Avatar Director James Cameron Offers A New Way To Fight Climate Change

- John Gaudiosi

In addition to writing, developing new technology for, and preparing to shoot the three new Avatar films, Oscar-winner James Cameron has remained firmly entrenched in environmental issues. The director took the stage on September 15, 2015, at the first-ever U.S.-China Climate Leaders Summit to raise awareness about the impact of animal agriculture on climate change through his talk, “Food for Sustainable Nations.”

Cameron co-founded the Food Choice Taskforce to investigate how raising 70 billion cows, goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, and other animals humans eat every year are contributing to 14.5% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. As Cameron emphasized in his presentation, keeping global warming below dangerous levels isn't possible if a growing global population mirrors the current American diet and consumes the amount of animal-sourced foods eaten in the U.S.

The 61-year-old director discovered that switching to a plant-based diet not only cuts one’s carbon footprint in half, it’s also healthier – as referenced by the recent blue zone regions around the world that have the largest collection of centenarians (who live a mostly plant-based diet). So, Cameron went plant-based almost four years ago, and now he’s using his stature to get the message out to the public about the connection between animal agriculture and climate change.