The mayor of the nation’s largest city says the only way to save the planet from an environmental calamity is to force school children to eat twigs and berries.

New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio has issued an edict declaring all public schools to be meat-free zones on at least one day of the week.

“Meatless Mondays” is a national propaganda campaign that purports to promote healthy and environmentally friendly meal options. Goodbye hot dogs, hello bean curd.

Instead of delicious cheeseburgers and pepperoni pizza, the children will have to scarf down roasted chickpea tagine and something called kid-friendly kale salad.

Let’s be honest, folks. There’s nothing kid-friendly about eating lawn clippings. The children would be better off pouring Hidden Valley Ranch salad dressing on a flip flop.

“Cutting back on meat a little will improve New Yorkers’ health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Mayor De Blasio said in a statement. “We’re expanding Meatless Mondays to all public schools to keep our lunch and planet green for generations to come.”

It appears the mayor is embracing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal. The Queens congresswoman and the nation’s resident expert in climate change believes airline travel and cow flatulence could end modern civilization as we know it.

In that delusional narrative, if New York City school children stopped eating cheeseburgers, we might be able to spare the Bronx from the ravages of the apocalypse.

There are clearly more pressing issues facing the New York City Department of Education, from crime in classrooms to failing test scores.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported more than 80 NYC schools were placed on a state low-performing list.

State lawmakers are threatening to take over the troubled school district over public safety concerns, the New York Post reports.

“I can’t tell you how many teachers and principals have come to me and said that the current system is a disaster,” Republican Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis told the newspaper.

Democrat Assemblyman John Liu said he, too, had heard “complaints from teachers who don’t feel safe.”

So while teachers are getting manhandled and students can’t do simple math, Comrade De Blasio is waging a holy war against the sloppy joe.

“Meatless Monday is great,” Amy Shapiro, a registered dietician, told CBS News. “When we take out the meat component we can focus more on the grains and vegetables and we put vitamins and nutrients in they might not be getting otherwise.”

Ironically, the mayor’s plan to save the environment could backfire — literally.

Can you imagine the amount of methane emissions generated by more than a million school children whose weekly diet includes bowls of vegetarian chili and spicy bean burritos? Those kids could end up blowing a hole in the ozone the size of Rhode Island.