Climate change served on your plate
By Avery Yale Kamila
Portland City Hall is ignoring a large part of the climate problem: The emissions from food we eat. However, residents’ love of vegetables and the Portland Public Schools’ embrace of plant-based lunches means the city is well positioned to take a leadership role in aligning city menus with climate science.
Portland’s One Climate Future plan focuses on fossil fuel use, which is important, but ignores food. This is despite the fact that the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization finds that more than 30 percent of human-caused methane emissions come from livestock. Methane is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat. When it comes to farming, it’s not transporting food but rather raising beef cattle, dairy cows, hogs, and other livestock, whether factory farmed or free range, that is generating emissions.
At last year’s United Nations’ climate change summit in Dubai, the U.N.’s FAO released a plan to lower agricultural emissions. It would require Americans to adopt flexitarian meals with far fewer animal products. Americans don’t need to become vegetarians. But they would need to eat beef, cheese, pork, and chicken just a few times a week to significantly lower emissions.
Disinformation Campaign
Recent research shows that ignoring animal agriculture’s role in climate change is bolstered by the powerful and well-funded meat and dairy lobbies that have poured millions into academic research designed to downplay the role of livestock in climate change. However, in the face of this disinformation campaign, 27 cities around the globe have signed the international Plant Based Treaty.
Treaty signers create policies to reduce the consumption of animal-based foods within their municipal borders. These policy moves don’t ban meat, as some pro-meat activists suggest, but rather use policy tools to reduce its consumption.
Portland needs to address emissions from food
While Portland’s climate policy ignores animal agriculture, the city is well positioned to develop its own plant-based action plan. Portland is a nationally-recognized leader in serving vegan and vegetarian school lunches. The city has a flourishing community garden network, with a long list of residents waiting for plots. And studies have ranked Portland as one of the places where people consume the most daily servings of fruits and vegetables.
If Portland City Hall is serious about tackling climate change, it’s time for its policies to encourage more plants and fewer animals on our plates.
Avery Yale Kamila – For the past 15 years, Portland resident Avery Yale Kamila has written a plant-based food column for the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram. She is the co-founder of Portland Protectors and a member of the Portland Climate Action Network.
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