Animals
Born Free: Finally
It’s been 55 years since the movie Born Free (1966) captured hearts around the world and changed the way we perceive relationships between humans and animals. Because of the emotional bond George and Joy Adamson forged with Elsa, an orphaned lioness cub in Kenya, Elsa became an individual in people’s eyes and a symbol for the right of all animals to live free. The recent decision to phase out the breeding of captive lions and keeping lions in captivity for commercial use in South Africa, comes amid growing concerns about animal welfare issues, the dangers of zoonosis, poaching of wild lions and damage to South Africa’s tourism and reputation. Currently, this unregulated industry breeds and keeps captive 8,000-12,000 lions and thousands of other big cats, including tigers and cheetahs, for interactive tourism, the lion bone trade and live exports.
Food
Re-balancing Kids’ Diets
Few people appreciate the scale (billions of dollars every year) of the marketing of junk food to kids. But there are some programs designed to help parents and children make healthier, more humane food choices including the website Humane Food for Kids. It’s sponsored by the Canadian Coalition for Farm Animals and designed to teach kids where their food comes from. It confronts the mythology of Old MacDonald’s farm — that cows, pigs, chickens and others are raised outdoors in farmyards and on pastures, leading happy lives as nature intended. The reality is that about 98% of the meat consumed in North America comes from factory farming, and this model is being exported around the world and is driving a rise in meat consumption globally. Kids are more likely to eat healthy food if they appreciate the impact of their food choices. See the sustainable food program at the Jane Goodall Institute in Canada.
the Climate Crisis
The Carbon Cost of Being Seen
Showing up in person, which often meant flying, was expected before the pandemic. Could the climate crisis dampen expectations to appear on video conferences? While much less burdensome, they still come at a climate cost and while we still need to connect there’s a way to reduce the impact. A new study in the journal Resource, Conservation & Recycling calculated the global carbon footprint of Internet data storage and transmission as roughly equal to the annual carbon emissions of Sweden plus Finland. The main culprit is video. A voice-only Internet meeting has on average a 96% lower environmental impact than a videoconference. Reducing streaming video quality reduces its environmental footprint by 86%. Companies could offer standard definition as a default and consumers can reduce their internet footprint by turning off video during virtual meetings, reducing video quality, and unsubscribing from junk emails.
words of wisdom
“{For} the next 10 years, with this new awareness of the trouble we have created for ourselves … we humans have to listen to the laws of nature and face up to the reality that we’re causing our own misery.”
— Dr. Sylvia Earle, legendary oceanographer and deep sea explorer
“We have entered the most decisive decade for humanity’s future on Earth. The future is not determined, the future is in our hands.”
— Prof. Johan Rockström, scientific director at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Photo: Algae blooms suck oxygen out of the water creating dead zones that kill fish. Runoff from feed crop fertilizer and livestock manure are major causes.
Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2019, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO, via Wikimedia Commons
perspective
Source: Netflix documentary, “Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet”
Rockström Rocks the Climate Science
“Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet”, a new Netflix documentary, featuring David Attenborough and Swedish climate scientist Johan Rockström, has been described as “… probably the most important documentary that has ever been filmed,” by Christiana Figueres, former head of the UN Climate Change team and a key architect of the Paris climate agreement. The 10-minute trailer for the film was shown to world leaders at Biden’s Climate Summit in April.
It presents a clear and compelling report card on the current state of the perils facing us across nine crucial planetary boundaries. But the film offers hope by mapping out what we can do to bring our planet back within safe operating limits.
Prof. Rockström, scientific director at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, is a rock-star among climate scientists, a clear communicator and one of the originators of the concept of planetary boundaries. He says, “Scientific evidence shows that we are putting the stability of the entire planet at risk and this is nothing less than a planetary climate emergency.” But crucially, “we have entered the most decisive decade for humanity’s future on Earth. The future is not determined, the future is in our hands.”
Professor Johan Rockström. Source: Netflix documentary, “Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet”
Planet Earth’s systems are inextricably linked, and each one needs to operate within safe limits for life to survive and prosper. Rockström and his colleagues around the world have identified nine such systems that regulate the planet including climate, biomes (forests, grasslands, wetlands), freshwater (“the lifeblood of the planet”) air quality and nutrients (especially nitrogen and phosphorus which are key ingredients in fertilizers), and measured whether we are operating safely within them using an easy to understand green/yellow/red grading system.
Rockström’s work shows how these systems work together either in vicious or virtuous circles. The report card shows that we have already exceeded at least four boundaries and are in the red zones for climate, forest loss, biodiversity and nutrients, and are in danger of crossing tipping points after which change is irreversible.
But the film offers hope and prescriptions for solutions.
Choose renewable energy
Draw down carbon by planting billions of trees and promote silviculture which combines trees and crops in the same space
Use lower levels of fertilizers to protect water sources, biodiversity and marine life
Adopt a “healthy” diet
This last idea “is almost unbelievably simple but is key to staying within our planetary boundaries … and can be adopted by anyone with the freedom to choose what [they] eat,” Attenborough says.
Photo: Ella Olssen from Pexels
A “healthy” diet is defined as more flexitarian — more plant-based protein, more fruits and nuts and less red meat and starchy foods. If we embrace this diet, Rockström says “we can come back within safe operating limits not only on our climate, but on land, water, nitrogen and phosphorus and biodiversity. And that is quite exciting.”
Another key solution is a major mind-shift for policy and decision makers. Rockström says we need to re-frame our entire growth trajectory around planetary boundaries and “to reconnect our modern development, all our aspirations and dreams and what we value in life — with the stability of the planet.”
“Planetary boundaries have given us a clear path ahead,” says Attenborough. “Simple things like choosing renewable energy, planting trees, eating healthy food and eliminating waste — together will transform our future on this planet.”
pet peeves
A light-hearted glimpse into the lives of our furry and feathered friends.
This won’t be good if the wind gets up …
The deeper dive
Photo: Taz, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Food: How Do I Waste Thee? Let Me Count the Ways
Food waste is the smoking gun testifying to our staggeringly inefficient food system. If it were a country, it would be the third largest GHG emitter in the world (UN FAO). But there are new and innovative ways to tackle it.
How much food we waste (35% of food globally is unsold or uneaten), the myriad ways in which we waste it at every stage in the supply chain (from items left to rot in fields, lack of refrigeration, food animals dying during transport, discarding food that doesn’t look perfect or has reached its “best before” date, leftovers on restaurant plates, to households buying too much), and its implications for the climate have captured the attention of companies, businesses, governments and individuals.
It’s a global problem with environmental, financial, and human impacts. Food loss and waste are major squanderers of resources including water, land, energy, labour and capital, and needlessly produce up to 8% of all greenhouse gas emissions contributing to global warming and the climate crisis. If just one-quarter of the food currently lost or wasted could be saved, it would feed 870 million hungry people.
More than half of all the food produced in Canada is tossed annually, costing the economy $50 billion in avoidable food loss, according to Agri-Food Canada. Canadian food consumers are responsible for a whopping 47% of this waste, equivalent to 79 kilograms of food a year at a cost of $1,766 per household. The remaining 53% occurs in industrial sectors, such as food processing, retail, farming, restaurants and transport, according to the National Zero Waste Council.
In the US, 35% of all food — at a cost of $408 billion annually — goes uneaten, while more than 40 million Americans are considered food insecure.
Numerous studies find that the world experiences significant levels of food loss and waste, with losses “near the farm” predominant in lower-income regions and waste “near the plate” predominant in higher-income regions. Source: World Resources Institute
Food waste reduction targets set by the UN Sustainable Development Goal of cutting food waste in half by 2050 (UN SDG Target 12.3.1) will need innovations to help us reach them.
The good news is that groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the non-profit ReFED, and the World Wildlife Fund, have been raising awareness of the issue for the past several years. In fact, ReFED estimates that the total amount of food wasted in the U.S. has leveled off since 2016, while food waste per capita has decreased 2% over the last three years.
Also, investment in the space is picking up with many opportunities to rescue and recycle organic waste preventing it from going to landfills and incinerators. There is also a huge collective effort on the part of food producers, manufacturers, retailers, restaurants, capital providers and others to curb it.
Photo: Biocycle.net
At The Spoon’s recent Food Waste Insights and Innovation Forum, in partnership with ReFED, ReFED’s Managing Director and co- founder Dana Gunders said, “People talk about food waste as if it were one problem. It’s not … [it’s] a complex set of inefficiencies and we need a whole suite of solutions to address that.” Post-harvest food loss differs from food thrown out at the grocery store or food we toss at home so it follows that the solutions will vary based on which part of the supply chain they’re aimed at.
Tech is one obvious tool when it comes to innovation and companies are working with everything from machine learning and image recognition to hyperspectral imaging and sensors. These and other technologies can track waste, produce more accurate forecasts for retailers, and even identify which pieces of fruit will ripen soonest in any given crop. Other examples include: shelf-life extension tools for grocery retailers, grocery order automation and improving date-labeling systems.
However, technology is only one piece of the innovation puzzle. Equally important are new processes and business models together with what Gunders calls “cultural evolution.”
New business models around food waste have been emerging steadily over the last few years, many of them around grocery and/or restaurant services selling surplus food. This is a model popularized by Imperfect Foods, Too Good to Go, and others.
Meanwhile, cultural evolution refers to what Gunders calls “innovation on a much simpler level.” It’s smaller actions that work together to make the public more aware of food waste and encourage them to make changes in behaviour. Signage in dining halls about food waste or allowing customers to taste a product before they buy it are two examples.
Given our significant contribution to the problem, individuals can and need to play a role. Even kids are getting in on the act. Check out the amazing video below produced by The Jane Goodall Institute Canada’s Roots & Shoots youth leadership program (which Planet Friendly News is honoured to support).
For more ideas on how to cut down on food waste, check out lovefoodhatewaste.ca and Take Action.
freeing animals from cages
In a groundbreaking decision, the European Commission has committed to phasing out cages for farmed animals across the EU culminating in a total ban by 2027. The decision follows years of lobbying by activists and the submission of a petition signed by over 1.4 million people and supported by more than 170 organizations. Campaigners estimate that more than 300 million animals spend all or part of their lives in cages, pens or stalls every year in the EU.
In addition, the Commission will look at “introducing rules or standards for imported products that are equivalent to the EU’s”, meaning products from other countries – such as the UK – may have to comply with cage-free standards in order to be sold in the EU.
Photo: An industrial egg-laying barn in Spain. Jo-Anne McArthur/Animal Equality/We Animals Media
Good news
The Blue Moon butterfly (Australia) not only sees markings on flowers we can only see by using an ultraviolet filter, the markings on the male’s wings are visible only to other butterflies. Source: Netflix documentary, “Life in Color”
If you have FOMO, you’ll enjoy David Attenborough’s new three-part documentary Life In Color on Netflix, which shows how inhabitants of the natural world use colour to communicate and survive. Many species see colour in a way that the human eye cannot but by using cameras specifically designed for the program (using ultraviolet and polarizing filters) we get to see what birds, fish, insects and other species see, and how they use colour for warding off predators and rivals, and attracting a mate. The vibrant, up-close footage is visually stunning and we get to see what we’re missing!
Investor pressure has forced the biggest fast food companies — including McDonald’s, Domino’s Pizza and KFC — to ramp up their climate commitments and address risks posed by climate change, water scarcity, and water pollution.
A coalition of 90 investors managing $11.4 trillion, led by FAIRR, called for the world’s biggest fast food brands to lower their huge carbon and environmental footprints and de-risk their meat and dairy supply chains. This includes setting ambitious targets to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, water usage, and water quality impacts in their animal protein supply chains.
“Fast-food chains managing over 100,000 restaurants worldwide are now setting, or planning to set, aggressive climate targets aligned with a commitment to keep global warming below 2°C. An essential ingredient in meeting these ambitious targets will be protein diversification,” said Jeremy Coller, founder of FAIRR and CIO of Coller Capital. “Fast food needs to see a meaningful shift towards sustainable plant protein products if it is to deliver on its commitments.”
FAIRR says that investor pressure has forced five of the six fast food giants to adopt science-based targets to reduce their emissions but more work is needed on water and pollution issues and assessing overall climate risk.
A new report shows that 80% of UK caterers are ramping up the transition to plant-rich menus in 5,000 schools, healthcare institutions and universities in Britain.
A study by the UK NGO Eating Better finds that caterers are responding to changing customer demands and that concerns about climate change, nature loss, health and animal welfare are the main drivers for change.
These charts show the progress being made and the ranking of customer concerns about the multiple impacts of what they eat.
"What we feed our children to nourish them while they learn, or to help patients recovering in hospital, really matters. The public sector must take the lead on eating better and our survey shows they're making good progress in serving climate and nature friendly food, with less red and processed meat and more veg already on menus,” says Simon Billing, Executive Director, Eating Better.
In Canada, a food services firm that serves one million meals a day has committed to go plant-based with 20% of its protein purchases by the end of 2022. Sodexo has joined the Forward Food Pledge, a program run by Humane Society International/Canada. The Society says the change will provide delicious plant-based meals for millions of customers, improve human health, reduce GHG emissions and save over half- a-million animals a year.
data points
Photo: Dairy farm in France, CC-BY-SA-4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
EU Farms: Not Really Green, Just Pretending
Farm subsidies in Europe take up one-third of the entire EU budget, yet 20% of farms get 80% of the money, “favouring aristocrats and agri-giants” according to The Economist. Despite the huge GHG and environmental footprint of the industry, EU policy makers recently decided to make no substantive changes on the criteria for $330 billion in future payments, largely due to the influence of the current beneficiaries of the system, the political power of farmers and the agriculture industry. There are some aspirational “green and sustainability” targets, but with loopholes big enough to drive a milk tanker truck through.
charting our path
Source: Food Climate Partnership
How Food Can be a Solution to the Climate Crisis
What we eat and how it’s produced has a major impact on our future, according to The Food Climate Partnership (FCP). This recent collaboration of experts is focused on showing how food system policy can be a major weapon in fighting the climate crisis.
FCP provides an excellent “big picture” overview showing how the relationship between food and climate is a two way street — how our food system impacts the climate crisis and the climate crisis impacts our food system. See video.
Source: Food Climate Partnership
Experts at the Columbia Climate School and New York University offer strategies to reduce food system emissions — including reducing food waste and fertilizer use and adopting a flexitarian, plant-rich diet — at both a policy and individual level which will make our food system more resilient too.
Their mission is to show how food system policy, energy policy and climate policy need to be linked and integrated to effectively fight the climate crisis. And it’s also a useful blueprint to guide individual action.
riveting reads
Singapore has no livestock but wants food security. The answer? Fake meat (Fortune)
A look at how one country is leveraging a new food technology to address its problem of food insecurity.
Interview with oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle on the need for sea conservation (The Guardian)
The legendary oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle, guides us forward by sharing the wisdom born of a lifetime exploring the state of our oceans and its inhabitants.
Meat Me Halfway review: A thoughtful case for the reducetarian diet (New Scientist)
A review of the upcoming documentary “Meat Me Halfway” that explores what should be the safety of middle ground but, owing to our attachment to meat, turns out to be anything but. Available on demand including: Amazon, Vimeo, and iTunes starting July 20.
How can we prevent the next zoonotic disease outbreak (Modern Farmer)
Researchers are looking at ways to minimize the zoonotic disease risks from factory farming.