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Magazine Articles This year, the Mail and Guardian...
Magazine Articles This year, the Mail and Guardian... | This year, the Mail and Guardian... |
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This year, the Mail and Guardian put Leonie Joubert on its coveted list of 200 Young SouthAfricans You Must Take to Lunch. As author of the award-winning book Scorched: South Africa’s Changing Climate, this widely published freelance science journalist gives a candid interview to Animal Voice editor, Louise van der Merwe Animal Voice: Reading your book Scorched is a very disquieting experience. How has your research influenced your diet, considering that meat production is now connected to climate change? LJ: I’m quite conflicted about meat eating. Apart from animal welfare considerations, from a climate-change perspective, beef and dairy contribute more emissions to the atmosphere than the transport sector. Animal Voice: Shouldn’t we all be looking towards vegetarianism or even veganism then? LJ: I have a lot of respect for people who are committed to veganism. But we have been eating meat for the last 2,5 million years and irrespective of whether people think we should or should not be eating meat, we nevertheless do eat meat and it is very much part of our culture. Animal Voice: But shouldn’t we be pulling out all the stops at this stage to address global warming? LJ: To ask people to stop eating meat is such a big ‘ask’. It would be a lot easier to ask someone not to drive a 4 x 4 than to ask them not to eat meat. The 4 x 4 is simply a status symbol. Food is so much more than that. It is at the top of the hierarchy of needs. Animal Voice: What do you suggest then? LJ: I think there is a very strong moral and ethical argument for cutting down on the amount of meat and dairy we consume. But to be vehemently radical about things like eating meat just drives people into their foxholes. I’d rather win over 100 people to a moderate change than only five to a complete change. We need to find a balance. Animal Voice: Do you think we will be able to set matters aright? LJ: We are living at the tail end of the industrial revolution which began 250 years ago. We have these huge food production systems in place. You don’t turn a ship this big around – just like that. We’re so far removed from the source of our food now and it is presented to us so sanitized, so de-animated – that we don’t really even consider that what we are eating was ever a living animal. Animal Voice: Urbanisation has turned chickens into nuggets and cows into Big Macs? LJ: Exactly! And it is to our great loss. It’s why some of the things we do to animals are simply not part of what would be regarded as normal, healthy, human behaviour. It is not normal to burn the beak off a chicken. It is not normal to have a four-hour-old calf at an auction yard. Animal Voice: So what do you suggest to our readers? LJ: I think we need to return to a more frugal approach to food and become conscious of our footprint at every level. To read more about Leonie and her new book Boiling Point, please go to: http://www.scorched.co.za/aboutleonie-joubert.htm/ • One third of the world’s cereal harvest and more than 90% of soya is used for animal feed. • Almost 10 kg of animal feed is needed to produce just 1 kg of beef. • There are 6 billion human mouths to feed on planet Earth. There are 60 billion farm animals feeding us with meat, milk and eggs. United Nations FAO • The Worldwatch Institute states: “The human appetite for animal flesh is a driving force behind virtually every major category of environmental damage now threatening the human future: deforestation, erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice, the destablisation of communities and the spread of disease.” • In 1930 per capita poultry consumption was 6.8 kg. By 1985, it was 32.9 kg. The Global Food Economy |
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