On April 22th - Earth Day 2019 - the Mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, announced some crucial actions concerning food in the NY Green New Deal, the bold 14 billion dollars plan recently approved by the city to counter global warming and climate change. "There’s no time to waste. We’re taking action now, before it’s too late”, is the mantra that the democratic politicians of the Big Apple are constantly singing
The forecast ‘green’ actions will affect the procurement of processed meat and beef by the NY municipality, with gradual phasing out of purchase of processed meat for schools, hospitals, prisons and municipal offices and reduction by 50% of beef purchases for the same facilities.
Other initiatives include switching government operations over to clean energy sources such retrofitting old large buildings for lower emissions, mandatory recycling of organic waste, and phasing out unnecessary purchase of single-use plastic food-ware.
NYC’s Green New Deal intends to cut emissions by nearly 40 percent by 2030 with the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.
Is there a main player in these decisions? Yes, Eric Adams, vegan Brooklyn Borough President, who in 2017 promoted Meatless Mondays in 15 schools in Brooklyn - the Mayor then extended them in all 1,700 public schools in NYC – is working very hard on these topics.
Reducing meat consumption is a crucial move for mitigating climate change: New York politicians have clearly understood it and are now leading the way; our task is to convince also Italian politicians to follow it.