Many believe a significant way to address #climatechange is to 'eat local,’ but that’s not always true. The impact all depends on the kind of #food + how & where it’s produced.
Some foods require fewer resources (water, energy) in some parts of the world. Season can be important. Overall, transportation has a much lower carbon footprint than land use change. And so on.
I really like this.
I also am ruminating, now, about wild (ruminant) game. Both local and reducing population would seem to reduce the antelope farts. 🤷♂️
@Sheril just wanted to share this answer I got from a friend ex-biologist:
False. Eat cows to save the planet. Biogenic carbon cycling is not an issue. The people that produce that data are too smart and arogant for their own good. Or vegetarian propagandists. "The ends justifies the means" folks. Sure, we can (and do) raise ruminants in stupid ways, which contributes more carbon, but not eating ruminants is a bad solution, putting in proper grazing regs is the proper solution.
@Sheril@schwinghamer It’s be neat if food labelling required a “red light/yellow light/green light” emissions logo to tell consumers how carbon intensive their food is.
As a friend who worked in Ontario's former environment commissioners office said, "you can pretty much take any food, fly it twice around the world and the emissions are still less than local, grass fed organic beef"
Yet he wasn't allowed to include that in information materials.
@Sheril "how bad are bananas?" Is a book by Mike Berners-Lee in which he lists the carbon footprint of everything from an SMS message to Peruvian asparagus. First published in 2009 but I think they're was a reprint in 2020.
@Sheril interesting. While we don't have the worst "offenders" on the table usually I was most bamboozled by the relative low print of bananas. We kinda eradicated these from our shopping in favour of other "local" food - which apparently has a higher print than I expected 🤔
@Sheril I like this quote though I feel like they favor eggs over milk unfairly given their data showing milk as lower emission “substituting less than one day per week’s worth of calories from beef and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a plant-based alternative reduces GHG emissions more than buying all your food from local sources”
@Sheril Thank you for this, Sheril.
Important to get the details right, or we're making things worse while thinking we're making things better.
Appreciate it.🙏
@Sheril Thank you. Eat local drives me nuts. It doesn’t account for the fact that most of the burned fossil fuel happens when people drive to the store. Long range shipping is remarkably efficient. And frankly, eat local often devolves into “make special trips to the farmers market.”
Rather than “eat local”, it’s more useful to reduce auto trips. Walk/bike sometimes, carpool, plan/combine errands, etc. And, BTW, these changes can also save families time or money.
We demand the building of all the energy systems needed to end carbon fuels or we don't make it. Built now, like the US rebuilt its fleet after it was sunk at Pearl Harbor, or we dont make it. We stop burning carbon fuels or we dont make it.
@Sheril I agree that this is a good thing to consider, but I am allergic and sensitive to so many foods that when I go out to eat, my main consideration is what is on the menu that I can safely eat.
@Sheril It looks like the current version of the chart is a bit different, making chocolate look even worse for example. But I agree with other people here that re-indexing to serving size would more clearly show impact.
@Sheril I appreciate easy-to-consume data like this, because it seems like our assumptions about what choices are better or matter most are often (almost always?) wrong. (paper vs. plastic bags, cloth vs. disposable diapers, for example) So it's great to be able to focus our attention back on things that matter. thanks!
@Sheril people really hate this chart whenever I post it.
It does make the path forward glaringly obvious: reduce consumption of beef, lamb, and dairy. Doesn't mean never eat them, just eat them less!
Which is probably why people hate it.
@Sheril you were almost there. You had the data, had a good run up - and then fell totally sprawling flat with that conclusion. “Eat thoughtfully” is the most useless advice possible. At least “eat local” means you’re doing something. Really though, looking at that graph, how about just “eat plants”? Seems simple and useful enough, right?
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