One of the most interesting things for me were the shear numbers involved with the world's growing intake of meat products. The figure below (taken from the BBC) shows the increase of food intake in China per capita (a rise from 20kg to 50kg over the last 17 years) and the respective increase in resources that are needed to fund this increase; which obviously have a serious impact on the planet.
One interesting point that comes out of this diagram is the fact that we don't even have to look back as far back as the hunter-gathering neanderthals to see that our meat intake has far outgrown our requirements!
The implications of the increased food production for climate change are of course vast but only briefly touched upon in the BBC articles. As they mention, desertification is already accelerating in China and sub-Saharan Africa whilst the disruption of the water cycle causes considerable changes in other regions. This is not to mention the extra strain the production methods place on natural resources.
These BBC articles are definitely well worth a read especially as they help confirm my opinion that the quantities of meat that people eat, needs to be addressed. Hopefully, for the sake of the environment, this shift in thought will be made long before economic issues demand us to address the situation.
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