Impact of a reduced red and processed meat dietary pattern on disease risks and greenhouse gas emissions in the UK: a modelling study
The gist of the study is that people who eat red and processed meat are more likely to get colorectal cancer and heart disease, and meat leads to more CO2 production than vegetarianism.
Conclusions: Reduced consumption of RPM [red and processed meat] would bring multiple benefits to health and environment.
Naturally, this means forceful lifestyle modification is on its way...
Climate change mitigation is a far-future benefit that may not directly affect those who must make lifestyle changes now. It is therefore unlikely to be a strong motivator for change. In contrast, health benefits provide near-term rewards to individuals for climate-friendly changes and may thus ‘nudge’ humanity towards a sustainable future.
Dietary recommendations should no longer be based on direct health effects alone. While the UK government has acknowledged the environmental impact of livestock production and is taking action with the industry to improve efficiency, changes in production will be insufficient alone to meet challenging emission reduction targets. Joint producer and consumer responsibility is needed, supported by the use of both production- and consumption-based GHG accounts.
Averting dangerous climate change will require multiple changes at all levels of society, and the potential contribution of reduced RPM consumption should be addressed.
And so it begins. My money's on a meat tax being the first policy recommendation. Governments do like a tax.
We tried to warn you, etc.
