Comment: That's right, over 50,000 people flew out to Brazil to discuss how to 'save the planet' from man-made CO2 emissions. Go figure!
That's what's on the agenda.
But what we want to know is: What's on the menu? Specifically, will this large gathering on climate change be serving meat - whose production and consumption are major contributors to climate change?
We tried to find out.
The first answer to our e-mail inquiries ignored the question and pointed with pride to the event's effort to be green. A U.N. spokesperson responded: "There have been quite a few actions taken by both the Brazilian Government and the UN secretariat to 'green' the Rio conference. For one thing, the conference will be 'papersmart,' with no hard documentation issued unless a special request is made for print on demand. I also know that the Brazilian Government has been addressing plastics issues."
Pressing further, we found out from another U.N. spokesperson that priority will be given to "organic foods in catering services." Which sounds nice enough, except that "organic" cattle typically produce even more methane per pound of beef than their less-well-treated brothers and sisters.
Comment: So let's continue to make life hell for cattle everywhere to save the planet, is that the message here? Methane emissions have no effect on 'climate change' compared with the misery generated by cattle feedlots. The negative emotions generated by 'civilization' are the only factor in the climate change equation humanity (could have) any potential control over.
The United Nations has been holding environmental conferences since 1972. Initially these events focused on industrialization, economic growth and their impact on the environment. By the 1990s, the focus shifted to the effects of global warming. At the first Rio meeting in 1992, 154 nations, including the United States, promised to stabilize the level of greenhouse gases and prevent dangerous changes to the climate system.
They have failed miserably. Since then, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has risen to a level that many scientists think is already dangerous. Many climate experts suggest that we have less than two decades before we reach a point of no return - after that, nothing we can do will prevent climate changes from spiraling into disaster.
No one really believes that the Rio+20 meeting will result in a new agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions. In that case, the best thing the conference could do for the climate is to remove meat from the menu - and to make a big deal about it. Everyone at that meeting should know that meat is a major contributor to climate change. It is also one problem that can be solved more quickly than others. Cutting out meat would do more to help combat climate change than any other action we could feasibly take in the next 20 years.
Comment: The mental gymnastics required to come to this conclusion are staggering. Even ardent British environmentalist George Monbiot has seen through this drivel:
I Was Wrong About Veganism. Let Them Eat Meat - But Farm It Properly
Peter Singer, a 'moral philosopher' of Viennese Jewish extraction... a modern-day "bearded schizoidal fanatic", to borrow a term from Lobaczewski
If the United Nations and all the national delegations and activist groups at Rio+20 were to insist on eliminating meat at all the buffets, private dinners, embassy receptions, luncheons and breakfast briefings, people might start to think that the United Nations takes seriously the damage that human activity is causing to the planet. Yet, at a meeting that prides itself on being "green," and where environmental advocates will be pushing their agenda, talking about meat seems to be an afterthought, or possibly even taboo.
While environmental groups campaign around the dangers of global warming, it's rare to hear prominent leaders suggest that people stop eating meat - or even seriously cut back. At a recent U.N. meeting that one of us attended, one speaker, who was from a top environmental organization, spoke fervently about the need to reduce population growth. Then, at the meal that followed his speech, he enjoyed several helpings of osso bucco. Asked about the unsustainable aspects of a high-meat diet, he unabashedly said that he "could never give up" his meat.
Comment: Of course he couldn't! Fact of life: Humans need to eat meat to evolve on this planet. Otherwise their brains shrink and they devolve into very unhealthy people. Thankfully most vegetarians come round to realising this.
And that is part of the problem. In the developed world, eating meat is a sign of the good life. It's a diet that developing countries aspire to, although it undercuts efforts to reduce poverty. As the number of affluent people in countries such as China and India increases, so does the demand for meat.
Comment: No duh! Did the authors ever consider that there could be a positive correlation here?? That the reason China and India are on the ascendancy is because their populations are eating more meat?
Burying The Vegetarian Hypothesis
To meet that demand, the FAO predicts that the number of farm animals raised each year will double from 60 billion today to 120 billion by 2050. Apart from the implications for global warming, this increase will put more pressure on grain, as vast quantities of it have to be produced to be fed to animals. Scholar Vaclav Smil, author of Feeding the World, has calculated that it is impossible for everyone on the planet to eat as people in the affluent world do now. It would require 67 percent more agricultural land than the Earth possesses.
Comment: And this is where the rubber hits the road. We have reached the limit of cultivating life from one of the planet's most valuable resources - its soil. The planet cannot even sustain the current population numbers. Ideally we would be consuming meat from animals that roam free within boundaries set by nature, not the electric fences of hideous feedlots. Unless you actively seek out and can afford decently reared meat, then you consume meat that does compound the problem - meat that is fed on grain requires that more land be cleared for Big Agriculture, which requires that more water be diverted towards farmland and more oil-based fertilisers be thrown at the crops. This is totally unsustainable. But to 'take meat off the menu' is to approach this problem from the wrong direction. We need meat. We don't need Big Ag, GMO and the Commodities Futures Market backed by Banksters and Profiteers. Let's take them off the menu and out of the equation first before we consider starving people.
At some level of course, that might be exactly what is intended. A healthy population is a critical population, something the Powers That be would prefer to not have to deal with. When we consider the shenanigans that led to the unhealthy mess that is the global food supply, it's only reasonable to think that they have deliberately weakened people's immune systems.
A 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change spelled out some likely consequences of continuing high levels of greenhouse gas emissions over the next few decades: In Latin America, 70 million people could lack enough water, and many farmers will have to abandon traditional crops as the soil becomes more saline; in Africa, 250 million people would be at risk of water shortages, and the wheat crop could be wiped out; in Asia, 100 million people would face floods from rising sea levels, and less rain could mean reduced rice crops in China and Bangladesh. By the end of the century, the seas are expected to rise between seven and 23 inches. Islands and low-lying countries may simply disappear. Maldives is already saving money in the hope of buying a new country when theirs goes under.
Comment: It's going to be far worse than that, and far sooner too. But it will have had NOTHING to do with "rising greenhouse gas emissions"!
Forget About Global Warming: We're One Step From Extinction!
There is clear evidence that reducing meat production and consumption would limit greenhouse gas emissions and possibly stave off these tragedies. However, after multiple revisions and weeks of negotiating, the word "meat" does not appear in the draft conference document for the Rio meeting. Instead, the paper discusses the need to reduce production and consumption of other products that cause global warming, without singling out that key culprit.
Global climate leaders will have a lot of pressing challenges on the table at the Rio+20 conference. It's time to take the meat off their plates.
Frances Kissling is an independent consultant on ethics for NGOs and a former president of Catholics for Choice. Peter Singer is a professor of bioethics at Princeton University and a laureate professor at the University of Melbourne. His books include Animal Liberation, The Ethics of What We Eat and The Life You Can Save.
Comment: In the twisted worldview of pathological environmentalists, we are all 'polluters' - humans and cattle alike. Remove the humans and cattle and you 'solve the problem.' But as Lobaczewski warned us: