When you hear about global warming, do you picture dirty coal-fired power plants and industrial smokestacks? Do you kick yourself for not having replaced that last bulb in the bathroom with a compact fluorescent? Or gnaw your nails over how much you’ve been spending on gas?
Yes, the sources of energy required to power our homes and our cars are major emitters of the greenhouse gas of highest concern—carbon dioxide—but there’s another culprit to the crisis that until recently has largely stayed out of the climate change-hot seat: our food system.
Okay, so maybe food strikes you as an unlikely target. If asked to name the planet’s climate-change bad guys, you might tag Shell and ExxonMobile before Sara Lee or General Mills.
But, if you account for all the emissions from seed to plate to landfill and emissions from deforestation driven by agribusiness, the food and agriculture sector accounts for as much as one third of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions. The livestock industry alone is responsible for nearly one-fifth of the total, says the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
Want to learn more?
Check out Diet for a Hot Planet and explore the resources in this section for more information about the food and climate change connection.
Please be in touch if you have suggested resources.
—Anna
>> If 10,000 medium-sized U.S. farms converted to organic production, they would store so much carbon in the soil that it would be the carbon-saving equivalent to taking one million cars off the road.
>> The Rodale Institute, the nation’s leading research institute on soil science, estimates that if we converted all corn and soy to organic production, the United States could sequester enough carbon to meet nearly three-quarters of our Kyoto targets for carbon dioxide emissions reductions.
>> Agribusiness is plowing down vital rainforests to make way for crops for industrial livestock feed and biofuels. As a result of palm oil plantation expansion and rainforest deforestation, Indonesia is among the biggest greenhouse gas emitters in the world.
Learn more about the causes of food-climate connection and how we can be part of the solution in Diet for a Hot Planet.
