Poster collage:  Hopkins Bloomberg Public Health magazine Spring 2018

By Jan Barry

So what does cutting out eating a cheeseburger once a week have to do with combating global climate change? That’s the question researchers at Johns Hopkins University set out to answer. The public education campaign they came up with is called Meatless Monday.

This initiative was launched in Baltimore in 2003 with a focus on improving Americans’ health.

“During the First and Second World Wars, Americans observed one meatless day per week to feed the troops. Decades later, former advertising executive Sid Lerner recalled this effort during a conversation with Robert Lawrence, MD, founding director of the Center for a Livable Future. The two were discussing a Surgeon General report urging Americans to reduce saturated fat intake by 15 percent, and Lerner realized that skipping meat one day a week would meet the suggested reduction,” Hopkins Bloomberg Public Health magazine notes in “Appetite for Reduction” in the Spring 2018 issue.

Further research found a vital link between what people eat and the increasingly worrisome expansion of greenhouse gases fueling global climate change, including, as it turns out, methane from the mushrooming millions of beef cattle raised on crops grown on razed woodlands in places like the Amazon.

The Meatless Monday campaign was expanded to reach out to “citizens around the world with a simple call to action that benefits our personal health and, through collective action, the health of the planet,’ Dr. Lawrence stated.

The “breaking news” announcers in the news media hardly noticed. Neither did government officials.

“Unfortunately, the connection of meat consumption to climate change is not garnering the serious attention it deserves,” Roni Neff  of Johns Hopkins’ Center for a Livable Future said in a presentation at the U.N. climate change conference in Paris in 2015. “Much of the talk at COP21 is focused on government policies in energy and transportation, but we can’t get from here to there without also changing diets.”

According to research at Johns Hopkins that Neff cited, “livestock production contributes nearly 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions—more than the entire transportation sector. The biggest contributor is a digestive process unique to ruminant animals—particularly cattle and goats—that releases methane. Methane, or CH4, is the second most prevalent greenhouse gas emitted in the U.S. from human activities,”  the Johns Hopkins Magazine, Hub, reported in its December 15, 2015 issue, in an article titled “In Paris, Johns Hopkins team touts Meatless Monday as important part of climate conversation.”

“Manure from livestock, feed crop production, and deforestation for pastures and crops also add up, compounding the environmental impact of raising animals for food. And wasted food is ‘akin to discarding all the embodied [greenhouse gas] emissions involved in its production,’ the Johns Hopkins article continued. “On top of that, decomposing food in landfills releases more methane, the researchers said.”

Given this emerging information, the Johns Hopkins report added, “studies suggest that if everyone goes meatless one day a week by 2050, the impact would be the same as removing 273 million passenger cars from the road a year, or of closing down 341 coal-fired power plants.”

Under the radar of talking heads on TV and cable news programs, the Meatless Monday campaign has spread widely to college campuses, grassroots community organizations and, beginning last month, the New York-Presbyterian hospital system.

“NewYork-Presbyterian’s Meatless Monday initiative, a collaboration between the Department of Food & Nutrition, NYPBeHealthy, NYPgreen and The Monday Campaigns, aims to educate Hospital employees, students, patients and visitors on the benefits of consuming less meat,” the health care organization announced February 26.

“Meat production accounts for nearly 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, making it a major driver of climate change,” the announcement continued. “In addition to reducing one’s environmental footprint, consuming less meat may help individuals lower their risk of chronic diseases including heart disease, certain cancers, obesity and type 2 diabetes. Through Meatless Monday, NewYork-Presbyterian joins a global movement with a simple message: ‘Once a week, cut out meat.’ Staff will learn how making the meatless choice can improve their health and the health of the planet.”

In the New York City exurban town of Bedford, a community-wide Meatless Monday campaign was launched February 5, aiming to enlist residents, restaurants, businesses and schools.

“Bedford 2020 is working with the Meatless Monday national organization who finds that Monday holds a unique opportunity for a fresh start to the week, and it’s the day we are likely to start new, lasting habits,” the local environmental networking group states in a brochure. “But if you give up meat another day, we will still count it in our greenhouse gas reduction numbers.”

Nor is this a faddish East Coast thing.

“On Monday, University of Iowa students may have noticed something different at the dining halls. As part of the theme semester ‘Climate for Change,’ the University of Iowa Student Government and Office of Sustainability came together to create Meatless Mondays,” The Daily Iowan reported February 6.

“With the idea of cutting out the most popular protein choice, many people have expressed concerns … about proper nutrition for students. ‘Plant-based diets are nutritionally sufficient and may also reduce the risk for many chronic illnesses,’ [student government senator Abigail] Simon said. ‘We aren’t encouraging students to become vegetarians or vegans but rather encourage them to make more sustainable food decisions when eating.’ ”

A week later, the University of Florida newspaper reported that “Sodexo, the provider for Seminole Dining, has started discounts on vegetarian meals as part of Meatless Monday.” Anticipating a blowback of negative comments, Deputy Campus Editor Morgan Dobbins wrote:  “Meat is Florida’s top agricultural export, bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars each year. So why is eating less meat important? Cows are known as one of the major producers of greenhouse gases, producing four times more greenhouse gases than fish or chicken….

“So maybe you don’t care if most of Florida’s major cities go under water due to global warming and rising sea levels, or maybe you could care less about destroying the ocean, as long as you can have your burger or salmon, but let’s take a look at your health,” Dobbins continued.

“So maybe you read this as another PETA-crazy trying to take away your beloved bacon or hamburger, but maybe you also read this as a wake-up call to just how detrimental overconsumption of meat can be on our health, environment and sustainability as a race.”

For more information: www.meatlessmonday.com/