Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet

by Hannah Ritchie

We won’t solve climate change, stop deforestation or protect biodiversity without changes to how we eat. Hunger rates have fallen quickly over the last 50 years, but one in 10 people still don’t get enough food to eat. It’s not because we can’t grow enough food. It’s because we feed it to livestock, put it into cars, or in the bin where it gets wasted. That’s good news: it means the power to reshape the food system is in our hands. Technologies are changing the way we make food. We can produce products just like meat, without the environmental impact or the animal slaughter. That would save an incredible amount of resources and help alleviate global malnutrition at the same time. We just need to make these products nutritious, tasty and cheap enough for the global stage. In 50 years, we won’t be using half of the world’s land to grow food, or raising and slaughtering billions of animals every year to feed ourselves. Everyone in the world can be well fed on a planet that isn’t eating itself alive.