Dubai: Here’s why you should be eating more lab-grown meat
Human beings should be eating fewer animal products and more lab-grown burgers to combat climate change, and food insecurity and simultaneously improve public health, according to a futurist.
Dr Jamie Metzl said some of the world’s biggest challenges could be addressed by focusing on new technologies such as synthetic biology.
Addressing the Dubai Future Forum, Dr Metzl, founder and chair, OneShared.World, said: “We live in a world that exists the way it does because of agriculture. But we’re going to have 10 billion people on the planet by 2050 and if we continue as we are now, we’re going to need 70 per cent more arable land. We do not have that amount and a lot of arable land is becoming less arable because of climate change. How can we wisely use the tools of biotechnology so people can live fulfilled, safe lives?”
With 70 billion animals slaughtered each year for food, Dr Metzl said, “We should all be eating fewer animal products.”
“If we are treating them like a means to an end of our nutrition, wouldn’t it be better instead of growing the animal, to grow the meat? The first cell-cultured burger cost about $330,000, you can now get one for about $10.”
Opening the second day of the world’s largest futurist gathering with a session titled ‘Can We Predict the Future of Our Species?’ Dr Metzl told delegates to harness new technologies with wisdom and humility.
A “super-convergence of technology” is “being unleashed and manifested in super-enabling technologies” he said, adding: “The determinant of whether we have a better story, or a worse story is not technology – it is us. We need not just to imagine the kind of future we would like to inhabit but roll up our sleeves and do the hard work to build it.”
“If we do not address the meta problem then it will not matter. Solve a pandemic but not climate change, it is a Pyrrhic victory. Solve climate change but not nuclear arms, it is a Pyrrhic victory. We need a systems upgrade.”
ALSO READ:
source: khaleejtimes
