Can a Climate Catastrophe Be Prevented?

Unfortunately, there is increasing evidence that the world is rapidly heading toward a climate catastrophe and there is little time to make the changes that might prevent it. All of human life could be eliminated before the end of this century, unless major positive changes soon occur.

An extreme exaggeration? Unfortunately, not. Please consider:

1. In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an organization composed of climate experts from many countries, warned that “unprecedented changes” were needed by 2030 for the world to have a chance to avert a climate catastrophe. Despite that warning, in May 2022 it was announced that atmospheric carbon dioxide had reached a record level, indicating hat the world is still heading in the wrong direction with regard to climate change.

2. Because of many dire warnings, like the one above, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres stated that the climate situation is a “Code Red for Humanity” and that “delay means death.” 3. The year 2022 was unprecedented for the frequency and severity of droughts, heat waves, wildfires, storms, and floods, with many records being broken.

As devastating as climate events have been recently, prospects for the future are even more frightening, for four very important reasons:

☼ While all the recent severe climate events have occurred at a time when the global temperature has risen about 1.1 degrees Celsius (about two degrees Fahrenheit) since the start of the industrial revolution, climate experts project that this will at least triple by the end of this century, triggering far worse climate events.

☼ While climate experts believe that 350 parts per million (ppm) of atmospheric carbon dioxide is a threshold value to avert the worse effects of climate change, the world has reached 420 ppm and it is increasing at 2 - 3 ppm per year.

☼ Climate experts fear that self-reinforcing positive feedback loops (vicious cycles) could result in an irreversible tipping point such that global warming will rise uncontrollably, with catastrophic results. One example is that as the world gets hotter, more air conditioning will be used, meaning that more fossil fuel will be burned. This will release more greenhouse gases, heating the atmosphere even more, resulting in still more use of air conditioning, etc.

☼ Military experts are warning that there will likely be tens of millions of desperate refugees fleeing from severe heat waves, droughts, wildfires, storms, floods, and other climate events, which will promote social and political instability, terrorism, and war. Severe droughts already caused major migrations that resulted in civil wars in both Sudan and Syria.

Because of the above factors, averting a climate catastrophe must become a central focus for civilization today. Every aspect of life should be considered in terms of reducing “carbon footprints.” Among the many positive steps that should be taken are shifting away from fossil fuels to solar, wind, and other renewable forms of energy; designing more efficient cars, lightbulbs, and other items; improving public transportation so that more people will use it; recycling; and composting.

However, as president emeritus of Jewish Veg and author of “Vegan Revolution: Saving Our World, Revitalizing Judaism,” I feel impelled to stress that there is one approach that has by far the greatest potential to help avert a climate catastrophe and that is through a societal shift toward vegan diets. Such a shift has a major advantage that the approaches mentioned above do not have. It provides the only approach that not only significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions, because there would be far less cows and other farmed animals emitting methane, a very potent greenhouse gas with about 80 times the ability to heat up the planet as CO2 per unit weight. It also has the potential of dramatically reducing CO2 presently in the atmosphere by permitting reforesting over a third of the world’s ice-free land that is currently being used for grazing and raising feed crops for animals. This could reduce the current very dangerous level of CO2 in the atmosphere to a much safer one. Unfortunately, the opposite is happening. According to an August 14, 2022, article, “Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest through July hits new record.” We are literally eating our way to extinction.

Taking the possibility of reforestation into account, systems engineer Sailesh Rao, PhD, argues in his paper, “Animal Agriculture Is the Leading Cause of Climate Change,” published in the Journal of Ecological Society, that shifts toward vegan diets could, in effect, reduce atmospheric greenhouse gases by at least 87%, greatly lessening climate threats.

Bottom line: To have a chance for a decent, habitable, environmentally sustainable world for future generations, there must be a society-wide shift toward vegan diets. A Utopian dream? Perhaps, but as the title of a book by Buckminster Fuller puts it, we may have a choice today between “Utopia or Oblivion.” And it would not be utopian if people become aware that the climate situation is a “Code Red for humanity,” and that they can get plant substitutes with the appearance, texture, and taste indistinguishable from meat and other animal products.

It is essential that meat consumption is sharply reduced, and that major reforestation occurs. There is no planet B. Nor is there an effective Plan B.

Richard H. Schwartz, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, College of Staten Island

Author of Vegan Revolution: Saving Our World, Revitalizing Judaism; Judaism and Vegetarianism; Judaism and Global Survival; Mathematics and Global Survival; and Who Stole My Religion? Revitalizing Judaism and Applying Jewish Values to Help Heal Our Imperiled Planet; and over 250 articles at JewishVeg.org/schwartz

President Emeritus, Jewish Veg (www.JewishVeg.org); President, Society Of Ethical and Religious Vegetarians (SERV):

Associate producer of A SACRED DUTY (www.JewishVeg.org/ASacredDuty);

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