Further reading –
https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets
https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-opportunity-costs-food
What would happen to the cows is we all went vegan? – https://greentau.org/2022/09/23/the-green-tau-issue-53/comment-page-1/
Tips for switching to a vegan diet – https://greentau.org/2021/10/12/eco-tips-11/
1st January 2024
Things we can do to address the climate and biodiversity crisis.
Cut out or cut back on meat in our diets and instead eat seasonal plant based meals. And with Veganuary, this is a good time to start – or at least to experiment.
We are not always aware of the extent to which farm animals dominate the environment. Looking at the weight (mass) of mammals that inhabit the planet, a mere 4% are wild creatures (and that includes whales and elephants), 34% are humans and 62% are farm animals. This ratio is unsustainable. Raising farm livestock requires large amounts of land for grazing and fodder crops, and water – all of which could be better used feeding the world and restoring biodiverse rich habitats.
For masses of previous items – https://greentau.org/tag/vegan/
eco tip for swopping to a plant based diet – https://greentau.org/2021/10/12/eco-tips-11
Or sign up for the Veganuary email – https://veganuary.com/
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31st October 2022
Can you challenge yourself to a plant-based November? With squashes and pumpkins and mushrooms and brassicas very much in season, lots of delicate and hearty meals await you. Try out a whole range of different plant-based proteins – fava beans, pinto beans, cannelloni beans, Puy lentils, Carlin peas, blue peas, black badger peas, tofu, walnuts, almonds …. I am sure you can have a different one each day!
The Green Tau 