OPINION
Joanne Nova
A prize-winning science graduate in molecular biology. She has given keynotes about the medical revolution, gene technology and aging at conferences. She hosted a children’s TV series on Channel Nine, and has done over 200 radio interviews, many on the Australian ABC. She was formerly an associate lecturer in Science Communication at the ANU. She’s author of The Skeptics Handbook which has been translated into 15 languages.
Winning? For the moment the UN has quietly packed away plans to tell everyone to give up meat to stop bad weather
Back in November the UN was all set to boss the citizens of wealthy nations around. The plan was to badger them into giving up meat so their grandchildren would have slightly nicer weather.
Possibly, after thousands of farmers stormed across the EU in their tractors this winter, the idea has lost its appeal. Not that the UN has the honesty to explain why they changed their minds, or even to admit they did. But the first installment of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) food systems roadmap has left the activists reeling.
The omission of meat-eating reduction from proposals in a UN roadmap to tackle the climate crisis and end hunger is “bewildering”, according to academic experts.
The group also criticised the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s report for “dismissing” the potential of alternative proteins, such as plant-based meat, to reduce the impact of livestock on the environment.
For the first time ever, some activists even called for “transparency”:
In a commentary published in the journal Nature Food, experts said the FAO’s failure to include a methodology on how the 120 actions it did support were chosen, or a list of authors, was “concerning and surprising”. They called for the next instalments of the roadmap to be more transparent …
A group of academics has written a paper in Nature criticizing the UN group. They can’t believe the UN would miss an opportunity to promote vegetarian lifestyles and fake meat. The head of the FAO group defended himself, saying “Dietary change is mentioned eight times in the 50-page summary report” which sounds like nothing at all, especially when they don’t even mention “reducing meat”.
It may not last, but looks acts and smells like a win. Score 1 for the farmers…. the UN is being badgered by The People.
This article originally appeared at JoNova