Let this sink in: If food waste were a country, it would be third only to China and the United States in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. That’s because up to 40 percent of food in the United States and throughout the world is lost or wasted – an issue that has serious social, economic, and environmental ramifications.
It’s been two decades since British Petroleum and the marketing agency then named Ogilvy & Mather deceived lots and lots of unwitting Americans into believing the hands of fossil fuel companies are clean of contributing to climate change through imaginative messaging. To this day, their marketing campaign continues to be highly effective in getting the public to take on the weighty responsibility of halting climate change. We’ve cut back on meat, upped our recycling game and made the creative campaign’s key phrase – “carbon footprint” – part of our vernacular.
Methane is a potent gas, packing 28 times the punch of carbon dioxide. But that sound bite fails to account for the gases’ behavior in the atmosphere. Comparing potency may be valid, but not at the expense of shedding light on warming effects.
Hold the pickle, hold the lettuce, hold the methane?
A new communication campaign from Burger King is promising beef that comes from cows that are 33 percent less gassy on average, allowing the international fast-food chain’s consumers to have it their way without guilt.
Millions of people grapple with the effect their lifestyle choices have on climate change, often leading them to draw comparisons between the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of their activities. But the discussion around emissions is full of nuances, and while we often search for easy analogies to paint a full picture of human-related climate impacts, they can create more confusion than clarity.
A story in The New Yorker came out this week about Dr. Pat Brown, the founder of Impossible Foods. If readers scan the headline and subhead, they’ll get the gist of what author Tad Friend is trying to say: “Can a plant based burger help solve climate change? Eating meat creates huge environmental costs. Impossible Foods thinks it has a solution.”
While the world is focusing on the burning of the immense above-ground Amazon forest, no one is mourning the loss of the (fossilized) forests that lie below the surface of the earth. The ones we are churning through at an unprecedented rate are our ancient forests, commonly referred to as “fossil fuels” with enormous impact on greenhouse gas emissions.
Over the past three weeks, there’s been an abundance of news reports and opinion pieces related to the fires in the Amazon rainforest. It’s not undeserved. At more than 2 million square miles, the tropical rainforest is the world’s largest, not to mention a treasure trove of flora, fauna and landforms. Nowhere on Earth is there more biodiversity. Its beauty alone commands awe and respect.
The EAT-Lancet Commission’s attempt at establishing a “global planetary health diet that is healthy for both people and planet” was much-anticipated. With a promise like that, it should come as no surprise that the recommendations captured international attention when the study was published in mid-January 2019.
But the excitement around its environmental considerations has fallen flat, at least in circles that rely on science-based evidence to support their conclusions.
