Event note: Vegetarianism and environmental protection
Do vegis really protect against environmental and health risks? Does "local" beat "organic"? Is milk lousy? And every steak a mess? The matter is not so simple. Vegi-Pabst" Rolf Hiltl, together with Sebastian Muders from the Paulus Academy, would like to discuss such issues under the title "Save the climate, eat tofu? Vegetarianism and environmental protection" to explore such points.
A closer look shows that there are serious arguments to qualify vegetarianism and environmental protection. In 2019, for example, an international group of interdisciplinary researchers published a comprehensive study in the journal "The Lancet" recommending a "Planetary Diet" that would both sustainably protect the environment and keep the 10 billion people expected to live in 2050 healthy - an unprecedented win-win situation for everyone, since meat eaters are at least not entirely among the losers:
Thus beside milk and egg also poultry as well as beef and pork are contained in it - naturally by far not in the quantity, as it became in the meantime the standard for the population of the modern industrial and service societies world-wide, but they fly evenly also not completely out. It is therefore not a purely vegetarian or even vegan diet that keeps the world in balance, but rather a mixed diet; and the fact that human health was an important objective in the calculation of this diet is by no means to be interpreted as a flaw, but rather as a boundary condition that cannot be cut out of any equation that places concern for the environment at the center.
Individual products and good arguments
Another argument against the complete renunciation of animal products in human nutrition is presented by the biologist Florianne Koechlin: In several articles, among others for the "NZZ am Sonntag" in 2019, she has centrally argued against a moral ban on eating animals, arguing that we would thereby deal the death blow to pasture animal husbandry: Not least for our environment and the species richness, however, it is important to preserve them, because the grass-eating livestock would keep the pastures open and free and thus prevent them from becoming overgrown. Conversely, however, the farmers could not be expected to care for their animals out of pure love for nature.
If one takes this argument seriously, there are also tangible environmental reasons in favor of moderate meat consumption; again, not in the style of industrial agriculture as we are currently experiencing, but nevertheless including the possibility of, as the author puts it, "animal-friendly and ecological meat production".
Apart from such general considerations in favor of a mixed diet, more and more individual products are coming into public focus that threaten to severely restrict vegetarian eating habits, not least from an environmental point of view: for example, the CO2 balance of certain dairy products is anything but intoxicating. If one believes the corresponding lists, the consumption of butter, for example, is often ahead of the notorious beef - around 24 grams at around 13°gr CO2 is the balance per kilo here.
Such considerations may tempt one to simply shift up a gear and renounce all animal products. But here, too, there are black sheep: For example, it is argued that the balance of rice is twice as bad as that of pork - among other things because large quantities of extremely climate-damaging methane escape from the flooded rice fields.
Of course, such examples are not enough to reject plant-based nutrition as such, and not all comparisons make sense: When in 2015 a study by Carnergie Mellon University (Pennsylvania, USA) concludes that lettuce releases no less than three times as much greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere on its way to the palate as pork, it is worth taking a look at the details: For example, this calculation was based on the same amount of energy of 1000 kcal that is to be obtained from these foods - but who eats the necessary amount of heads of lettuce within one meal?
To avoid these and similar misconceptions, the discussion with Rolf Hiltl will be preceded by an introductory presentation by Adrian Müller, an expert from the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL). In an informative foray through the thicket of cultivation methods, sustainability labels and resource calculations, he will provide the audience and discussants with the scientific basis for the discussion. Afterwards, the guests can look forward to a tasty and sustainable aperitif with delicacies from Hiltl Catering.
To the event "Save the climate, eat tofu?" you can register here log in.
Thu, Sept. 17, 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., Paulus Akademie Event Center, Pfingstweidstrasse 28, 8005 Zurich.
(Cost: CHF 35.- incl. aperitif; reduced CHF 24.-).
