🌍 Our food system is pushing planetary boundaries beyond safe limits.
📢 Prof. @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social warns of the major drivers of climate and biodiversity loss—and how impacts are arriving faster than expected. We need rapid action now.
🎧 Listen in full: tinyurl.com/PaulBehrensLeanIntoClean
Pic of the panel with, from left, Paul Behrens, Samya Dumbuya, Chris Packham, Hayley Fowler, Hugh Montgomery
London screening of the excellent People's Emergency Briefing, with a top panel: @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social, Samia Dumbuya, @chrisgpackham.bsky.social, @hayleyjfowler.bsky.social, @hughmontgomery.bsky.social (+ @angelaisfranc.bsky.social, @sioldridge.bsky.social, @nickoldridge.bsky.social, etc) 👏
In short, no one is saying grow beans on hill sides. It's that: 1) we are using a large amount of arable land for feed, 2) probably underestimating how much could be grown on pasture & 3) treating non-arable land as if it has no value to biodiversity/carbon/access to nature/climate resilience etc.
And this goes even further, sometimes I consider the different attitudes to 'wilderness' around the world and reflect that there is very little left at all in the UK or indeed across much of Europe when compared to other continents.
🌿 Third, why does land have to be "used" at all? The framing assumes every hectare must produce something. But land freed from intensive grazing could absorb carbon, attenuate floods, recover biodiversity, and restore degraded peatland.
Equivalent numbers for the rest of the UK are surprisingly hard to come by and as far as I can see, nobody has published an assessment (let me know in the comments if you have seen it).
Of that, around 95,000 hectares actually grows crops. The remaining two thirds is highly likely under grassland for livestock.
Wales has nearly 300,000 hectares classified as Best and Most Versatile (BMV) agricultural land (classified as capable of producing arable crops including cereals, potatoes, and other food crops).
🥕Second, the amount of higher-quality land under pasture is, I think, larger than people guess (although data are sparse). Take Wales, where there is better data.
You don't need to plough more land anywhere and this would spare a huge amount of land (in our work almost the size of Scotland for a plant-rich diet in the UK).
In our modelling, even shifting a small fraction of feed cropland to direct human food production in the form of legumes, vegetables, and grains is sufficient for healthy diets in the UK.
🥗 First, there is an implication that pasture cannot grow the food we need for the food system transformation. However, the land already growing feed for animals is sufficient for the dietary transition. In the UK, around 40% of our total arable area is used for feed.
"But we can't use pastureland for anything else" is something I often hear when we talk about food systems, security, and plant-rich dietary change.
Three different ways of thinking about this statement: 🧵
Thank you for the kind words Nature Ali. Glad you're getting a lot out of it.
BREAKING: Hundreds of UK towns and cities must change their names if UK complies with new EU regulation protecting names of animal-sourced foods.
Nottingham to become Nottington, Rotherham to become Rotherborough, and Liverpool are said to be considering Manchester 2.
We welcome the brilliant @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social to the studio for analysis of the coming food shock. Joined too by also brilliant @mjflepage.bsky.social
m.youtube.com/watch?v=2Wxo...
The Iran war is exposing how fragile global food systems really are 🥦
Experts including @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social warn in @newscientist.com that rising fuel and fertiliser costs mean a likely global food shock, even if the fighting stops soon.
🔗Read more: www.newscientist.com/article/2521...
The full food briefing is here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvjJ...
and all the briefings here: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
My comments are focused on the UK but there are similar scale impacts in many high-income nations.
I’ve sped up the clip 1.2× to save you a bit of time! Also, I got the sides of the slide the wrong way round for the filming (tip: don't refer to sides when being filmed!).
Although the impacts of the climate and nature crises on food are tough, we should also stay focused on transformation opportunities.
At the recent @nebriefing.bsky.social, I also shared 15 “wins” that can come from eating more plant‑rich (there are more like animal welfare-I just ran out of time).
Incredible work from the organisers. It looks like it might be going international with several countries running their own ones in the coming months. The screening plan is also really v impressive - focusing on local contexts and resilience. It is genuinely very exciting work.
Amazing work on the film! This is the most exciting developments for citizen-centred information on the climate and nature crises I've had the honour to be involved with.
This has me so excited. The film of the National Emergency Briefing on climate and nature is coming out in just over a week!
Check out the trailer below. Goggle-box for climate and nature briefings... genius!
You'll be able to join over 1000 screenings across the country (more details to come).
🚨Screenings up & down UK from April🚨
The People’s Emergency Briefing.
A new film building on last year’s National Emergency Briefing. A friendlier, watch-together version that pulls no punches and inspires action.
Learn more here;
nebriefing.org/the-film
#PEBuk
6 front pages of articles about climate risk connected by a red line.
1/ For those of us keeping an eye on systemic #climate risks, these aren’t difficult dots to connect.
I find it downright frightening. We need to brace for impacts and spring into preparedness now.
This thread outlines 6 key papers and what we can do in response. ⬇️🧵
I just started reading! On the food section and excellent so far, glad to see it covered so comprehensively in a geopolitics book - so urgent.
We also need to make sure that people understand the risks we are facing in the near-term due to the climate and nature crises. I'm so looking forward to the roll out of the National Emergency Briefing film next month that communicates the current science openly.
We need to get on with the food system transformation: more plants, reduced waste, improved production, increased community engagement and buffers.
As the Times article points out, these concerns surrounding catastrophic risks are not being translated or integrated into new policy documents like the Land Use Framework.
The report concluded that food, water, and trade systems are "almost certain" to be on a "decline and collapse trajectory."
That is, the same as other reports coming out with a regular frequency now.
