Their Study Solving Climate Change Requires Changing our Food Systems
I know this article is probably not surprising many people, but theres a few interesting parts, like,
The study explains how our growing demand for meat and animal products is unsustainable, with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimating that demand for meat will double by 2050.
“This demand will require approximately 80 percent of existing forests and shrubland to be converted into land devoted to raising animals. Such a trajectory would have devastating consequences for us and the planet,” Professor Knight said
And,
The study presented strategies to re-think current food systems, including the removal of government subsidies and higher taxation of animal products to account for externalised costs of animal agriculture.
For international travel, there’s just never going to be a better option than flying. Ships are far, far too slow. And suggesting that people not be allowed to go on holiday and experience other parts of the world would be the most out-of-touch unrealistic claim someone could make.
For domestic travel, we absolutely should have high speed rail, starting with Brisbane to Melbourne, and ideally extending up to Cairns and across to Perth eventually. But unfortunately we don’t have that right now, and it’s unreasonable to ask people to drive or do intercity trips on the insanely expensive yet excruciatingly slow intercity trains we have today.
But, especially since the amount of carbon emitted by Taylor Swift alone absolutely dwarfs the transport-related-pollution caused by over a thousand average folk (never mind adding in all the other billionaires and celebrities), asking individual people to sacrifice their quality of life for this just isn’t going to, pardon the pun, fly.
In the short-to-medium term, the vast majority of domestic business travel could probably just be done via Teams or Zoom. And longer term, most domestic travel should be HSR. But that still leaves quite a lot of flying. And there are other places where we can have a bigger impact.
Without any bias whatsoever, i think the first Aussie fast trains should be on the West Coast. Probably just a shortish line from Augusta to Geraldton. ;)
You joke, but that “shortish line” would actually be considerably longer than the current actual planned first stage, being Newcastle to Sydney.