You haven't seen the last of meat

 

While veganism trends in headlines and health blogs, the global appetite for meat remains strong.

On Father’s Day evening we walked around in our Maryland neighborhood. Every restaurant serving steak was full and some even had long lines outside. Wait, but isn’t everyone turning vegan? I thought people these days watch you disapprovingly if you order a steak. Well, no, not really. For better or worse, meat consumption is on the rise.

It is sometimes said that, apart from not bringing new people to the planet, the best thing an individual can do to fight climate change is to stop eating meat. Raising cattle is the least effective way of producing calories. It takes about 6 kg of feed to produce 1 kg of beef. That’s not an efficient conversion ratio. We hear that the world’s largest wetland, Pantanal, and the Amazon rainforest are being decimated by the expansion of farms and cattle ranching. Both areas are reservoirs of incredible and unique biological diversity. Only three agricultural commodities—beef, palm oil, and soybeans—are responsible for almost 80% of tropical deforestation. Most of the soy isn’t served as edamame or go to make tofu, but to feeding the farm animals.

Pork and lamb are not much better than beef. Chicken have a smaller carbon footprint, as might be suspected from their tiny scrawny feet, but there are more than 26.5 billion of them on the planet (that’s more than 3 chicken for each human being alive today). We also read in magazines about how we will in the future get our protein from insects and seaweed. And there are all the medical studies linking consumption of red meat and especially processed meats to increased risk of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, and general unhappiness.

These facts have led a number of people to decide that they should become vegetarian. Many of these people think that also other people should follow their virtuous example. There’s not only the climate to protect but there’s the ethical problem of how we treat our non-human relatives. Most of us have friends who have become vegetarian, even vegan, and they like to share their reasons for doing so and why you should join the club.

But is the vegetarian wave really happening? Data does not suggest so. The US industry’s Power of Meat report documents that total meat sales in the country grew to $104.3 billion in 2024, which translated to a 2.3% increase in the volume sold. According to the same survey, 73% of consumers consider meat to be a healthy choice.

Worldwide trends are similar, but with important nuances. Globally, meat consumption grew by less than 1% between 2008 and 2017. This growth seems to have leveled off in most of the rich world and even declining in a few countries, such as Belgium, the countries of the northern Mediterranean, and Canada. This most likely reflects changing attitudes due to environmental and health concerns. There’s also a broader trend from red meat towards chicken.

The picture is quite different elsewhere. The traditional beef countries, like Argentina and Brazil are still growing their consumption, but not as much as neighboring Colombia and Peru. Carnivorous habits seem to be spreading in much of the developing world as a consequence of rising standards of living. China, with its more than 1 billion people, leads this trend, but other Asian countries, like Vietnam, Myanmar and Sri Lanka are increasing their consumption even faster. Similarly in African countries like Malawi, Chad, Congo, Benin and Guinea consumption of meat has risen significantly in recent years.

The only places outside of the above-mentioned wealthy countries where meat consumption is down are countries where poverty, conflict and fragility have rendered large portions of the population highly vulnerable and unable to afford meat. These include Lebanon, Ethiopia, Sudan, Djibouti, Madagascar and Niger, as well as Venezuela where policy failure has rendered meat unaffordable to most people.

What can we conclude from this? First, the vegetarian trends may not be as pervasive as one might assume from the media coverage. They may be mostly limited to wealthy people concerned with planetary health and animal welfare, as well as their own healthiness. Of course, the world’s most populous country, India, is predominantly vegetarian. In my prosperous slice of the Mid-Atlantic seaboard, vegetarian and vegan restaurants seem to be thriving, although casual observation would suggest that the clientele are predominantly women.

For poorer Americans, the cheapest way of filling their stomachs is visiting a fast-food restaurant where burgers and fries effectively provide plentiful calories. Besides, in many neighborhoods it is very difficult to even get fresh vegetables. These food deserts only have corner bodegas serving low-income and often historically marginalized populations.

As for people in poor countries, can we really expect them to forego meat after we in the West have overindulged in it for decades? For many people meat has been—and still remains—a luxury. Now when incomes are rising, people can finally afford to eat what they want and add tasty tidbits to their nutrition. Then we come and tell them that they shouldn’t.

This is a parallel to other ways in which we in the rich West are trying to limit greenhouse gas emissions by our brethren in poor countries that never contributed much to climate warming in the first place. Rising living standards call for increased energy use. Turning vegetarian is still pretty much an obsession of those of us who can afford to shop for alternatives and worry about food-related health issues. I for one should definitely reduce my calorie intake.

My prediction is that meat consumption will continue to increase for some time to come. Note that this is not what I would personally wish would happen but, given the still growing world population, especially in countries where incomes must rise to give people a dignified level of existence, it would appear inevitable.

So what can be done?

As with energy, it is a matter of environmental justice that it should be us in the rich West who should first cut down on our consumption before asking Asians and Africans to do so. There are also ways of reducing consumption without entirely changing our diet. These include deciding to have a day or two every week when you do not eat meat. Or simply reducing the portions. The Japanese eat meat regularly but it’s rarely the largest part of any meal, usually mixed with vegetables, rice and noodles. The move towards chicken is also a step that is easy to take.

This is yet another dimension of the climate dilemma. As I’ve written before, behavior change is highly unlikely to stop climate change. It would require sacrifices from lots of people who would have to cut down on, not only meat but many other favorite conveniences. We would also have to deal with the aspirations of those billions of people who today don’t have enough for a fulfilling life. Governments have signed up to the Paris Climate Agreement but few are achieving the promised emissions cuts.

We thus need to move on several fronts and not put our eggs into one basket. This would include adopting techniques that would help us increase the productivity of oceans while they would at the same time absorb carbon from the atmosphere. Plans such as seaweed farming could provide multiple benefits, from increasing carbon storage to enhancing the productivity of fisheries. This would, of course, have to be done carefully not to cause unintended consequences to the environment or to local people and their livelihoods.

Until sustainable options become affordable and accessible for all, we can't point fingers and lecture others. The path to a cooler planet shouldn’t be a guilt trip. The good news is that change doesn’t have to mean sacrificing everything we like. We just have to be smarter. Less meat is a smart choice for our health and that of the planet. Maybe we will also learn to love seaweed. After all, millions of Asians already enjoy it daily.

And by the way, no steak for the dad on Father’s Day. We ended up having dinner in a restaurant where everything is plant-based, locally sourced, and certifiably healthy. At least we had most of the restaurant for ourselves.

[Originally published on https://juhauitto.substack.com on 19 June 2025.]

Island People: The Caribbean and the World, by Joshua Jelly-Schapiro -- A book review

This is a great book on many levels. Although it was published already in 2017, it hardly matters given the historical context and the fact that the Caribbean nations have not changed dramatically since then.
Joshua Jelly-Schapiro knows the Caribbean intimately and is extremely well-read in the region and its culture, from history and literature to music. He covers the places he visits or stays in for longer periods from the time of Columbus’ journeys, the colonial period when the islands were used for sugar plantations relying on slave labor, to contemporary cultural trends. This is how a travelogue should be: personal but anchored in the larger historical-geographic-political context, erudite but entertaining.

Yet, it took me some time to wade through the 430+ pages. Not because I wasn’t interested but because some of the chapters (each dealing with a specific island) were rather heavy going. Some sections on the larger islands — Jamaica and Cuba each get three chapters — are lively, mixing culture and societal commentary with the author’s personal experiences.
In the case of Jamaica, rasta culture and reggae, naturally, play an important part. It’s not only about Bob Marley, but also Toots Hibbert, Peter Tosh and many others get their share. Jelly-Schapiro spends time with Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records that brought reggae to a wider audience, now living in the villa where Ian Fleming dreamed up James Bond. Jelly-Schapiro places these cultural and musical factors firmly into the socio-political setting.
Similarly, the highly personal section on Cuba brings together history, politics, economy, music and culture. He explores the notion of cubanidad, which “first crystallized as an important, if still vague, idea when the cause of Cuban independence” was promoted by José Martí in the 1880s and 1890s (p. 120). He equally explores the roots of the specifically Cuban music that we love in the mélange of African and European traditions. He highlights the role of Israel “Cachao” Lopez, the legendary musician and composer broght to broader fame in his later years through Buenavista Social Club. The last of the three chapters concerns Cuba in the twilight of Fidel Catro’s reign.
The chapter on Puerto Rico emphasizes the island’s relationhip with the United States and the diaspora in the Bronx. The chapter also traces the history of Puerto Rican nationalism and its hero, Pedro Albizu Campos.
The three chapters dedicated to Hispaniola are weighed down by history, perhaps inevitably given how important it is in explaining the current state of affairs. The two countries that share the island — Dominican Republic and Haiti — are often contrasted, with the first one coming on top as a developmental success story and the second as a hopeless basket case. Jelly-Schapiro brings much nuance to this interpretation highlighting the violent and dictatorial history of the Dominican Republic, while bringing out the humanity in Haiti. He sheds light on the curious racial relations on the island, stemming from the two sides’ histories as Spanish vs. French colonies, and how these continue to cause tensions between the two.
The four chapters covering eight smaller islands in the Lesser Antilles are shorter, perhaps because there’s not that much to report (and perhaps because the author seems to have spent less time on each of them, which is perfectly understandable). His reporting from these islands tends to poke holes to the image of them as paradise. Yet, Jelly-Schapiro’s understanding still brings forth many distinctive features between, say, Barbados and Barbuda, both with a history as British colonies and sugar plantations.
Grenada has a distinct political history and a charismatic leader, Maurice Bishop, executed by his political rivals in 1983. Ronald Reagan found the island’s socialist experiment so threatening that he sent in the marines to subdue the tiny island nation, on the pretext of the presence of Cuban workers helping to expand the airport.
Montserrat, a British Overseas Territory where Sir George Martin, the legendary producer built a house and studio, rose to international attention in 1995 when the long-dormant Soufrière volcano erupted destroying Plymouth, the capital, and forced two-thirds of the island’s population to flee. Jelly-Schapiro explores the volcanic zones with an American geography professor, Lydia Pulsipher, and her husband. They note how, following the disaster, the British governmental aid agency DFID, relocated people into new houses in a non-affected area: “they’re well bjuilt, but they’ve got nothing to do with how Montserratians live; with the old social structure here, and with homes they built to fit it” (p. 319). Unfortunately, this is a picture that often emerges when well-meaning outsiders try to assist countries to rebuild after a disaster (for example in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami).
Martinique, which still today is a French territory and the westernmost extension of EU, deserves a lengthy chapter, largely due to the writers and political thinkers it has produced, such as Aimé Césaire and Patrick Chamoiseau. Jelly-Schapiro writes (p. 358):
“Few large countries, let alone little ones, boast the literary riches allowing one to trace the whole modern arc of their culture, and the contours of that culture’s conflicts, through those of its books.”
Accordingly focusing on these writers and their poetry and their legacy at the expense of the author’s own experiences, these 32 pages took me more effort than most other parts of the book.
Throughout, the book discusses numerous authors from the islands, many of whom have achieved fame outside of the Caribbean: C.L.R. James and V.S. Naipaul (Trinidad), George Lamming (Barbados), Jamaica Kincaid (Antigua), Franz Fanon (Martinique), Jean Rhys (Dominica), and the already-mentioned Aimé Césaire and Patric Chamoiseau
Luckily, he saved the best for the last. The 40-page final chapter on Trinidad is superbly crafted. Its culture and social and political issues are presented in a very animated way. Jelly-Schapiro has spent ample time on the island, including as a visiting scholar at the university. The carnival, the calypso and steel bands form a sort of a backbone to the chapter. Jelly-Schapiro tells the dramatic story of Michael Abdul Hakim (a.k.a. Michael X), a Black activist, and the people around him.His best informant is Jay Telfer, an octogenarian figure whom he befriended. Telfer who in the 1960s played a central role in bringing West Indian culture, including the Notting Hill Carnival, to London, is a font of information and a delightful character. Before that, in the 1950s, Jay Telfer studied at NYU and worked at the jazz clubs in Greenwich Village where he met many jazz legends, and where Thelonius Monk told Telfer he was the only man able to dance to Monk’s music. Although involved in politics throughout his career, Jelly-Schapiro says of Telfer: “Personal ethics, like personal style, were for him much more important than politics” (p. 411).
Jelly-Schapiro has written a highly interesting and valuable book, although it is somewhat uneven. He generally writes well alternating between the casual when describing his own personal experiences and the academic. There are places where his style can get a bit out of hand. Take, for example, this sentence about Chamoiseau (p. 334):
“And his ideas’ shadows have been palpably present, too, over polemics surrounding the French Antilles’ great human export of now; those other public artists — soccer players — whose goals in World Cup stadia, firing France to victory in a Coupe de Monde contested in Paris in 1998, prompted scenes of joy on the Champs-Elysées more massive than any since the Liberation, and forced a country still unaccustomed to seeing itself reflected in the brown and black faces of its colonies to ask pointed questions about what, two centuries after Robespierre’s fall, a Frenchman is.”
Apart from these squabbles, it is a book worthy of its author, a fellow geographer, with a PhD from UC Berkeley. Finally, Jelly-Schapiro confesses to having adopted C.L.R. James as “a kind of intellectual hero and style icon alike” (p. 401):
“Here was a scholar activist who wrote with equal verve and brilliance about the Haitian Revolution and the game of cricket, Hegelian philosophy and Hollywood movies, Herman Melville and calypso music — and whose synthetic aptitude for doing so, moreover, found him placing all those subjects within the larger telos not only of modern capitalism but also of humanity’s struggle for democracy reaching back to the Greeks.”
If this cultural-historical-political-social mixture was what Joshua Jelly-Schapiro aimed for in this book, I think he pretty much succeeded.

Is another massive tsunami imminent in Japan?

Fourteen years ago, Japan was devastated by one of the deadliest tsunamis in modern history. Now a prophetic manga is fueling anxiety of a repeat. Could such a calamity occur soon again?

On Friday, March 11, 2011, at 14:46 hrs, disaster struck Japan. One of the largest earthquakes—officially the Great East Japan Earthquake—on record (magnitude 9.0) occurred just off the northeast Pacific coast of the main island of Honshu. The shaking lasted for a full five minutes—a terrifyingly long time when one entirely loses orientation, may not be able to stand up, with everything falling around you, walls and houses crumbling, the rumble of the earth drowning all other sounds—triggering a massive tsunami. Because the epicenter was so close to the coast, there was hardly any warning or time to evacuate. The first waves reached the Sanriku coast in the Miyagi and Iwate Prefectures within ten minutes, completely overrunning the towns and ports leaving total destruction in their wake. Up to 18,500 people perished. The tsunami also caused the meltdown of the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Miyagi Prefecture, the worst nuclear accident ever to hit Japan and the worst in the world only after Chernobyl.

Now some people, are again fearful to visit Japan. This is because of a manga comic, published in 1999 and re-released in 2021, warns of a catastrophe hitting Japan in July 2025. The only reason why this comic might scare people off is that it originally predicted, correctly it turned out, a major disaster in Japan in March 2011. The Future I Saw, by the artist Ryo Tatsuki, imagines a massive tsunami caused by a rupture in the undersea fault line between the Philippine and Eurasian plates. As a consequence, the number of tourists, especially from China and Hong Kong, has dropped significantly and some people have decided to postpone their trips to Japan. Tatsuki herself says that she is no prophet.

The scenario itself is not entirely unrealistic. Tsunamis are triggered by undersea events, most often large earthquakes at fault zones, but sometimes by volcanic eruptions or massive landslides deep in the ocean. The Pacific Rim where Japan is located is seismically highly active. The Sanriku Tsunami was the fifth most deadly in the past two centuries or so. The deadliest of all was the Indian Ocean Tsunami on Boxing Day of 2004 when an estimated 230,000-280,000 people perished in half a dozen countries surrounding the Indian Ocean. This was the second time the Sanriku coast was devastated by a tsunami: on June 15, 1896, another tsunami killed some 22,000 people in the same area with waves reaching the height of 30 meters.

Tsunamis are so deadly because of the massive amounts of water and the speed at which they travel. In deep water, the waves remain low but they spread fast in all directions from the epicenter. Tsunami waves have been measured to move at 800 km/h. As they approach shallower coastal waters they slow down, condense, and rise to frightening heights.

This is what destroyed so much of the Sanriku coast. Kesennuma, a port in Miyagi, was gone. I have visited the town both before and after the disaster. First the tsunami swept across the entire low-lying valley. When it receded, fires that ensued as gas pipelines were destroyed finished the job burning down the entire old wooden town. Kesennuma port had been the center of the Pacific shark fisheries just because of the shape of its natural harbor. Now this same geographic advantage had provided the tsunami with a perfect entrance to the harbor bowl allowing the water to rise unhindered into the town.

Tohoku’s largest city, Sendai, situated on higher ground and away from the sea was largely spared from major damage. The city airport closer to the coast was not so lucky. Cameras showed the massive wave sweeping slowly across the runways. Large jet planes floated away like toy models. Aerial shots from the close by mountain areas showed huge liquefaction of the soil, again in slow motion, wiping away entire villages, houses crumbling and washing down the slopes into the sea. 

So what are the chances that such a disaster repeats itself in the near future, if not later this month? It is impossible to give a precise answer to that question. Statistically, major tsunamis globally take place about twice in a decade. The likelihood of one striking a specific major urban is low but it is plausible that one of the major cities around the Pacific Ring of Fire will be struck by a large tsunami in the coming few decades.

The cities most at risk include the Tokyo-Yokohama conurbation, the largest city complex in the world with over 40 million inhabitants. This is also Japan’s economic heart, so a major disaster there would be highly destructive for the country and would disrupt the entire world economy.

Other likely targets include Manila and Jakarta on the Asian side, and Lima and Santiago de Chile in South America, as well as Los Angeles and San Francisco in California. Honolulu in the middle of the Ring of Fire is also vulnerable. In fact, all of these cities have in the past experienced disruptive earthquakes and tsunamis.

Indonesia and its capital Jakarta are particularly at risk from a repeat of an event like the 2004 earthquake and tsunami. Another risk is posed by the active volcano, Krakatoa. Its violent eruption caused a massive tsunami on August 27, 1883. It destroyed two-thirds of the island and killed some 36,000 people, making it the second deadliest event in recorded history.

Hawai’i due to its location has experienced three tsunamis claiming lives in the past eight decades. The worst one was on April 1, 1946, when a 8.6 magnitude earthquake in the Aleutian Islands sent a tsunami racing across the ocean. It destroyed most of Hilo on the Big Island, killing 159 people. As the earthquake that instigated the tsunami took place in Alaska thousands of kilometers northeast of Hawai’I, no one was prepared when the huge waves washed into the islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

When the 9.5 magnitude—the strongest ever recorded—earthquake hit Chile on May 23, 1960, Hilo, 10,000 km away from the epicenter, was again collateral damage and 63 people died there (the range of the casualties overall varies significantly, from 1,000 to 6,000). On November 29, 1979, a local 7.7 magnitude earthquake shook the Big Island causing two deaths. Such a locally generated tsunami gives hardly any warning time for people to escape.

All of the cities exposed to high tsunami risk are constantly monitoring the situation. Japan, with its multi-hazard risk and frequent earthquakes (in fact, a 5.5 magnitude earthquake shook the southwestern Kagoshima Prefecture while I am writing this on the 3rd of July), is arguably the best prepared country in the world. In this, it is helped by its advanced technologies and well-educated, self-disciplined population. Japan employs a national earthquake and tsunami early warning system operated by the Japan Meteorological Agency. It informs people of impending danger through sirens and phone alerts. It has recently deployed drones on the sea in front of popular beaches for tsunami detection. Detailed evacuation maps are maintained by local governments down to the neighborhood level.

Furthermore, millions of people in the country participates in drills and education sessions. September 1st is the National Disaster Prevention Day, with the date commemorating the Great Kantō Earthquake that destroyed Tokyo in 1923.

Scientists in Japan give an 80 percent chance for a mega-quake taking place along the Nankai Trough in the coming 30 years. This revised assessment has led the authorities to require municipalities and businesses to enhance their preparedness plans, to strengthen building earthquake resistance, stockpile food and other necessities, and to update evacuation plans.

Earthquakes and tsunamis cannot be predicted with any degree of certainty. A major event is certain to cause significant damage to infrastructure and the economy. The death of thousands of people in such eventuality is unavoidable. The best we can do is to be aware of the risks and be well prepared. That is our best chance of saving lives.

[Originally published on https://juhauitto.substack.com on July 4, 2025.]