You’ve probably heard by now that this week, the UN’s scientific panel released a terrifying new report about the far-reaching effects of climate change. The apocalyptic report describes a world of devastating food shortages, ravaging wildfires, and widespread die-off of coral reefs and other wildlife—and, most chillingly, it asserts that these changes will occur sooner than anticipated, playing out over the course of the next few decades.
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Written and edited by 91 scientists from 40 countries who analyzed more than 6,000 scientific studies, the meticulous report is nevertheless likely to land with a thud on the desk of President Trump, who has made numerous comments in the past denying the seriousness of climate change.While the current administration has rolled back environmental initiatives, you can make a difference. Nearly every lifestyle choice we make impacts our carbon footprint—our small but significant effect on the greenhouse gas emissions that warm our climate—including the way we eat.Here, we’ve compiled a guide to cooking, snacking, and shopping in the age of climate change, in an effort to make less of an impact on the Earth we inhabit. For guidance, we spoke with Dr. Rebecca Boehm of the University of Connecticut’s Zwick Center for Food and Resource Policy, an author of the report “A Comprehensive Life Cycle Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from US Household Food Choices,” published in the journal Food Policy in June. Get ready to embrace your inner vegetarian: her number-one recommendation is to eat less meat.According to the findings of Boehm’s study, households that spent a significant portion of their food budget on beef, chicken, pork, and other meats generated more greenhouse gas emissions than households that ate less meat. The worst culprit, Boehm says, is beef, which requires intensive usage of resources—land, water—to produce.
Eat Less Meat
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“Beef, in particular, is very carbon-intensive food.”The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that the meat industry generates nearly one-fifth of the man-made greenhouse gas emissions that are accelerating climate change worldwide—more than the entire transportation sector.Time to embrace Meatless Mondays, Boehm says: “Shifting towards more plant-based foods is an excellent way to cut down on emissions.”By now, it’s been pretty well-proven that organically grown crops provide more nutrients than their conventionally raised alternatives. But apart from health, there’s another good reason to shift your spending power towards organic fruits and veggies: They’re less taxing on the environment. Conventionally grown food is typically sprayed with nitrogen-based fertilizers, which are not only produced in factories that are powered by fossil fuels, but also produce nitrous oxide, which—in addition to being fun to huff out of whipped cream canisters if you’re a ne’er-do-well suburban teenager—is a greenhouse gas about 300 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.“The use of nitrogen fertilizers contributes to the nitrogen cycle and releases N20,” says Boehm. “Anything that can reduce nitrogen outputs is a good way to curb emissions.”While organic fertilizers, like animal manure, also contain nitrogen, these fertilizers are slower to break down and are more gentle on the environment as they do so. So stash away a few extra dollars to spring for those dope organic avocados and make a guac you can feel pious about.
Eat Organic
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…Even Better, Eat Organic and Local
Don't Waste Food—and When You Do, Compost It
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