Director and activist James Cameron has a simple solution for halting the effects of climate change: Stop eating meat.
“Animal agriculture is a huge contributor to greenhouse gas emissions through its production of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxides,” he wrote in an op-ed for Newsweek. “If you look at the forcing effect of animal agriculture — and this is just animal agriculture — it’s actually larger than the entire transportation sector.”
The “Avatar” and “Titanic” director argued that while we need to reduce fossil fuel emissions from power plants, ending our reliance on animal-based food products would make a larger impact in the fight against climate change. We need transportation, he wrote, but we do not need to continue eating animals.
“I’m not saying that from an ethical, animal-rights standpoint; I’m saying it from a health standpoint,” Cameron said. “Nutritionally, we don’t need to eat animals and animal products. And we’re actually much healthier if we don’t. This has been proven; there’s a depth and breadth of scientific analysis behind that statement.”
He described cutting down on animal agriculture as a “thermostat we can grab the quickest and change the fastest” by changing what groceries we buy, what we order at restaurants and our general diets.
“The single biggest thing an individual can do is to shift more towards a plant-based diet,” he said. “It’s a win-win. It’s a win for your health. It’s a win for the environment.”
Cameron threw out a statistic that claimed 85 percent of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest can be directly tied to clearing space for farms and raising animals that will eventually be slaughtered for consumption, as opposed to logging.
He also said that as China’s consumption of meat increased, so did its carbon emissions, and implored Americans to not follow in China’s footsteps.
“Simply by making a conscious, ethical decision about what we put on our plates, we could quite possibly change the world,” Cameron wrote.
Cameron is the co-founder of the Food Choice Taskforce, a group dedicated to “showing the impact of animal agriculture on climate change and the environment,” according to its website.
Newsweek is running environmentally-charged op-eds throughout the COP21 conference in Paris, which runs through Dec. 11.
