Food’s Carbon Footprint
Decatur Metro | October 23, 2009Since late last year, I’ve been half-looking, half-hoping to come across some statistics I could spout out at cocktail parties regarding how much of the world’s carbon emissions is attributable to food production, storage and delivery. This morning’s NY Times article about Sweden’s initiative to put CO2 info on food labels is an absolute treasure trove of data. The big number…
An estimated 25 percent of the emissions produced by people in industrialized nations can be traced to the food they eat, according to recent research here.
And don’t miss this handy graph that shows, among other things, the extreme difference that can be made by choosing chicken over beef.
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I, PMcG, being of unsound mind, and very thin body, have given up eating to minimize my carbon footprint. When I die, please hike my body into the forest and prop me up against a tree.
Thanks and see you in the next 7-14 days,
PMcG
What should we do if we see you cheating?
But seriously, you won’t see me arguing for “extremes” here. Any sort of moderation would be a good start.
HA!
Yeah, the extremes are an easy target. Personally, this was my first year gardening and I can tell you there is nothing like opening the back door and creating an awesome dinner from the back yard. And sharing the extras with friends and family was a joy.
Not only did I save money on vegetables all summer, but I expanded my recipe collection exponentially.
Chili-dog at the Varsity: 1 million kilograms of CO2
Talk about a CO2 bargain!
That should be balanced against the kiligrams of methane that’ll result from your eating it.
See?!? I cannot type today to save my life! I’m leaving. *sigh*
What’s the carbon footprint for delivering the additional ink to the printer to print the new label?
Do you believe it would be anything more than negligible? Also you’re assuming that adding a chart to an existing label actually uses additional ink.
This seems like a good time to pimp the PB&J Campaign, a project started by a good friend. The idea is that if you substituted PB&J for lunch, even once a week, you could do an awful lot of good for the environment. The website has lots of statistics about food and carbon, and suggestions for non-PB&J low-on-the-food-chain foods.
http://pbjcampaign.org/
Really – it’s come to this?
Yep. Cheap energy systems make even the most basic aspects of survival – like eating – ridiculously complicated and unintuitive.
Or are you talking about the PBJ campaign? To tell you the truth I’ve always suspected that Paula worked for the peanut lobby. ( See her comments about how peanuts can eliminate world hunger, fuel our cars and serve as a surprisingly effective laundry detergent.
)
Please no one attempt that last one.
Thanks, DM, for being so proactive about environmental issues in general.
I like the idea of local knowledge-sharing and discussions about it all.
I do wonder, though, about the prospects of weaning the culture (that’d be all of us) off the energy-expensive, luxurious lives we lead.
Folks in Decatur seem responsive to such conversations, but we’re a long way, metaphorically speaking, from the Alpharettas and Lithonias of the world. I wonder how much effect the all-chicken diet would have on folk whose daily driving habits belch-out remarkable tonnage of yearly CO2 and other pollutants.
Not being cynical here, just actually wondering what *is* to be done in such an unsustainable culture. We gonna end up mandating PB&J thrice a week to offset SUV use? Comparable to polluting companies who “buy” pollution credits?
The tide of behavioral inertia seems mighty, I must say.
Don’t forget that peanut butter also makes an effective chewing gum stuck in hair remover!
These extremes of over evaluating reports and polls are absurd. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,569124,00.html Next, they will be telling to eat our children. Remember that the ‘experts’ said butter was bad, then, no, margarine was bad. The Earth is warming at the very same time that it’s cooling. Those who make a living of us believing are the ones who could take a seat, shut up and solve the whole carbon emission farce on their own
The fact that there is predatory journalism and sensationalistic oversimplification does not change the fact that we can find out the truth and act on it to the best of our ability.
Why is an opposing viewpoint immediately labeled “predatory journalism” and accused of sensationalism? Is not the chief purveyor of sensationalistic overstatement Al Gore?
No. There’s the answer to your question. Get a grip on reality, please.
Again, I’m not arguing for extreme measures. And honestly, as I’ve said before, I’m not completely sold on “global warming” either. But a little moderation never hurt anyone…especially in a world with limited natural resources.
An opposing viewpoint is great John, but not when it takes your argument to a ridiculous extreme and then tears it down. That gets us no where except pissed off.
But the “eating your dog” argument is based on a valid point about lifeforms and how much “energy” they consume. And the most modest and rational way to begin to deal with that would be say – decreasing the overpopulation of pets in the country with more support for advocacy programs and harsher fines on puppy mills, etc. However that doesn’t sell books and get you on cable television. But arguing that people should eat their dog, well that’s money in the bank.
An inventor is close to patenting an anti gas(beano) herb for cattle farts, methane, which is 25 times worse than CO2 in terms of global warming. In the future most human activity and animal activity will be taxed. We have plenty of taxes for income and property but a whole new set will emerge in the next century.
We should all just kill ourselves. Everything we do is bad for everybody and everything.
Friggin’ humans…
(feeling a little sarcastic with a soupcon of churlishness…)
Like I give a damn. I’m gonna eat what I want, when I want. I’m a carnivore, I love beef, and nothing is going to stop me enjoying every last bite of my steak.
[edited] (DM, I edited myself for your convenience [not enough]).
And I’m with Marc above…this is just preposterous. One more example of the fringe pushing their ridiculous agenda onto the weak-minded and easily-led sheeple (copyright Gibbets, I think).
You obviously give a damn enough to post an obscenity-laden comment.
Eric, do whatever you want. But I’d think someone with such a bold, independent streak would be shooting deer and wild boar in the woods and not defending his reliance on government subsidies to choose, fatten and slaughter a cow for him. (But hey, conformist-independence is kinda cool too…a.k.a the sheeple is now on the other foot!)
And then guess what? I’d have no problem with your scoffing dismissal.
Oh…and if you think the problem I’m most concerned about is that you LIKE beef and not that you have UNLIMITED ACCESS to beef, then I’m not sure I’m being clear enough. But regardless, please take your retorts to the vegetarians back to 1990.
OH! And Eric goes down in flames, destroyed by the man behind the curtain!
Actually, DM, good response to my admittedly “more emotion, less thought” post. So let me respond in more sedate terms:
1. No worries on the further editing. It’s your blog and we all have to abide by your (very sensible) rules. But it wasn’t really THAT laden with obscenities, just two. And one was only partially written. Anyway, on to more important things.
2. As for where my beef comes from, I have to admit that I don’t care, as long as it’s good quality. But your assumption that I’m not a hunter is incorrect…it’s not unheard of for me to eat what I kill. That’s not to say I’m not mostly a conformist. I am, and I’m pretty boring overall.
3. I’m not sure of the full meaning of your last sentence. But in the part that you edited, I make clear my preference for beef over PB&J. And I hope to always have it available to me, especially if people start wanting to limit availability based on ridiculous things like counting CO2 emissions.
The last sentence was just a bit nudge, because it seemed like you were going for some sort of shock value in your statement about being a carnivore and eating beef/cows. That sounded like something an unabashed carnivore would say to make a vegetarian cringe (and then respond in moral outrage). And I have no problem with you love of beef.
No one is forcing anything on anyone in the Sweden piece. Just providing info (as Bic mentioned). How’s it any different than giving automobile MPGs?
And I’d love to know more about your fears of folks “limiting” what you get to eat. Does that mean that you wouldn’t support an initiative to cut the huge government subsidies that make your beef so cheap? Why is it so wrong to want the true cost of food to be reflected in the price? Doesn’t sound like a very conservative position to me.
The fringe pushing? Why so paranoid? This is just data from Sweden’s largest farming group. No one is trying to take away your 64 ounce T-bone. Don’t blow a gasket, it’s just information.
Bic,
I’m not paranoid. I just think people are out to get me.
It’s a tired old joke, but I still love it.
I don’t know if anyone saw 20/20 the other night, but the Freakonomics guys made a compelling case that the “buy local” movement with regard to produce does not help global warming. Their point was that because large farms are more efficient in their farming than smaller local farms and because transportation of the food makes up only a small portion of their carbon footprint when compared to the actual farming of the produce, they more than make up for any harm caused by the extra transportation needed. Of course, there are other reasons to buy local, but these guys are really good at making you look at the facts and beyond what you want to believe. Food for thought.
I don’t think the Freakanomics guys were breaking any ground on their conclusions. (Here’s an article about carbon footprints in the New Yorker from a year or two ago, http://tinyurl.com/32aoum ) Of course HOW food is produced is generally more significant than WHERE it was produced, but consumers lack that extra information – buying local is simply the best guess we can make with the relatively little information available. Ecologically speaking, what you buy is more significant then from where, but buying local also provides ancillary benefits like fresher food, more variety and keeping money in your community, which is why I think most people “try” to buy local.
I’d be interested in seeing it Doug. Can it be found online?
Take a look at http://www.abcnews.go.com/2020 and click on the video for Part 4 of the 20/20 special 20 Questions: You Never Thought to Ask – “Why Eating Kangaroo Can Save Polar Bears.”
Very interesting segment Doug. They were pretty general, but quite clear, that they believe that buying local creates a larger carbon footprint.
Luckily for the consistency of my never-ending argument, I’ve never been a huge “global warming” town crier, and have always been more concerned about the rate that we consume our finite supply of natural resources, than the threat of warming. I wonder if they address that aspect in the book.
As another commenter (and the authors in the piece) said, there are lots of other reasons to buy local. But the movement does continue to struggle with the problem of “Could you ever feed the world that way?”
So, I’m pretty busy today and didn’t have time to read the article. But after having glanced at the table I’ve decided to only eat Swedish Apples. Not sure how they make them have such a small footprint from so far away, but since it comes from the same culture that gave us Ikea I’m inclined to believe it.
I believe the small footprint from eating Swedish apples can only be enjoyed while in Sweden. If their apples are anything like IKEA furniture, you’ll also have to buy twice as many because most will fall apart before you finish eating them.
Good point, Chris. It would also be a very stylish looking (from afar) apple that would somehow weigh 300 lbs. Seriously, where does Ikea find the materials for their furniture? How can simulated wood weigh so much more than the real thing?
And with all that heavy furniture, what is Ikea’s carbon footprint? Do we factor in the meatballs as well? I think that’s the direction this minor threadjacking should go.
“Can be traced” is a tipoff that ther 25% number probably relies on some quirky math. I suppse if I drive to Roswell to go to the PGA Superstore, but drive through McDonald’s nt he way home, that entire trip can be traced to food. But it seems silly to include it.
In any event, let’s stipulate that an unavoidable consequence of modernity is that we absolutely have to emit carbon at some level. Let’s also stipulate that emitting less carbon would be a good thing. With that in mind, I’d say we should focus on reducing the 75% of emissions that do not relate to fundamental issue of feeding ourselves before we focus on the 25% that does relate to food.
Of course, if one deems it absolutely necessary to delve into the 25% for the sake of the environment, I suppose we’d start with luxury goods, right? So let’s all agree that we should, at a minimum, put an immediate stop to the transportation of beer and wine across state lines. Shipping cases of wine from Napa County to Georgia uses a lot of carbon. Ditto for kegs of beer from Brussels to the Brick Store. Do I have a volunteer for sticking to Sweetwater and Chateu Elan for life?
Hmmm. Sweetwater I could do with, Chateau Elan– not so much. The only worse wines I’ve had were those from Biltmore House’s vineyards (those could almost be called local, too). Pity!
“In any event, let’s stipulate that an unavoidable consequence of modernity is that we absolutely have to emit carbon at some level. Let’s also stipulate that emitting less carbon would be a good thing. With that in mind, I’d say we should focus on reducing the 75% of emissions that do not relate to fundamental issue of feeding ourselves before we focus on the 25% that does relate to food.”
I’m on-board with your premise…that it’s probably a good idea to emit less carbon (ie use less energy), but I don’t understand why we should exempt food if it’s the second largest energy suck and there are viable options to reduce (NOT ELIMINATE) inefficient food production. Going after all the small fry culprits sounds like a pretty difficult model to support or stand-by. Slight modifications in behaviors of the largest energy sucks (transport, food) seems like a more practical method of reducing energy consumption than convincing people to go whole-hog on something (ie your Sweetwater/Chateau idea).
Not to take away anything from your valid observation that we often focus on one or two things when we’re intent on something (be it energy consumption, trying to save money on purchases), but then turn around and negate it with another choice that we don’t think as critically about.
Ikea furniture ain’t what it used to be. We installed a complete bedroom and living full of Ikea furniture in the 1970s, and it outlasted every other piece of furniture we bought. I am still using one of the bookcases. The bedroom furniture was passed on to another family, since our son grew out of it. But he kept the bookcase and two chest of drawers, which he was still using in the 1990s. Recently, he and his wife bought an Ikea chest of drawers with changing table for their new baby. The item lasted about 1 year and then began to fall apart. Very disappointing! However, I bought a toddler bed from Ikea that is doing very well. I don’t know if certain items are more fragile than others, but I just figure I like the design so well and the price is cheap, so I’ll probably continue buying Ikea furniture of one kind or another. On the other hand, I have a sofa made by Flexsteel that will probably last another 100 years at the rate it is (not) disintegrating.