Top Climate Scientist offers Advice on Living the Good Life

Rajendra Pachauri is the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body established by the UN in 1988 to provide regular assessments of the science for policymakers. On Tuesday, he noted that the most recent scientific assessment of how to prevent dangerous climate change highlighted “the importance of lifestyle changes” for the first time. A vegetarian, he added a personal plea to modify your diet, saying “Please eat less meat — meat is a very carbon intensive commodity.”

I confess the meat one is tough for me. We don’t generally eat meat at home, since my partner is a vegetarian. But I often do when I’m out for lunch because the non-meat options tend to be limited for us lactose-intolerant types (and, let’s face it, I’m basically lazy about planning and preparing food).

On the other hand, you have to respect anything coming from the head of the IPCC. Over the last twenty years, IPCC members – particularly the prominent ones – have had to put up with some pretty low blows from folks who didn’t want to face the need for change (see petroleum-geologist-turned-climate-crusader Jeremy Leggett’s book The Carbon War: Global Warming and the End of the Oil Era for a fun first-person account).

So I’m thinking I’m going to click that “cut your meat consumption in half” Good Life Action, and start working on my culinary creativity.