A conexão entre escolhas alimentares, destruição da natureza e implicações climáticas sob o olhar da educação ambiental

Abstract

Geographical science holds a magnitude of investigative possibilities, in which the association of different elements cooperates for the understanding of how much social relations and the way in which man appropriates nature and transforms it are responsible for environmental problems. Among these problems is the impairment of the planet's regeneration capacity motivated by human consumption. In line with this, this thesis discusses the environmental cost of meat consumption, believing that this is a cost that is difficult for consumers to perceive. The justification for this choice was based on the need to reflect on the implications of the food dimension for the current scenario of environmental degradation on the planet. Seeking to make the individual contribution in the fight against environmental problems something closer to the daily lives of individuals, it was proposed to encourage a discussion about how a revolution can start from what you eat, through ecological literacy. Thus, as he talks about facts related to the occupation of space for meat production, his repercussions for the health of individuals, the lives of animals and the environment are revealed, the search for answers to “What are the environmental interferences in the production of space arising from the food choices of individuals”? The overall objective is to identify the connection between food choices, forest destruction and climate emergency. The specific objectives are: to report the interface between population growth, expansion of industrial meat production and changes in geographic space; highlight the importance of rethinking individual food choices for disease prevention and reduction; discuss less harmful food alternatives from an ethical, social and environmental point of view; and, finally, structuring a proposal for an educational intervention that promotes reflection on the environmental impacts resulting from meat consumption. The methodological route boils down to a research that adopted the method of bibliographic review, of an exploratory-descriptive character, whose investigation is of a qualitative nature. Primary data were obtained by applying questionnaires to course participants selected for Ituiutaba by the project Ações Formativas Integradas – 2021, implemented by the Federal University of Uberlândia. Secondary data was provided by institutions such as the United Nations, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, for example. Considering that individual food choices are at the center of the damage that modern society accumulates, the thesis is an invitation to the development of a systemic view of the individual about himself in relation to food. More than that, it understands itself as part of a dynamic flow, under which it interferes, based on what it chooses to eat. By placing the individual as the protagonist in facing the current paradigm, the thesis aimed to encourage the incorporation of a set of knowledge that enables the reading of the environmental reality. Finally, it is expected to have contributed to individuals making a revolution in their dishes, considering shared information about ecological damage and social impacts of their food choices, assuming a posture of seeking to understand the movement of their reality.