Solving Climate Change Requires Changing Our Food Systems: Dr. Svetlana Feigin, Journal Lead Author

We gotta start eating plants not other animals. A 2025 article published in the journal “Oxford Open Climate Change” titled “Solving climate change requires changing our food systems” outlines the need for human societies globally to transition to plant-based food systems and phase out factory farming, offering pathways to make that vision a reality to reach climate mitigation goals and spare the worst warming and deforestation impacts. (the article is open-access and available to share, with a wealth of sources in the bibliography https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/5/1/kgae024/7942019?l )

"In Tune to Nature" host Carrie Freeman is one of 20 co-authors on that article, talking in this 29-minute podcast with the article’s lead author, Dr. Svetlana Feigin, Executive Director of the All Life Institute, recorded in February 2025.

Dr. Feigin shares compelling statistics about how the current and growing global demand for inefficient, animal-sourced meat and dairy (largely factory-farmed) is wasting vital land and resources and contributing heavily to greenhouse gas emissions, and how plant-based food sources are a logical solution for ecological, ethical, and public health reasons. Example "Although 83% of the world’s farmland is occupied by animal agriculture, this provides just 18% of the calories and 37% of the protein humans consume, and the majority of cereals and soy produced today are fed to farm animals [28, 29]. More people could be fed with fewer resources, if the use of animals for food is reduced or eliminated [2]. Furthermore, meat consumption contributes four times as much to global GHG emissions as a plant-based diet [29]."

We discuss some pathways to make this change: "We suggest that such transformations in global food systems can be accomplished largely through education and large-scale public information campaigns, removal of subsidies, taxation to account for externalized costs of animal agriculture, improved labelling of products, and various investment/divestment drivers.” 

As a psychologist, Dr. Feigin shares insights on how we can create the public and political will to make these necessary ag/dietary improvements, and what we each can do to get involved, including sharing the climate change journal article on social media and with community leaders. 

"In Tune to Nature" is a weekly radio show airing Wednesdays at 6:30pm Eastern Time on 89.3FM-Atlanta radio and streaming worldwide on wrfg.org (Radio Free Georgia, a nonprofit indie station). Hosted by me, Carrie Freeman, or Melody Paris. The show's website and action items can be found at https://wrfg.org/in-tune-to-nature/  Please support nonprofit indie media like our Radio Free Georgia station at https://wrfg.org/  Thank you!

Take care of yourself and others, including other animals who are struggling to survive on this planet of over 8 billion hungry humans.

Factory Farming Photo Credit: Female cows stuck in dairy milking stalls. From Jo-Anne McArthur of We Animals Media (a great resource for animal photojournalism)