Moby on climate change, California drought, food insecurity and industrial farming

Introducing genetically modified crops, improving fertilizers, increasing the area of arable land - these are some of the traditional suggestions for improving long term food security for the ever growing number of people facing climate change. However, musician Moby suggests a simpler idea in his opinion piece entitled 'Save the Humans' in the Huffington Post: stop feeding human food to livestock. It takes around 15 pounds of grain to make one pound of beef - which can feed a couple people for a few hours. In comparison, 13 pounds of grain fed to humans directly can feed 13 people for most of the day. "Feeding food to animals and then eating the animals is kind of like heating your house during the winter by burning wood outside," he argues.

Animal agriculture is also extremely water intensive and has contributed to droughts such as the one in California. It takes 576 gallons of water to produce one pound of pork, for example.

In addition, animal agriculture is responsible for water pollution, antibiotic resistance, the spread of zoonotic diseases and it is the single largest contributor to green house gas emissions.