Your Questions About Food and Climate Change, Answered: NYT

The average greenhouse gas impact (in kilograms of CO₂) of getting 50 grams of protein from:

An excellent article on the climate change impact of various diets. below are sample graphics. The actual site is interactive and packed full of information. The article concludes with some suggested recipes for a climate friendly diet.

Here are a few shots of the excellent article.

Related: Recipes: Celebrate Sustainable Food for Planet A on our blog

Does what I eat have an effect on climate change? 

 

Go to New York Times site

Climate Friendly Recipes

Related: Recipes: Celebrate Sustainable Food for Planet A on our blog

Climate change deniers’ new battle front attacked : The Guardian

The battle between climate change deniers and the environment movement has entered a new, pernicious phase. That is the stark warning of one of the world’s leading climate experts, Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University.

Mann told the Observer that although flat rejection of global warming was becoming increasingly hard to maintain in the face of mounting evidence, this did not mean climate change deniers were giving up the fight.

“First of all, there is an attempt being made by them to deflect attention away from finding policy solutions to global warming towards promoting individual behaviour changes that affect people’s diets, travel choices and other personal behaviour,” said Mann. “This is a deflection campaign and a lot of well-meaning people have been taken in by it.”

Read The Guardian article 

See also: 

435 people died in an 1896 heatwave — but scientists say the extreme heat events of today are still hotter: ABC

 

#criminales climáticos de la cárcel   #criminalesclimáticosdelacárcel  #jailclimatecriminals

#gaolclimatecriminals  #buyfromthebush

Climate change: Big lifestyle changes 'needed to cut emissions': BBC

"People must use less transport, eat less red meat and buy fewer clothes if the UK is to virtually halt greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, the government's chief environment scientist has warned.

Prof Sir Ian Boyd said the public had little idea of the scale of the challenge from the so-called Net Zero emissions target.

However, he said technology would help.

The conundrum facing the UK - and elsewhere - was how we shift ourselves away from consuming, he added.

In an interview with BBC News, Sir Ian warned that persuasive political leadership was needed to carry the public through the challenge.

Asked whether Boris Johnson would deliver that leadership, he declined to comment.

Mr Johnson has already been accused by environmentalists of talking up electric cars whilst reputedly planning a cut in driving taxes that would increase emissions and undermine the electric car market."

Read the BBC article 

Related: Death, blackouts, melting asphalt: ways the climate crisis will change how we live : The Guardian

We can’t keep eating as we are – why isn’t the IPCC shouting this from the rooftops? The Guardian

by George Monbiot

"It’s a tragic missed opportunity. The new report on land by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shies away from the big issues and fails to properly represent the science. As a result, it gives us few clues about how we might survive the century. Has it been nobbled? Was the fear of taking on the farming industry – alongside the oil and coal companies whose paid shills have attacked it so fiercely – too much to bear? At the moment, I have no idea. But what the panel has produced is pathetic. 

 

The problem is that it concentrates on just one of the two ways of counting the carbon costs of farming. The first way – the IPCC’s approach – could be described as farming’s current account. How much greenhouse gas does driving tractors, spreading fertiliser and raising livestock produce every year? According to the panel’s report, the answer is around 23% of the planet-heating gases we currently produce. But this fails miserably to capture the overall impact of food production.

The second accounting method is more important. This could be described as the capital account: how does farming compare to the natural ecosystems that would otherwise have occupied the land? A paper published in Nature last year, but not mentioned by the IPCC, sought to count this cost. Please read these figures carefully. They could change your life."

Go to The Guardian article

6 Glimmers of Climate Optimism for the End of a Dark Year: Medium

It was a year of frightening reports on the future of our planet. But sustainability experts are still feeling optimistic about some of the strides we’ve made this year.

The consensus among scientists, researchers, and sustainability experts following this years’ reports is that while stopping climate change will require an undoubtedly Herculean effort, the biggest hurdle is political, not technical. In other words, if all the innovations in sustainable technology and science were harnessed and directed at reducing emissions and environmental collapse, we might stand a chance at meeting the goals laid out in the reports.

Don’t get us wrong: It will take a heroic, global effort if we’re even going to come close to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius–the point after which, according to the reports, large swaths of the planet will become uninhabitable, and issues like mass starvation will become widespread. And the lack of leadership from the United States, under climate change denier Donald Trump, is making cohesive political action difficult.

But underneath all this, activists, scientists, and business leaders are

working to advance progressive climate action, and despite everything, have hung onto a sense of optimism as we move into 2019. Here are some reasons why:"

Read the complete article 

Related:

Restoring forests may be one of our most powerful weapons in fighting climate change: Vox

 

Be a patriot, eat less beef: grist

click to enlarge

As Josh Harkinson noted this week, cows are the United States’ single biggest source of methane — a potent gas that has 105 times the heat-trapping ability of carbon dioxide. That’s one major reason why beef’s greenhouse gas footprint is far higher than that of most other sources of protein, according to an EWG study. (Though it’s consumed at a fraction of the rate of beef or chicken, lamb is by far the most carbon intensive of the major meats, according to EWG, since the animal’s smaller body produces meat less efficiently but still produces a lot of methane.)

And EWG’s estimate of beef’s impact may actually be on the conservative side: A study released this week found the greenhouse gases associated with beef to be even higher.



So what should you eat instead of beef? One answer: Chicken, which has a carbon footprint roughly a fifth the size of beef’s.
Read grist article 

#veganism  #vegetarianism  #carbon footprint  #greenhouse gases  #meat  #chicken  #methane 

See also New Report Warns Geoengineering the Climate Is a '...

Climate Change: The Antidote To Democracy’s Mid-life Crisis: Medium

 

Opinion on climate change

"The manifesto for this new democratic movement will contain few, if any, new ideas. Rather, it will organise a familiar set of policies into a coherent programme:

A flat-rate, no-exceptions tax on emissions — possibly linked to a dividend for all citizens, or with revenues used to fund other climate protection measures.

1. Investment in renewables and low-emission transport infrastructure, which will also create jobs.
2.  
   Enhanced protections for natural carbon sinks in public hands, and incentives for private landowners to increase the quantity of carbon stored by the trees, plants and soils on their land.
3.  
   Funding for research into carbon capture and use, energy storage and next generation renewables.
4.  
   Higher mandatory energy efficiency standards for all new buildings, saving households and businesses money on their energy bills.
5.  
   Scrappage schemes for petrol and diesel vehicles and money for homeowners and landlords to upgrade the energy efficiency of existing properties.
6.  
   Investment in climate adaptation and resilience to ensure those most exposed to the impacts of extreme weather — from hurricanes to forest fires — are as well protected as possible.
7.  
   Public awareness campaigns to promote dietary changes that both reduce emissions and improve health.
8.  
   Lowering the voting age to 16, as a way of giving greater democratic voice to those who will be most personally affected by the long-term consequences of global warming."

 

Read the Medium Article 

 

 #energy efficiency  #climate action now   #renewables  #transport  #energy storage  #meat

Is Climate Change Too Much of An Inconvenience?

Photo by Daniel Jensen on Unsplash

Numbers of vertebrate animals have been depleted by 60% since 1970 due to direct human destruction, but at the end of the day do our modern comforts just mean too much to us to give up for long-term future gain?

I have recently been making concerted efforts to reduce the waste I create and lessen my individual impact on climate change. Not only does this take some thinking and planning, as these practices are not culturally inscribed in the average person, but even with the best tips and plans of action, it is not as easy as you might hope.

Firstly, there are numerous ways to reduce your personal carbon footprint. Plastic waste; general waste; other recyclable waste; food waste; food consumption — particularly meat and dairy, but also other produce, such as soy; energy consumption; pollution; and so on.

Where to start?

Go to Medium article

Ways to convince people to take climate action and avoid total climate catastrophe

Climate Action Angel at rally in Coffs Harbour NSW

I was wrong. This is environmentalism’s biggest problem.

The IPCC Report has come and gone and it seems that it has now largely disappeared from the news cycle. It is likely that, in the coming years, the pace of carbon cuts will quicken, and there is a chance that the 1.5°C will be met. Convincing people to get on board, though, is much more difficult. Here’s the key problem, and a potential solution.

 Read Medium article

#climateaction #climatecatastrophe #1.5degrees, #meat, #climatedeniers, #agriculture, #farmers, #fisherfolk

The Guardian: Avoiding meat and dairy is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce your impact on Earth

Beef Cattle

Avoiding meat and dairy products is the single biggest way to reduce your environmental impact on the planet, according to the scientists behind the most comprehensive analysis to date of the damage farming does to the planet.

The new research shows that without meat and dairy consumption, global farmland use could be reduced by more than 75% – an area equivalent to the US, China, European Union and Australia combined – and still feed the world. Loss of wild areas to agriculture is the leading cause of the current mass extinction of wildlife.

Read The Guardian article 

See also

Giving up beef will reduce carbon footprint more than cars, says expert