BioCity

This means that even a city without cars and with no local pollution is far from carbon-neutral on a global scale. A truly schoon city must therefore wean itself off the global supply chain of meat as long as the meat is produced the way it is. The schoon city must work not just towards local good, but towards global good.

Cities in the Global North should ask themselves: What can we do that is most impactful for the global good? The best thing to do is to withdraw their demand for meat. The South is the main meat producer of meat, and the North is the main meat consumer. A city is also well placed to take a responsibility for changing eating culture and practices at the scale that is needed. To truly nudge its population toward a plant-based diet, the BioCity no longer allows selling meat within the city limits. Only in this way, the city of today can limit and control its own global footprint.  

On a local level, this decision creates new spatial possibilities. The city can now use the former pastures to plant transgenic forests, which sequester more CO2 and grow faster. In the forests, it can also rewild livestock animals. The forests will yield timber, which can be used for construction in the city and replace steel and concrete. In this way, the city itself becomes a carbon sink, further reinforced by the urban forest.