Читать книгу BOSH! How to Live Vegan - Henry Firth - Страница 15

It’s sadly undeniable that our addiction to steaks, hamburgers and cheese is a core part of the problem. It’s pretty clear to us that we need to reduce our intake of those, so we can reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we are releasing into the atmosphere. As individuals, that’s the most powerful thing we can do to reduce our carbon footprint.

There have been five mass extinctions in the history of our planet. This period that we are living in now has been termed the ‘sixth mass extinction’.[4] This is an entirely human-caused extinction. We’ve killed half of all wildlife in the last 40 years,[5] and since the rise of human civilisation, 83% of wild mammals have been lost.[6] We’re causing the biggest extinction since the dinosaurs, and the first extinction where the cause – us – is acting through choice.

What has brought this about? Well, the loss of animals is partly due to human overpopulation, but also overconsumption. There are a lot of us on this little planet, yes, but our repeated acts of killing for food and destroying habitats are the main destroyers of wildlife.[7] Humans have modified more than half of the Earth’s surface according to their own aims,[8] and it is estimated that 26% of the entire Earth’s surface is now used for livestock grazing.[9]

It’s not just wildlife that’s at risk either. Perhaps the bigger, more frightening danger that we are currently facing is the warming of the planet. Scientists have warned that the ‘catastrophic’ level of 2°C warming is a nightmare we need to avoid,[10] and while this has been popularly framed as a doomsday-like worst-case scenario, in practice, that catastrophic 2°C warming is more like the best-case scenario. [11]

Increased levels of greenhouse gases, including methane and carbon dioxide, are trapping more heat in the Earth’s atmosphere. This prevents it from cooling down properly, and as a result the planet is warming up rapidly, in turn causing dramatic melting of the ice caps and an increasing number of climate-related disasters.[12]