Sustainable Eating In A Warming World


Sustainable Eating In A Warming World

This story is part of Degrees Of Change, a series that explores the problem of climate change and how we as a planet are adapting to it. Tell us how you or your community are responding to climate change here.


A quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions come from putting food on the table. From the fossil fuels used to produce fertilizers, to the methane burps of cows, to the jet fuel used to deliver your fresh asparagus, eating is one of the most planet-warming things we do.

And as climate change gets worse, we’re seeing more flooding rains, more heat waves, and more droughts—indicating that this problem in part created by our eating habits is turning round to endanger the future of food.

Science writer Amanda Little examines that future in her new book The Fate of Food: What We’ll Eat in a Bigger, Hotter, Smarter World, and explores innovative ways that farmers are adapting too, from aerial farms and aquaculture to robotic weed pickers. The message is clear: There might be a way out of this, if we rethink how we put food on the table. Read an excerpt from The Fate of Food.

rows of green lettuce in a dirt field under a blue sky streaked with clouds
A lettuce field. Credit: Shutterstock

We’ll also be examining the solutions to our carbon-hungry food chain. Stefano Carpin of the University of California Merced is designing a smarter way to water crops, by surveying fields with drones to figure out where to water, and then sending in fleets of robots to send squirts of water from irrigation tubes. He’s currently designing the system for California’s warming vineyards.

Food waste is another significant problem—40% of food goes wasted in this country. Julie Goddard of Cornell University is designing smart packaging that can keep foods fresh, all without the addition of preservatives, which consumers increasingly prefer to avoid. We’ll talk about all those solutions and more in this chapter of Degrees of Change.

We’ve been taking your questions all week through the new SciFri VoxPop app—and we invite you to join in. David Church in Jacksonville wondered how beef stacks up to plant-based patties: “What about plant-based meat alternatives? They’re highly processed. I think that would take up a lot of resources.” And Ed Whitehouse in Mount Pleasant, Michigan wants to know: “What is the time frame for lab-grown meat be rolled out and affordable?”

Amanda Little already weighed in on some of your questions. Check her answers below, and learn more about how you can eat smarter.

Amanda Little (question 1): Many of us meat-eaters generate more planet-warming emissions from eating than we do from driving or flying. Broadly, food production accounts for about a fifth of total greenhouse gas emissions annually. Upshot: agriculture contributes more than any other sector, including energy and transportation, to climate change.

Amanda Little: Let’s compare beef to fossil fuels: if you give up one 5-ounce steak and eat beans instead, that’s the equivalent of saving about 2/3 of a gallon of gas. More excellent deets [in this Washington Post article] Yet another fascinating WaPo piece by Tamar Haspel offers a calorie-for-calorie analysis of the carbon impact of veggies vs. meats. Broccoli, for example, has a higher carbon cost per calorie than chicken and pork. Haspel says: “Beef and lamb are still way worse than anything. Substituting chicken or pork for beef is, from a carbon perspective, almost as good as substituting a plant food.” 

Amanda Little (question 2): Yes. Asparagus! If it requires jet fuel. And many other air-freighted vegetables and fruits. Check out this National Geographic piece: “The Surprisingly Big Carbon Shadow Cast By Slender Asparagus” which gives a breakdown of fruit and veggie carbon costs.


Further Reading:

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