The steaks are high: food, climate and planetary health- Emma Garnett

Green Party County Councillor Emma Garnett gave a lecture at the University of Oxford outlining the environmental impacts of different foods. Emma discussed why reducing meat and dairy consumption is so important, highlighting that cows and sheep release methane which is a powerful greenhouse gas as well as having a large land footprint. Reflecting this, Emma explained the carbon footprint of protein-rich foods, and that beef produces on average the 50 kg of greenhouse gases per 100g of protein.

Emma drew focus to what we as a society can do to make sustainable diets easier, key things being smaller portions of meat and dairy, increasing the availability of plant-based options and making them cheaper, and possibly introducing environmental footprint labels. Emma highlighted that system and individual change both have significant roles in catalysing change.

This talk by Emma was highly informative and helped give so much information on how we can individually make different lifestyle changes to make an impact.

Evie Phipps