Le Nazioni Unite per la prima volta indicano la transizione verso una dieta priva di prodotti animali come la via da seguire per risolvere i problemi ambientali e alimentari che affliggono il pianeta. L’inedita presa di posizione, che ricalca ciò che molte associazioni animaliste e ambientaliste dicono da tempo, quando sottolineano le buone ragoni non solo etiche, ma anche ecologiche, per passare a una dieta vegan, si leggono nell’ultimo rapporto diffuso dall’Unap, il Programma Onu per l’ambiente, pubblicato lo scorso due giugno. Nelle conclusioni dello studio dal titolo ”Assessing the environmental Impacts of Consumption and Production”, gli scienziati mettono in guardia sui rischi della prospettiva in cui all’incremento in corso della popolazione mondiale corrisponda un aumento dei consumi di carne, pesce, latte e uova, che avrebbe conseguenze ambientali devastanti prevenibili solo con un drastico cambiamento delle abitudini alimentari mondiali e la rinuncia all’utilizzo, da parte di tutti, dei prodotti animali. Secondo le proiezioni pubblicate quest’anno dalla Fao, infatti, l’attuale modello culturale e la diffusione del consolidato stile di vita occidentale porterà la produzione di carne a più che raddoppiare entro il 2050 (arrivando dagli attuali 228 milioni di tonnellate a 463 milioni). Senza un’inversione di tendenza, si tratterà di un vero e proprio disastro ambientale i cui effetti sono calcolabili già adesso, visto che l’insostenibilità dell’attuale modello emerge da tutti i dati messi in evidenza nei rapporti dell’ organizzazione intergovernativa, senza che però da questa consapevolezza siano scaturite mai concrete iniziative politiche. Il rapporto Onu indica la zootecnia tra le prime voci delle priorità da affrontare nel prossimo future, recognizing animal husbandry as a source of the primary causes of pollution and global warming, causing more environmental damage than the production of building materials such as sand and cement and materials such as plastics and metal, and stresses that crops for animal feed are harmful as the consumption of fossil fuels. But animal agriculture is, above all, one of the areas in which greater waste of resources. Strictly in terms of energy, in fact, as explained in detail the Niece (Nutricion Ecology International Center), the breeding of animals "farm" is an investment less profitable and animals are like "protein factories down" since the operation of its metabolism causes the capital invested in the production of meat is then returned in a dramatically lower. Suffice it to say that need 25 kcal of corn to make one kcal of beef, 11 times more than the energy required for the production of wheat, which amounts to about 2.2 kcal. And the ratio is 57:1 for the lamb, for beef 40:1, 39:1 for eggs, 14:1 for milk and pork for the turkey 10:1, 4: 1 for the chicken. And while the livestock sector consumes the calories that could feed the people of the South, is even worse with the water taking away, because, in addition to 8% of drinking water worldwide is used directly to water the animals imprisoned in the farms, is the huge amount needed to grow the fodder that feeds them. On balance, to make one kilogram of beef from intensive farming are wasted two hundred thousand gallons of water in the face of the two thousand that enough, for example, for the same amount of soy nutritional value comparable. If we think that the cattle produces more greenhouse gases than the transport sector and as much as 64% of the total ammonia, which contributes to acidification of ecosystems and acid rain, it is unclear how the livestock also contributes to complicate efforts to biodiversity conservation. According to the latest FAO report 10% of protected species face extinction due to causes directly related to farming, because 26% of the ice-free land for farming and is subject to deforestation and erosion, animal manure, produced in quantities that the land is not able to dissipate, seriously contaminating aquatic ecosystems. To turn things around, but this time, it's affordable for everyone. In the last paragraphs of the UN report, in the chapter on consumption, scientists clearly show the way forward, pointing out how direct the relationship between diet and protect the planet and how to choose animal products involves a far greater impact than plant products. Rarely, as in this case, the responsibility to save the world passes by in concrete everyday choices.
Adapted from Liberazione.it
Leonora Pigliucci (06/10/2010)
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