via RT:
New York City will track the carbon footprint of residents’ food consumption as part of a sweeping initiative to decrease the city’s carbon emissions from food by a third this year, Mayor Eric Adams revealed on Monday at an event for the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice.
About a fifth of New York’s greenhouse gas emissions come from household food consumption, Adams told reporters, blaming much of that total on meat and dairy. Household food consumption is supposedly the third largest contributor to city emissions totals, trailing only buildings and transportation.
The Mayor’s Office of Food Policy has ordered city agencies to reduce their food consumption by 33% by 2030, and Adams has asked private corporations to cut their own emissions by 25% by 2030, insisting New Yorkers’ wasteful eating habits cannot continue without imperiling the planet.
“It is easy to talk about emissions that are coming from vehicles and how it impacts our carbon footprint,” he said. “But now we have to talk about beef.” City officials urged New Yorkers to put down the burgers and pick up vegetables and beans.
“A plant-based diet is better for your physical and mental health, I’m living proof of that, but…thanks to this new inventory, we’re finding out it is better for the planet,” Adams quipped. While the mayor has long professed to be a vegan, even publishing a cookbook touting his supposedly plant-based diet, he admitted last year that he enjoyed the occasional fish after a restaurant whistleblower came forward.