Residents and campaigners urge Pittsburgh City Council to endorse Plant Based Treaty

At the June 24 Pittsburgh City Council meeting, more than half a dozen residents and volunteer campaigners asked the council to endorse the Plant Based Treaty, an international campaign that calls for shifting public policy to favor plant-based food systems.

The request came during the public comment portion of the meeting. Max Blair, a musician and volunteer campaigner with Plant Based Treaty, told the council that food systems are a central cause of climate change and urged local endorsement. “Climate change is not 1 issue among many, but rather a threat to the very foundations of civilization on which everything else depends,” Blair said. He cited an estimate from a collaboration with one of the Oxford study’s authors that a citywide shift to plant-based diets could yield emissions reductions “equivalent to taking 390,000 cars off the road,” free enough water to fill about 3,500 Olympic…