Animals
Another Nail in the Coffin of Animal Testing
Oxford University scientists recently announced that computerized versions of the human heart predict side effects from medicines 20% more effectively than animal testing. Computer simulations are less time consuming and more cost-effective and could help free more than four million animals used in procedures globally every year.
Food
Red-Faced About Red Meat
Remember that controversial study, widely condemned by medical experts and health scientists, that said it was okay to eat red meat? The journal that published the study, Annals of Internal Medicine, has issued a correction because the lead author of the study neglected to disclose a potential conflict of interest in that his earlier research was funded in part by the beef industry. See article in The Washington Post
Climate Change
This Is Not Going Well
A simple measure of how humanity is driving global warming is the concentration of CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere. Readings from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii provide the global benchmark. Pre-industrial levels averaged 280 parts per million (PPM) annually; 350 ppm is considered safe but scientists warn that levels above 450 ppm could trigger extreme weather. In 2010, the level climbed to 388.67 and at the end of 2019 it was 413 ppm.
speaking words of wisdom
“If anybody asked me: ‘If there is one thing I can do to help save the planet, what would it be?’ I would say just eat a lot less meat. It’s the easiest thing to do.”
— Professor Sir Ian Boyd, former chief scientific adviser to the UK government, (quoted in The Guardian).
“ … the evidence is overwhelming that there is a connection between the meat and dairy industries and climate change.”
— Award-winning actor, Joaquin Phoenix, quoted in Vanity Fair, January 2020.
on the horizon
Is Plant-Based Food Poised to Go Mainstream?
Well, can it pass the “4N” test i.e., is plant-based food now considered: Necessary, Natural, Nice and Normal?
Necessary: If we care about tackling the climate crisis by reducing our carbon footprint and living more sustainably, animal welfare and our health (providing one avoids too much processed vegan food), the answer has to be “yes”.
Natural: Technically, yes – humans can eat either meat or plants – but marketing has skewed some cultural beliefs to convince us that we have to eat meat to be healthy and strong. Not true. Watch “The Game Changers” currently on Netflix.
Nice: Yes. Hundreds of alternative protein and non-dairy products have cracked the code on “tasty” and, as they become more widely available, consumers are choosing them in growing numbers over meat and dairy.
Normal: Not yet, but adoption is happening fast. For example, here are some sales growth data from the past year taken from a report issued by the Plant Based Foods Association (PBFA) in the US www.plantbasedfoods.org.
Plant-based meat grew 10% while conventional meat sales grew by 2%. Plant-based milk grew 6% for a 13% market share of the entire milk category, while cow milk declined 3%. Plant-based yoghurt grew 39%; conventionally produced yoghurt dropped 3%. Plant-based cheese grew 19%; conventional cheese sales were flat. Plant-based ice cream and frozen products grew by 27%; conventional products grew 1%. And, sales of plant-based dips, sauces, and spreads, shot up 52%. Meanwhile, plant-based burger orders at quick-service restaurants were up 10%. “Plant-based burgers allow consumers to substitute without sacrifice,” says Darren Seifer, food and beverage analyst at the NPD group in Chicago.
“Plant-based foods … [have] grown into a mainstream industry that’s targeting everyone, and that’s really what’s causing it to explode, combined with the innovation that’s happening,” says Michelle Simon, founder of PBFA.
It sounds as if we have our answer.
Perspective
How to Slay the Dragons of Inaction
Awareness of the climate crisis and the harm being done by humanity to the planet and its inhabitants is growing. And while we wait for governments, industry, investors, and others to mobilize to the fullest extent possible, many of us have started to do something about reducing our carbon footprints. Barriers like needing heat in a cold climate and the inability of rural residents to take the subway are real, but the fact is almost everyone can and needs to do more. What’s stopping us from doing at least the things we can do?
Environmental psychologist, Robert Gifford, at the University of Victoria in Canada, argues the barriers are more psychological than structural and he’s identified 33 of what he calls the “Dragons of Inaction”. Here is a summary of a few of them. See his article in New Scientist Dragons for the full list. Gifford’s advice is to identify your own dragons and then you can slay them! Can you relate to any of these?
1. Ancient brain: Our ancestors needed to focus very much on the here and now for survival. So, our brain isn’t very good at viewing future impacts as being of as much importance. This makes us slow to act.
2. Lack of knowledge about what to do: Some of the issues are enormously complex and we’re not helped by deliberate efforts to cast doubt on the science by powerful vested interests in the current system.
3. Many solutions are difficult to implement: Solutions are not always obvious or well-understood.
4. Believing matters are worse elsewhere: This is a widespread phenomenon and it often furnishes us with an excuse not to act. Also, if others aren’t changing then the thought becomes, “why should I?”.
5. Believing that we will have little or no impact on the outcome: This, too, can serve as an excuse not to act plus it tends to numb us to the problem.
6. An over-confidence in technological solutions: This provides another rationale for inaction.
7. The status quo is comfortable: If this is the case, then we are reluctant to rock the boat.
8. Habit: Repeated actions are highly resistant to change e.g., our diet or our transportation choices.
9. Worrying about “social risk”: What other people will think if we start riding a bike or go vegan.
saved from the flames
Sometimes even a real bear needs the comfort of a plush toy. This orphaned Koala – a victim of the bushfires raging in Australia -- receives care at a veterinary facility. However, many animals have had to be euthanized due to severe injuries and up to one billion wild animals – including 30% of the iconic Koalas – may have been lost to the fires. Courageous efforts continue to save those remaining.
Photo: Jo-Anne McArthur/We Animals Media.
Good news
We never pictured fast food chains coming to the rescue of animals but, according to World Animal Protection, their sales of plant-based meat alternatives are saving the lives of approximately 250,000 animals a year. This is still a fraction of the billions of land animals killed for food annually but we’ll take it as a win.
As of last October, Nielsen reports sales of plant-based meats in the US were up 10.2% over the previous year. And, global market research firm, Mintel, says 38% of people are trying to add more plant-based foods to their diet. Approximately 90% of people eating plant-based foods are neither vegan nor vegetarian, according to research from the NPD Group.
The price of solar energy has dropped by 91% since 2009, and by 2017 the majority of new power-generating capacity added globally was coming from renewable sources. www.wri.org.
A Carbon Brief report says 2019 was the greenest year for the UK energy system as renewable energy sources (wind, solar, hydro and biomass), outpaced fossil fuel plants on 137 days. Generation from coal and gas plants was down 6% from 2018, and 50% lower than in 2010. However, the report said the shift still needs to happen more quickly to meet the target of net zero by 2050.
In a major milestone, Blue Nalu has produced a fish fillet (yellowtail) from fish muscle cells which has the same structure as a conventional fish and which can be steamed, fried etc. It will be test-marketed this year on the road to commercialization. www.gfi.org.
data points
British NGO, Oxfam, says the climate crisis forces 20 million people to leave home each year. This means on a global basis someone leaves home every 1.5 seconds -- the equivalent of the entire population of Beijing moving out annually. www.weforum.org
Global agricultural subsidies amount to more than $1 million a minute or $700 billion/year. Almost none of them go to support healthier foods with a lower environmental and carbon footprint. www.theguardian.com
Global CO2 emissions grew by 1.5% in 2017; 2.1% in 2018; and are projected to rise by 0.6% in 2019, to an all-time high. Scientists warn they must peak this year, halve by 2030 and be net zero by 2050 to limit warming to 1.5 – 2C to avoid the worst effects of climate change. www.wri.org
In 2010, the global average temperature was 0.88C above pre-industrial levels. It increased to 1.1C by 2019 with 2010 – 2020 being the hottest decade on record. www.wri.org
An unprecedented 400,000 people signed up for Veganuary 2020, a month-long pledge to eat plant-based. www.veganuary.com
the deeper dive
The Devil in Defeating Deforestion: Can We See the Forest For the Trees?
Photo: Josh Withers on Unsplash
challenge
In our last issue we discussed how too much land is devoted to animal agriculture and not enough to carbon-absorbing forests. Reforestation is key to fighting the climate crisis. Numerous scientific studies conclude that trees can play a major role in removing CO2 from the atmosphere and slowing down global heating. But the best way to restore global forest cover is up for debate. All trees are not created equal, nor are the benefits of different reforestation methods or where we focus replanting programs. And what we eat affects the conversion of farm land to forest carbon sinks.
response
Research by Swiss scientists, published in the journal Science, says that reforestation can be the biggest and least expensive way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. The study says that 11% of the total global land mass could support reforestation. That is 1.7 billion hectares, about the size of the US and China combined. And this is far more feasible than technology solutions that cannot operate at the vast scale required to sequester enough CO2 to slow down global heating.
Ethiopians planted 200 million trees in one day last July — a world record — and Canada has pledged to plant two billion trees by 2030. These are just some of the hugely ambitious re-greening programs but policy makers need to focus on which ones will be most effective.
So, what type of forests do we need? According to a study by British scientists published in the journal Nature, (see Reforest) the restoration of natural forests that contain many different species of trees is 40 times more effective as a carbon sink than monoculture plantations of conifers. These monoculture forests, those with a single type of tree, are more vulnerable to disease and if harvested for timber or pulp every 10-20 years will not store carbon for as long as natural forests that act as carbon sinks for decades.
The study also shows that tropical rainforest restoration is the most effective carbon sink because trees grow faster in the tropics, replanting is much less expensive, land values are much cheaper and there are more local tree species. And reforesting peat bogs in colder climates is counter-productive because they are effective carbon sinks on their own.
Another key question is how do we restore forests? Natural regeneration is the least expensive but takes longer. Reforestation schemes range from local community plant-by-hand programs to commercial tree planting and hi-tech drones specially designed to plant trees in difficult to reach terrain.
Photo: Dendra Systems
A British company, Dendra Systems, uses data analytics to map out planting areas and specially designed drones that can plant 120 fertilized seed pods per minute. The machines use air pressure to fire the seed pods into the soil that will start to grow when activated by water. The company estimates that this method is 150 times faster and 10 times cheaper than planting by hand and that 400 teams of drone operators can plant 10 billion trees a year. (See Drones).
So how do we create the incentives to roll out a new green carpet of forest cover? Trees will follow the money. We need comprehensive transition plans that make economic sense. Replacing annual cash crops or livestock revenue with payments to sequester carbon over decades requires careful design and implementation to deliver the desired effect. And timber companies need to be financially motivated to plant slower growing trees that store more carbon for longer. To be successful, reforestation plans must make economic sense for local people. For example, agro-forestry, which combines tree cover with growing crops such as coffee or corn, serves a dual purpose of restoring tree cover, helping crops grow in drought-stricken regions and generating income for farmers in Africa and Latin America.
The prestigious research group Food and Land Use Coalition, says there are at least $700 billion and possibly up to $1 trillion in global subsidies from governments to farmers and food companies. Almost all support the status quo – a broken food system which drives deforestation. Re-directing these incentives to encourage both reforestation and the production of plant-based foods which have a lower carbon footprint, is key to drawing enough CO2 out of the atmosphere to slow down global heating. Policy makers must take the lead. If they do, industry, farmers and foresters will follow.
Editor’s note: In the last year, the amount of information on the topics we cover has transformed from a trickle into a fire hose. Admittedly, partly because we’ve uncovered new sources! Still, from think tanks, to scientific journals, to research studies, to organizations and websites focused on sustainable living, there’s much more information to consume. We’ll continue to sift through it and bring you a monthly digest of what we believe is a credible, cross-section of relevant content we’re confident you won’t find elsewhere. Thank you!