Cutting out meat and dairy is the best way to reduce your environmental impact: study

If you do only one thing to reduce your environmental footprint, it should be to reduce your meat and dairy intake, according to a comprehensive new study. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Giving up meat and dairy is the single most effective way a person can reduce their environmental impact, new research has found. The meta-analysis, published in the journal Science , analyzed data from 750 studies, encompassing 40,000 farms in 119 countries. The researchers found that while meat and dairy products provide 18 per cent of all calories and 37 per cent of all protein, its production uses 83 per cent of farmland and produces 60 per cent of the agriculture industry’s greenhouse gas emissions. The solution to climate change might be in your fridge "Meat production involves the production of feed and that often results in the deforestation, particularly of tropical rain forests," lead author Joseph Poore, an environmental researcher from Oxford University, told As It Happens host Carol Off. "Then you’ve got all the emissions from transporting that feed. And then we have emissions on the farm. And you even have more emissions when you go through processing, packaging and retail." Demand for meat products is on the […]

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