Remember, this is the same guy who dove to the bottom of Challenger Deep, so he probably knows something about, er… something. Apparently, one of the next big projects for James Cameron has nothing to do with 100 year old wrecks or ten foot tall blue people who plug their pony tails into their dragons. The director and his wife are ready to convince all of you to eat nothing but plants. For your health? Not just that… it’s also to stop global warming, of course.

Film director James Cameron and his wife, Suzy Amis Cameron, an actor and model, are planning a global campaign to persuade people to move towards a plant-only diet (where no animals or animal products are consumed) in order to sharply reduce global carbon emissions and improve their health…

“The project will include many different modes of communication that will reach as many different demographics as we possibly can from children to 90-year-olds. We want to bring awareness around the connection between livestock production and our environment to leave the planet a better place for our future generations to grow up in.”…

As they delved further into the subject, they recognised that the meat and dairy industry is also the elephant in the room when it comes to climate change.

I suppose this is a topic that’s drawing all sorts of attention around the world. Cameron is no doubt interested in the results of a recent study from across the pond with the rather unfortunate name, Dietary greenhouse gas emissions of meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians and vegans in the UK.

The production of animal-based foods is associated with higher greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than plant-based foods. The objective of this study was to estimate the difference in dietary GHG emissions between self-selected meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians and vegans in the UK. Subjects were participants in the EPIC-Oxford cohort study. The diets of 2,041 vegans, 15,751 vegetarians, 8,123 fish-eaters and 29,589 meat-eaters aged 20–79 were assessed using a validated food frequency questionnaire…

In conclusion, dietary GHG emissions in self-selected meat-eaters are approximately twice as high as those in vegans. It is likely that reductions in meat consumption would lead to reductions in dietary GHG emissions.

Throughout the summary of the study results, the authors stubbornly refuse to hone in on the one detail that I’m sure we’re all wondering. Are they talking about the average carbon output from beef farming when divided by the number of people who eat steak? Because both the title and the descriptions in the following paragraph make it sound like they’re measuring the personal, er… gaseous emissions of the meat eaters in the study.

I know the climate warriors are a dedicated bunch and can find an angle to tie climate change into virtually every discussion, but this may have been a bit above and beyond the call here. I mean, who is it that was doing the “measuring” of these “emissions” and how was that managed? Inquiring minds want to know! (Okay… most of us probably don’t, actually.)