Treehugger has an article on a report from the Stockholm Resilience Centre on meat eating. It begins:
The director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre says it’s a huge problem that meat is so “culturally embedded in Western societies.” Not many things rival climate change when it comes to big global problems needing to be solved; but according to Professor Johan Rockström, improving the global diet will be much more difficult than dealing with climate change. Rockström is the director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, and he spoke at the Sustainability Summit hosted by The Economist this past week in London.
“Meeting the climate challenge [to decarbonize world economies] is the easy one. Meeting the health [diet] challenge is the difficult one,” he stated.
The two are closely entwined, however, since dietary choices have a significant impact on the way in which resources are used to produce food. Fortunately, as people move toward plant-based eating, thereby improving their personal health, the planet will benefit, too. Rockström is pessimistic, however, because not many people want to make that switch. Meat eating is so “culturally embedded in Western societies.” …
Indeed it is.