10 Nov What’s on Your Plate? Why Diet Change Is Key for Climate and Food Justice
David Cleveland (Environmental Studies,UCSB)
November 10, 2015 / 1:00 PM
McCune Conference Room, 6020 HSSB
Food that is good for people and for society is also good for the climate—this positive synergy between climate justice and food justice can help motivate needed change.
The Neolithic supply side response to increasing demand initiated anthropogenic global climate change, and is still with us, in the form of Green Growth. The food system has always been a major driver of climate change and still is—and climate change is making food production and distribution more difficult. Poor people emitting the least greenhouse gases and suffering most from climate change are also those consuming the least food resources and suffering the most from hunger and malnutrition. Limits to supply side solutions mean that to solve this problem, wealthy people emitting the most greenhouse gases and consuming most food resources will need to reduce their emissions and consumption, and doing so will also make us healthier. Diet change is a demand-side strategy that is key for slowing climate change, eliminating hunger, and slowing the epidemic of chronic disease. It is a key leverage point for achieving both food and climate justice.
Website: http://ehc.english.ucsb.edu/
Sponsored by Critical Issues in America, the Environmental Humanities Initiative, the IHC, and College of Letters and Science.