I am the whataboutor! The issue of healthy forests is talking around the issue of why we are clearing forests. I just watched a documentary on plant based eating (which I realize is NOT a CCL policy focus currently) and wanted to share the link because it's free to watch for the next few days:
I've recently seen that livestock (mostly cattle and pigs) make up 60% of the world's land mammal biomass. Humans are next at 36% and all other land mammals are just 4%.
I've also heard that deforestation of the Amazon is largely driven by Americans consuming beef. Maybe that's covered in the film.
Since we're probably centuries away from reducing the human biomass (without a massive die off), we could greatly help the survival of all other mammals on earth by reducing our beef and pork consumption.
@Steven Selby thanks for that link, what an interesting study! I know it will probably never (and should not) be a policy issue on a personal level, but reducing the amount of animal products consumed by reducing government subsidies to the meat and dairy industry in the farm bill would be a start.
It is impressive what an impact your diet makes. There was a recent article about how NYC public schools allocated one day as a meatless cafeteria day, and they saw significant reductions in their greenhouse gases:
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