WEBVTT

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If the world were to go vegan
overnight, we would no longer need

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the around 82 billion
farm animals we keep.

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But what would
replace them in our diets?

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Could we live from only vegetables?

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"You need a very high level of
nutritional knowledge if you're not

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to develop a deficit, a deficiency."

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"Every person who eats a vegan
diet helps achieve climate targets."

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The change would affect
far more than the food industry.

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Animal testing, leather, fur, beeswax
- all of them would become obsolete.

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Even some of the components
in condoms are animal-based.

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Most could be replaced by plant-based
or synthetic raw materials.

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"I believe humans are beings
who change in situations where

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they're forced to."

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Futurologist and author Joel
Cachelin has studied the utopian idea

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of a vegan society intensively.

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He says giving up meat from one
day to the next would be a shock

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for most people.

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"I think first they'd
grow angry and rebel.

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Then I would expect it to
awaken a lot of innovation."

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Developing innovation
in agriculture would be key.

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Taking livestock out of the equation
would free up a lot of land.

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But not all of it would be
suitable for farming plants instead.

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Producing enough food for all
of us would remain a challenge.

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Maybe that's why we
could eat more microalgae.

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Cultivated at sea, it could provide
a valuable source of protein.

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Vertical farming could
also gain in importance.

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Or industrially produced
high-tech foods like lab-grown meat.

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"In a vegan world, new
industries would emerge.

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Especially since people are probably
not prepared to eat a completely

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different diet, and will want
to continue to have things like

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sausage or steak.

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Lab-grown meat is one way of
continuing these traditions."

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Lia Bally is Head of Nutritional
Medicine at a Swiss hospital.

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She thinks it makes sense for people
to eat more plant-based foods.

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But also that trying to feed
humanity only a radical vegan diet

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starting tomorrow could
have unforeseen consequences.

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"It would be a step into the dark,
because we don't yet have the data to

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assess any possible
long-term medical consequences.

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What we fear is that it could lead to
deficiency symptoms caused by taking

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in too little vitamin B12 or calcium."

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Nutritionally, today's meat
substitutes are not a perfect

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match for meat.

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According to Lia Bally, it's
particularly important for vegans to

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have a broad general knowledge of
exactly what's in plant-based foods.

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Futurologist Joel Cachelin says
building a future that's better and

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not worse depends on how we shape it.

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Replacing wool with plastic, for
example, would make little sense.

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Veganism, however, addresses
many of our problems at once.

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One example: growing antibiotic
resistance in humans due to mass use

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of the medications in livestock
farming:

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 "I think antibiotic

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resistance is set to
have a major impact.

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If we suddenly live in a world where
I'm no longer sure that I'll survive

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if I cut my finger, that could shake
people up...and make them realize

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that we really need to
radically change certain things."

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A vegan world would very
likely have a positive impact

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on the climate.

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Livestock farming generates
around 15% of global greenhouse gas

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emissions, says climate
researcher Cyril Brunner.

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Veganism is not a
prerequisite for hitting the climate

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targets we've set.

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But if we could get by without
livestock starting tomorrow, average

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temperatures would be
0.15 degrees cooler in 2050.

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What does that mean exactly?

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"We've set the goal of limiting
warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

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So that would be about 10
percent of the battle -- so significant.

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The second thing is: humans
have huge space requirements.

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Globally, we've cut
down a lot of forest.

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Around a third of
the world's wooded areas.

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If we went vegan, we'd no
longer need a lot of this area."

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So we could rewild parts of it.

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And new forests would bind immense
amounts of climate-damaging CO2.

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We're still a long way from
a livestock-free world though.

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In 2021, for example,
Switzerland produced more eggs

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than ever before.

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But what would food in
a climate-neutral future look like?

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"It'd be a world with less meat,
fewer eggs and fewer dairy products."

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A strictly vegan
future is unlikely.

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And despite our thought experiment,
farm animals will probably

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never disappear completely.

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After all, they help with landscape
maintenance and quite simply - we

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like having them there.