An opinion piece on eating.
September, 2019: At the time of writing, the Amazon Rainforest
is burning. There are some 80,000 fires
that have been raging for a month, with smoke plumes visible from space. The number of fires is up by 80% compared to
last year, according to a report by CNET. Brazil has declared an emergency. The Amazon rainforest has been likened to the
lungs of the planet, supplying 20% of the world’s oxygen supply, with 10% of
its biodiversity.
It’s an oxymoron that a rainforest
can burn, but we’ve seen this before, because it occurs with unfailing
regularity in our part of the world, with haze cloaking the skies and
governments declaring emergencies and closing schools as forests and peatlands
in parts of Indonesia and Malaysia ignite and burn during the dry season. These are some of the lushest, wettest, most
biologically rich forests in the world.
How can they burn?
The fires are set by humans, and
they spin out of control, destroying ecosystems and throwing millions of tons
of CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) into the atmosphere, while damaging the capacity of the
land to absorb more CO2. We burn forests because it is the fastest way
to clear more land for agriculture and food production for a human population
of 7 billion. We, humans, are altering our planetary ecosystem at the most
dramatic rate in its history.
In August 2019, the UN IPCC
(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) released a document entitled “Land
is a Critical Resource”. It notes that
the way humans use land has a marked effect on climate change. Land use
contributes 23% of human greenhouse gas emissions, the report notes, adding
that “some dietary choices require more land and water and cause more emissions
of heat-trapping gases than others.” Indeed.
In other words, what and how we eat
affects climate change.
