Welcome to the EcoMinutes, and the official launch of the EcoMinutes podcast - this is Dr. Enid Sisskin. I sometimes get emails that the information in the one-minute EcoMinute is difficult to absorb, so we decided I’d do a longer podcast where I can expand on the tips and tidbits that we broadcast during the week.
It’s the start of the year, so let’s talk about New Year’s Resolutions. Now, if you think about it, the EcoMinute is often just a series of suggestions of ways you can be a little more eco-friendly, and each year, I start the new year with several days of resolutions. So, I’ll give you my top three and why they’re important. In the coming months, I’ll drill down and give you way more details of each of them. Today, my first resolution.
Resolution No. 1 is to eat lower on the food chain and buy what you can locally. Although I can’t say I never eat meat, it’s not a staple in my diet, and I rarely cook it. There are lots of reasons to be a vegetarian or vegan, one of the best is to decrease your contribution to global climate change. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC), the climate impact of a plant-based diet is typically 10 to 50 times smaller than that of one containing animal products, so it follows that switching from a largely meat-based diet to a vegetarian or vegan diet could help to reduce greenhouse emissions.
A vegan diet shows the largest decrease in CO2 reduction, with vegetarian just behind. What are the factors that make up that reduction? Savings come both from a decrease in the greenhouse emissions associated with livestock production and also from saving land that would otherwise be needed for livestock rearing.
The types of meat that produce the highest greenhouse gas emissions are beef and lamb. They produce such high greenhouse gas emissions because they are ruminants and their stomachs contain specialized bacteria that digest tough and fibrous material, such as grass. The digestive process causes the animals to burp out methane, a greenhouse gas that is more powerful than CO2. A major driver of climate change from beef production is deforestation, especially in the Amazon. Large areas of rainforest have been cleared, burned, and grass is allowed to grow in their place to feed the cows. To make it worse, farmers often use nitrogen fertilizer on their fields to stimulate plant growth. The production of nitrogen fertilizer causes the release of CO2 and the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (NO2).
As I mentioned, I rarely cook meat, and something you can do is eat a plant-based diet a few days a week. Subscribing to Meatless Monday can give you ideas, and to get you started, I’ve added three of my favorite meat-free recipes to the website. They are vegetarian chili (this is probably the one I get asked for most when I bring it to potlucks), kung pao brussel sprouts, and vegan ginger sweet potato and coconut milk stew with lentils and kale. If any of you have a favorite vegan or vegetarian recipe, send it to me at EcoMinute@wuwf.org and I’ll add it.
And, the more you eat from local producers, the less the food has to travel — cutting down on emissions and giving you fresher and tastier food.
Last, try to reduce food waste. According to the USDA, “Food loss and waste is estimated to be roughly one third of the food intended for human consumption in the United States. When food is discarded, all inputs used in producing, processing, transporting, preparing, and storing discarded food are also wasted. Food loss and waste also exacerbate the climate change crisis with its significant greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint. Production, transportation, and handling of food generate significant Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions, and when food ends up in landfills, it generates methane. ”
According to a published report by The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), it was estimated that each year, U.S. food loss and waste represent 170 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent Greenhouse Gas emissions, which is equal to the annual CO2 emissions of 42 coal-fired power plants. This estimate does not include the significant methane emissions from food waste rotting in landfills. EPA data show that food waste is the single most common material landfilled and incinerated in the U.S., comprising 24 and 22 percent of landfilled and combusted municipal solid waste, respectively.
If there’s a topic you’ve heard on the EcoMinute that you’d like me to examine in more detail, or an environmental issue that you’d like to learn more about, email me at EcoMinute@wuwf.org.
