Every day, every person on this planet makes thousands of decisions. From the moment we wake up to the moment we fall asleep, we make choices that range from what we will wear, to how we will get to work, to where we will shop. More than a dozens of these decisions will be about food: what to eat, where to buy food and how to cook it.

Today, as people all over the world get ready to show their commitment to the health of the planet by turning off their lights for one hour, it has never been more important that we realize how each of these decisions can have an immense impact on the world we share.

The need for this is as clear as we want the air in our cities to be. Within the next 35 years there will be an extra one and half billion people to feed, each with their own dreams and aspirations. By 2030, humanity will need the equivalent of two Earths to support itself. This is clearly not viable in a world where climate change will make it even harder for the natural world to provide for our needs.

It is tempting to ignore these problems, partly because we feel that one person cannot make a difference. But we are not alone on this world, and individual action forms part of a greater whole. As Xunzi, the famous Confucian philosopher, once said, “No river or sea can be formed without the streams.”

But how can we make our individual streams flow the way they should? A large part of the answer lies in making wise decisions about the things we do every day.

For example, we can think about how and what we eat. I was shocked to learn that it takes more than 16,000 litres of precious water to produce just one kilogram of beef. Most of the forests we chop down are destroyed to make way for animal agriculture, which makes meat production the leading cause of species and biodiversity loss. And, as if this wasn’t bad enough, the meat industry generates almost one-fifth of all the man-made greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change.

So, something as simple as eating less meat can help save two of the world’s most precious resources – our water and our forests – while weakening climate change.

We also need to be better at conserving food. Every year, humans throw away about one-third of all the food we produce – about 1.3 billion tonnes. This is particularly horrifying when you think of the millions of people who don’t have enough to eat. By shopping smartly, planning our meals and creatively cooking our leftovers we can prevent this shocking food waste and save money too.

Another way of saving money and the environment is to change the light bulbs in our homes and offices to more energy-efficient ones. If everyone on the planet did this tomorrow, we’d stop the equivalent of 138 coal-fired power stations from spewing out harmful CO2 into the world every year.

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