Food supply is under threat from climate change not drive to net zero - Yorkshire Post Letters

There are so many misleading statements to take issue with in GP Taylor’s article ‘Food supply under threat in drive towards net zero’ (The YP, June 29) that I thought it best to start with the basics.

Firstly, the title indicates GP Taylor’s misunderstanding of climate change. It is not the ‘drive towards net zero’ that threatens our food supply – it is climate change itself, which is why we must drastically reduce our carbon emissions, be it carbon dioxide or methane.

The impacts of our climate warming through 10C, 20C up to 50C were clearly illustrated in Nicholas Stern’s ‘The Economics of Climate Change’ published in 2006.

I would recommend this report to GP Taylor, along with the numerous other publications setting out the existential threat that human activity is causing.

Amongst the many actions that Governments, organisations and individuals need to take, is the move towards a plant based diet. Anyone who has measured their carbon footprint will know that eating animal products greatly increases their personal carbon emissions.

This is not only because cattle and sheep produce methane, but because switching to a plant-based diet in itself can help fight climate change due to land use: more people could be fed using less land if people cut down on eating meat and other animal products.

As individuals we can all use our consumer power to bring about changes in demand for different products. At the risk of mentioning the B-word, I have spoken with many grandparents who asked their grandchildren how they wanted them to vote in the EU referendum, as it was their grandchildren’s future that would be most affected.

Perhaps this altruistic attitude is now playing out in the decisions more and more people are making to become at least vegetarian if not vegan. I hope so.

It is also my hope that GP Taylor will not write further articles before thoroughly researching the topic so as to provide readers with accurate information rather than misrepresenting what climate scientists and activists are saying.