Because it's Saturday, I suspect you might want less graphs and doom and gloom about the future of the world unless we let a couple of amazing children lead us than in my previous posts (see the list at the bottom of this post), so I thought I'd share something I picked up a couple of days ago in a number of reports...what the 25 000 or so delegates are eating, and why some quarters consider this highly relevant.
Remember, this conference is being held in Poland. Where they eat Polish food.
And what would typical Polish food be?
I grew up in Montreal, where we had a vibrant Polish community. One of my favourite things Polish-Montreal, besides dancing the polka (and with a good lead, wow, that is so much fun!), was good Polish food, which I recommend you eat only in winter. Meat blintzes, cheese blintzes and pierogis (frankly, after searching and searching, I'm not sure of the correct spelling) are the ultimate in comfort food.
These are basically dumplings with a yummy meat filling, if I remember correctly. Which I might not! So any Polish people out there, please feel free to correct me and post some photos of proper Polish food.
I also remember having beef and cheese blintzes with sour cream - a student favourite at Cdn$3.50 for a full meal at our local Polish hangout, the Mazurka restaurant on St-Arthur street.
I doubt it's a stretch that Polish food would be served at a global conference in Poland.
Why am I going on about food, when we're supposed to be talking about climate change?
Because unfortunately, the way we eat and climate change are inexorably linked. The more meat we eat, the more land we use and the more we cut down forests to make way for cattle farming. Couple that with the extraordinary amount of methane that cows belch (yes, belch - not fart) and it turns out that land use for food is one of those critically wicked problems for decision makers to address.
And at COP24?
I picked up griping about the menu the delegates are being served. You know there's griping when someone has taken the trouble to make a graph about the issue, even if the issue is food. Especially if the issue is food.
The best griping I found was here and here.
I say best, because these articles both outlined clearly the challenges our global food system presents, and at the same time showed how trying to feed upwards of 25 000 delegates some good local chow can backfire in some quarters - but at least they presented some evidence for their perspective.
I'll close with an extract from the second article:
According to an analysis conducted by organizations Center for Biological Diversity, Farm Forward, and Brighter Green, if the 30,000 [the number in the article - looks like the actual number might be less] visitors choose a meat-based dish from the COP24 menu, the UN would be responsible for contributing 4,500 metric tons of greenhouse gases—the equivalent of burning the 500,000 gallons of gasoline required to fly 3,000 people from New York to Katowice. “The meat-laden menu at COP24 is an insult to the work of the conference,” Stephanie Feldstein, director of the Population and Sustainability program at the Center for Biological Diversity, said. The COP24 menu includes only two plant-based options: cabbage- and mushroom-stuffed dumplings and udon noodles with vegetables. The remaining 14 dishes offered include cheeseburgers, various dumplings stuffed with meat and cheese, and beef served with smoked bacon. “If the world leaders gathering in Poland hope to address the climate crisis, they need to tackle overconsumption of meat and dairy, starting with what’s on their own plates,” Feldstein said. “That means transitioning the food served at international climate conferences to more plant-based options with smaller carbon footprints.”
And thinking about how we're going to transition our own food consumption to small carbon footprint options. Food for thought.
Past posts on this topic
https://steemit.com/cop24/@kiligirl/cop24-why-should-we-care-that-it-s-happening
https://steemit.com/cop24/@kiligirl/cop24-the-proceedings-begin-bad-news-and-good
https://steemit.com/cop24/@kiligirl/cop24-third-in-a-series-reflecting-on-its-relevance-and-achievements
https://steemit.com/cop24/@kiligirl/cop24-fourth-in-a-series-of-reflections-on-the-most-important-global-conversation-happening-right-now
References
https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2018/climate-conference-menu-12-02-2018.php
https://vegnews.com/2018/12/carbon-footprint-of-meat-centric-menu-at-un-climate-conference-equal-to-burning-500000-gallons-of-gasoline
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