What is your dinner doing to the climate?
By gabbana
@gabbana (1815)
China
September 11, 2008 10:05am CST
LOCAL or imported? Conventional or organic? Can you make choices that will keep your diet healthy and reduce your carbon footprint? Is it possible to eat green? Does it even matter?
It may surprise you to learn that our diets account for up to twice as many greenhouse emissions as driving. One recent study suggested that the average US household's annual carbon food-print is 8.1 tonnes of "equivalent CO2 emissions" or CO2eq (a measure that incorporates any other greenhouse gases produced alongside the CO2). That's almost twice the 4.4 tonnes of CO2eq emitted by driving a 25-mile-per-US gallon (9 litres per 100 kilometres) vehicle 19,000 km - a typical year's mileage in the US.
3 responses
@Mercurial (72)
• Australia
11 Sep 08
I've read as much. I also heard somewhere, depending on your location, that you would actually accrue fewer emissions if you buy imported food. I know that sounds ridiculous; but at least in my case, it can actually be true.
For instance, I live in western australia; a considerable amount of our fruit and sometimes eggs or milk is imported from the eastern states, which are five hours flight or 16 or so kilometres drive away - which results in pretty high food miles! However, if I buy food imported from malaysia, which takes less time and energy to import, I save money and the environment. Mad, hey?
1 person likes this
@wickikitty (532)
• United States
11 Sep 08
One would think that buying organic and local food would be cheap since they don't have to waste money on things like helicopters and pesticides... however it seems that they charge more than the regular price and in some cases double. If they want to do a good thing for the environment as much as I do, then they would stop trying to plead to my pocket for sympathy.
