Realtime with Bill Maher, Sept 21, 2007

Christiana Figueres, the former United Nations official responsible for the 2015 Paris climate agreement, has a startling vision for restaurants of the future: anyone who wants a steak should be banished. “How about restaurants in 10-15 years start treating carnivores the same way that smokers are treated?” Figueres suggested during a recent conference. “If they want to eat meat, they can do it outside the restaurant.”

A spell of extremely hot weather has hit Europe this month, bringing with it a raft of apocalyptic headlines. Named Charon, after the boatman in Greek mythology who navigated the river Styx into Hades, the heatwave has immediately been linked to climate change and, by extension, humanity’s faltering attempts to combat it.

Hunger has wracked humanity since time immemorial. Nearly every major society has been shaped by famine; one estimate suggests that China suffered drought or flood-induced starvation in at least one province almost every year from 108 BC to 1911. Yet the struggle against hunger is a battle that humanity could finally win.