Mr. Sutton, who is with the Natural Environment Research Council in Britain, said people in rich Western countries ate too much meat and could reduce their environmental footprint by cutting back. Mr. Sutton is advocating that people become demitarians — cutting their meat consumption in half.

People in the rich world should become "demitarians" — eating half as much meat as usual, while stopping short of giving it up — in order to avoid severe environmental damage, scientists have urged, in the clearest picture yet of how farming practices are destroying the natural world.

Implement this commitment through promotion of the 'demitarian' option, which we define as a meal containing half the amount of meat or fish compared with the normal local alternative, combined with a correspondingly larger amount of other food products.