S11. E27: Peter Lehner: Cows, Corn and Crap
“We may think that we’re just eating our dinner tonight, but when you multiply it by all of that food every day, every day of the year, everyone in the country, everybody in the world, it’s a tremendous production. Just to give you a sense, in the US, we slaughter about 18,000 animals every minute for food just in the United States.”
Agriculture and our food system are responsible for about a third of greenhouse gas emissions. That is an enormous amount. Yet, the food system is all too often left out of climate conversations and is rarely held accountable for its destruction to our planet. I asked Peter Lehner to come on the show to explain some of this, to talk about agriculture's role in climate and how and why they are so often left off the hook.
Peter is one of the leading experts on the impact of agriculture and climate change. He directs Earthjustice’s Sustainable Food & Farming Program, developing litigation, administrative, and legislative strategies to promote a more just and environmentally sound agricultural system and to reduce health, environmental, and climate harms from production of our food.
Peter is the author of Farming for Our Future; the Science, Law, and Policy of Climate-Neutral Agriculture. He also teaches at Columbia and Yale Law schools.
Please listen and share.
In gratitude,
Elizabeth Novogratz
Learn More About Earth Justice Sustainable Food & Farming
Read About Peters Book; Farming for Our Future; the Science, Law, and Policy of Climate-Neutral Agriculture
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