How, and how not, to feed a 9-­‐billion people earth: New insights from the US on the role of individual choices Gidon E
shel Research Professor of Environmental Science and Physics, Bard College Current environmental discourse righOully pays close aPenQon to agriculture, the largest global user of land and water, a dominant source of GHGs and water polluQon, and among the key forces behind biodiversity declines. Because nearly all naQonal agricultural systems are closely governmentally regulated, the discussion oTen focuses on naQonal level farm policy. In the US, decades of biparQsan inacQon or acQon in the wrong direcQon have excluded individual consumers from farm policy decision making, promoQng a sense of powerlessness to achieve desired changes. As a counterpoint to this senQment, Gidon Eshel will present several key novel agricultural sustainability results that restore individual consumers' key role. He will describe a new method for comparing the previously unknown individual environmental costs of five livestock categories in terms of four key environmental performance metrics: land and water use, GHG emissions, and reacQve nitrogen discharge. The calculaQons reveal that beef is by far the most resource intensive of all human food sources in all four performance metrics. This also applies to grass fed and environmentally sound beef as further calculaQons show that grazing is so land inefficient that it is manifestly impossible to scale up to necessary levels. 12:00-­‐1:00 FREE EVENT in Burke Auditorium, Kroon Hall Lunch will be provided – first come, first served