By changing our diets now, we can avoid the food chaos that climate change is bringing
Published: August 6, 2025
Excerpt: "This trajectory of climate-driven food price hikes – leading to social unrest and political decay – is not inevitable. The scientific consensus shows that the biggest opportunity we have for reducing food’s environmental impacts across many countries is increasing the amount of plants we eat and reducing meat and dairy intake.
"This could help us better deal with shocks. It’s likely such shifts would be better for related climate shocks such as flooding and storm surges.
"Plant-rich diets are beneficial because eating plants is a far more efficient way of delivering the calories and nutrients we need for a healthy lifestyle than eating animals that are fed on plants.
"My team and I found that a shift to plant-rich diets in the UK would free an area almost the size of Scotland. As climate change hits food production, some land currently producing animal feed could be used for human crops instead. There would still be plenty of land left which could – if sufficient policies are put in place – be used to meet biodiversity targets while improving access to nature for millions and improving mental health.
"The plant-rich diet we investigated isn’t vegan. It’s not even vegetarian, although it does include a reasonable (and healthier) amount of meat and dairy. For example, it still includes a hamburger every fortnight." [Well, personally, I prefer a buffalo burger once a month or every two months, but yeah...]
#SolarPunkSunday #ClimateChange #FoodSecurity #EatMoreVeggies #EatLessMeat #DietForASmallPlanet