My letter in today's Jerusalem Post on 'the cow in the room"

[Richard Schwartz]

In view of the increasingly dire warnings of climate scientists and the many wake-up calls we have been receiving from recent severe climate events, it was very distressing that “World struggles as greenhouse gas levels hit record” and “‘COP 26 [the climate change conference scheduled to start on October 31 in Glasgow] success not certain’” (both October 26).

The major problem is the failure to recognize “the cow in the room” - that there is no chance to avert a climate catastrophe without a societal shift away from animal-based diets , the major cause of climate change. Such a shift would not only significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with less cows and other farmed animals emitting methane, a gas much more potent than CO2 in warming the atmosphere. It would also enable reforesting much of the over a third of the world’s ice-free land mass that is currently used for grazing and raising feed crops for animals. The added trees would absorb much of the atmospheric CO2, resulting in much safer levels.

Yes, such a change would be very difficult to obtain, but it is essential to efforts to leave a decent, habitable world for future generations. There will be a major effort at COP 26 to get this message onto the conference agenda.

RICHARD H. SCHWARTZ, PH.D.
Professor Emeritus, College of Staten Isla

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Richard H. Schwartz, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus, College of Staten Island
Author of Vegan Revolution: Saving Our World, Revitalising 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 Vegetarians of North America (www.JewishVeg.org); President, Society Of Ethical and Religious Vegetarians (SERV):
Associate producer of A SACRED DUTY (www.aSacredDuty.com);
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