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From:	Ginger Lee Frank (72.49.92.164)
Subject:	CITY SAYS EAT LESS MEAT TO COOL PLANET
Date:	June 1, 2009 at 11:48 pm PST

The City of Cincinnati has become the first US city to recommend eating less
meat to combat global warming. A six-month long effort by nearly 200
volunteers produced, in early 2008, a Climate Protection Action Plan (CPAP),
including a recommendation to reduce meat consumption. The plan was
renamed the Green Cincinnati Plan and officially endorsed by City Council in
June of 2008. The stated goal of the Plan is to reduce city generated green
house gas emissions by eight-percent in four years, 40% in 20 years, and
84% by 2050.

The meat consumption reduction recommendation is the last, but far from
the least, of the 80 recommendations in the plan. It was proposed and
written by artist and environmentalist William Messer. Messer, a former co-
chair of EarthSave Cincinnati has served for years on the City’s Environmental
Advisory Council. He joined the CPAP Transportation Task Team (one of five
Teams developing the Plan, along with Advocacy, Energy, Land Use and
Waste) intending to produce a locavore recommendation re. food, as well as
building materials, etc. “But data was difficult to obtain, inconsistent or non-
supportive, and the Team could not advance a draft recommendation,”
Messer says. “So I decided to focus independently on meat.”

Messer researched and wrote the draft on his own but discovered that, as it
had not been developed within an existing Task Team, none wanted it. But
the science was solid and undeniable, and the director of the City’s two-year
old Office of Environmenatl Quality, Larry Falkin, himself a vegetarian, helped
keep the recommendation alive.

The recommendation cites the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
2006 report "Livestock’s Long Shadow" which reveals that the production of
animals for food is responsible for a larger percentage (18%) of the Earth’s
greenhouse gas emissions than its buildings (8%) or all the planet’s cars,
trucks, ships, trains and planes (13%). It also draws upon a 2005 University of
Chicago report, "Diet, Energy and Global Warming", which concluded that the
average driver of a Toyota Camry can reduce his/her carbon footprint the
equivalent of switching to a Prius hybrid by eating just a fifth less meat.  The
recommendation ends, “You can change your light bulbs, buy a hybrid car
and plant more trees till the cows come home, but nothing is as effective,
available, inexpensive, quick, and powerful for the individual in affecting
global warming as the choice of where to put your fork.”.

Recent remarks by the chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change suggest that the 18% figure reported in 2006 may be significantly
lower than actual and that meat production must be a principal focus in
rapidly affecting global warming (because of the global expansion of meat
consumption and deforestation, and the new understanding of methane's
primacy).

The Meat Consumption Reduction Recommendation immediately became the
most controversial part of the Climate Protection Action Plan, even before its
approval and public announcement.  Messer’s original recommendation of an
already modest 14% reduction – effectively a one-day-a-week elimination of
meat in people’s diets (a Meatless Monday. for example) – was twice reduced,
ending up the equivalent of a one-meal-a week reduction of 5%. A prominent
conservative columnist for the Cincinnati Enquirer railed against the
entire Plan, claiming inconclusive evidence exists for global warming being
man-made, and declared he would fight the entire Plan with a fork in one
hand and a cheeseburger as his shield. The city’s Chamber of Commerce even
declined an appointment to the CPAP Steering Committee (likely concerned
about being perceived as anti-meat by the restaurant community). 

Messer kept up the pressure, reading out the evidence at public hearings,
while Falkin told a committee that, even in its less potent form, the Meat
Consumption Reduction recommendation is the second most powerful of the
Plan’s 80 recommendations. “Only [local electricity provider] Duke Energy
switching from coal would have a greater impact” in reducing greenhouse gas
emissions affecting global warming, he stated. Eventually, a nominal Food
Task Team was created as a temporary home on paper for its lone
recommendation, and the Meat Consumption Reduction recommendation
remained in the Plan which was passed.

The City’s need to get behind the Green Cincinnati Plan – including the Meat
Reduction recommendation – was underscored by a Brookings Institution
study released concurrent with the plan’s adoption ranking the Greater
Cincinnati region third worst in the US for greenhouse gas emissions.

In the months following the plan’s approval, new committees went to work
developing partners and marketing strategies to implement it
recommendations. The City’s Vice Mayor, David Crowley, proposed a
Cincinnati Farms Program to turn vacant urban land parcels own by the City
into vegetable gardens, while another Council member promoted a green
rooftops incentive program. Crowley's plan became the Urban Gardens
program, passed by City Council in late April, 2009; plantin by volunteers
began immediately at most of the plots. In early 2009, a regional Food
Congress was convened to address a multitude of food issues. Meanwhile, the
City Council is on the verge of also making Cincinnati the first US city to pass
an Environmental Justice Ordinance [the vote is scheduled for Wednesday,
June 3]. 

The principal deterrent  to all these plans is financial. The City’s reduced
population compared to its past has reduced its tax base making spending
difficult, particularly during an economic downturn.

However, the beauty of the Meat Consumption Reduction recommendation is
that, in addition to its remarkable effectiveness and ease of application by
individuals, it has none of the costs associated with nearly any of the Plan’s
other recommendations (whether buying quarter-million dollar hybrid busses
or just flourescent or LED lights). In fact, it will likely save money for those
who adopt it.

The on-paper-only Food Task Team is now actual, having met physically
nearly monthly in 2009 to address implementation of the Meat Consumption
Recommendation as well as to consider other ways in which food and climate
change intersect. The majority of its 20 or so members are vegan, although
it's co-chairs were not initially (one is now).  Actions recently taken include
writing a letter to local restaurants urging them to provide more
vegetarian/vegan entrees (and offering to help by creating an Earth Friendly
logo and a web site directing viewers to their locations and menu options),
and approving a Food Task Team booth promoting vegan dishes
and recipes at the local Taste of Cincinnati festival. They are also considering
community kitchens, food distribution centers and a vegan festival. Messer's
current proposal is to alter menus and food availability in captive eating
situations, begining with Cincinnati Public Schools and hopefully eventually
including private and parochial schools, prisons and hospitals, an effort he
began almost a decade earlier but which now may be possible in support of
slowing global warming. 

The Green Cincinnati Plan is also intended to serve as a model for the
country’s climate protection plan. Messer hopes the Meat Consumption
Reduction recommendation inspires other cities and regions to look at
reducing their meat consumption, not only to help slow global warming but
for all the other benefits doing so will achieve for planetary, human and
animal health.

The entire, 211 page Green Cincinnati Plan can be read on the City of
Cincinnati’s web site: http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov (cllick features); the food
recommendation is on pages 210-11.

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