Greens not going to ban meat eating – yet!

Newshub reports:

Climate Change Minister James Shaw wants you to stop eating so much meat.

But he has no plans to make it compulsory, though a recent study found going vegan is the best thing a person can do for the environment.

Second term policy if re-elected maybe?

“Ninety-five percent of new Zealanders consume meat, and it is fairly obvious there is a lot of water, a lot of energy and a lot of land use that goes into protein production that way,” the Green Party co-leader told TVNZ’s Q+A.

“If somebody wanted to have an immediate impact, they could eat one less meat meal per week.

Protein is actually quite important part of a diet.

What we’re trying to do is to ensure that there’s settings right across the economy that make sure people are supported, that they’re really clear about the direction of travel, that there are sufficient incentives to support that transition, right?

This means they either want to tax meat, or pay you to be a vegetarian.

Mr Shaw says encouraging Kiwis to say no to beef and lamb won’t harm our agriculture-led economy.

“New Zealand has enough land to feed about 40 million people with current production methodologies. We know that the middle classes in China and India and in parts of Europe and so on, there is a huge demand for our food products.”

Bad logic. It is worse for the environment for us to export meat, than consume it locally.

The most efficiently produced beef takes 36 times more land to produce than peas, according to the research, and created six times the emissions.

No more steaks. Peas for you lad.