**We are eating our way into climate disaster.**

Even if fossil fuel emissions ended *today*, our current food systems alone would still push us past the 1.5°C global warming target—and nearly exhaust our 2°C carbon budget. Food production isn’t just a contributor—it’s *the* leading driver of deforestation, biodiversity loss, freshwater stress, and pollution.

🔍 **Key Drivers of Emissions:**

- **Land use change** (e.g., deforestation for agriculture)

- **Methane from livestock** (especially cows burping—called enteric fermentation)

- **Nitrous oxide** from fertilizers and manure

These are potent greenhouse gases, much stronger than CO₂.

🥩 **The Cost of Meat:**

Animal-based foods are alarmingly inefficient.

- **Cows**: 100 calories in feed → only 2 calories of meat

- **Chickens**: slightly better, but still 87% of feed calories lost

Even protein efficiency is dismal—less than 10–20% for most animals.

🥦 **Plant-based wins**:

Plant proteins can have **10–50x lower carbon emissions** per 100g of protein than beef or lamb.

📦 **Food Waste & Loss:**

We produce ~5,000 kcal/person/day, yet people only consume ~2,500 kcal. Why the gap?

- Feed inefficiencies (mostly from meat production)

- **Biofuel diversion**

- **Waste**—both consumer-level and supply chain losses.

One example? Crops rotting due to lack of basic storage like plastic crates. This is fixable.

🌱 **Two Key Solutions:**

1. **More productive agriculture** using improved seeds, fertilizers, irrigation to increase yields without expanding land.

2. **Changing diets**—not preaching, but *informed choices*. Reducing meat/dairy intake can dramatically lower one’s environmental impact.

💡 A well-planned plant-based diet can meet most nutritional needs—**except B12**, which must be supplemented.

**Bottom line:**

We can’t solve climate change without transforming what we eat and how we grow it. And the good news? Many of the solutions are already within reach.

0:00 Transforming our food systems

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