Sustainability Starts With Us

Almost on a daily basis, a new study is released that triggers or confirms our worst fears about the state of our climate. Temperatures and sea levels are rising, ice caps and glaciers are melting, ocean currents and weather patterns are shifting. Weather-related disasters befall us more and more often.

Undoubtedly, global climate change is among the most serious challenges facing our planet today.

Yet, coming to a solution that national and world leaders can agree on and implement seems a distant hope.

Governments may be slow to act, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t take action. Very surprisingly, our individual actions could add up to have a big impact.

What does all this have to do with food?

Food’s Place in the Climate-change Scenario

Believe it or not, what we eat profoundly affects the environment and contributes to global warming. So what we choose to eat can make a difference in stemming global warming.

Our Western diet, which depends heavily on animal products—all of them, not just red meat from beef cattle—and the way we raise livestock for food, is wreaking havoc on the planet.

A recent report by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) states: “…the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent—18 percent— than transport.”

The FAO’s report continues and reports that “emissions from land use and land use change are included, the livestock sector accounts for 9 percent of CO2 deriving from human-related activities, but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse gases. It generates 65 percent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure.”

Livestock also accounts for “respectively 37 percent of all human-induced methane (23 times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 percent of ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain.”

The livestock sector also causes other environmental problems that contribute to the global climate crisis. These problems include deforestation, degradation of existing farmlands, pollution, “dead” zones in coastal areas, overfishing, sedimentation of coastal areas, facilitation of invasions by alien species, and more.

Today, livestock production accounts for 70 percent of all agricultural land use and 30 percent of the land surface of the planet.

The Amazon, one of the richest and most precious areas in the world is being devastated: 70 percent of previous forested land in the Amazon has been converted to pastures, and feedcrops cover a large part of the remainder.

Turning rich forest and agricultural lands over for livestock production also comes with opportunity costs. Currently, more than two-thirds of all agricultural land is devoted to growing feed for livestock, while only 8 percent is used to grow food for direct human consumption. Most of the land we use for grazing and raising livestock could be used much more productively growing plant-based proteins.

What We Can Do

Given the extent of the problems we are facing, more and more experts are calling on individuals and local organizations to embrace sustainability as it pertains to what we choose to eat.

Today, we no longer have the luxury of choosing what we eat only based on diet, nutrients, and gustatory pleasure. We must start to consider sustainability and the health of the planet.

Some people suggest turning to seafood, but that some experts suggest that this is an unwise solution because we already are facing an overfishing crisis and our oceans are being depleted at record rates.

Others have chosen options such as organic foods and free-range livestock as an alternative. But, the problem is much more complex. Livestock management and feed production cost the environment in terms of what I described above, but also in terms of the use of fertilizers, pesticides, and antibiotics that all have deleterious effects.

Moreover, another issue is not how to feed affluent, well-educated people in western societies, but how to forge a sustainable food plan to ensure that everyone in the world has adequate nutrition and a reliable food supply. Every time we choose to eat plant-based foods, including vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds instead of livestock, it pays dividends for the planet and the climate.

A new initiative, called My Plate My Planet urges the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services to incorporate sustainability into its Dietary Guidelines for America (DGFA), which inform US Nutritional guidelines and Federal procurement policies.

My Plate My Planet has introduced a petition that you can (and should) sign here, to join the push to make Federal food policies more sustainable.

You can can take action in many others ways, too:

• Join forces with many of the groups organizing around sustainable eating

• Lend your support to the idea of meatless Mondays

• Work with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for a Livable Future.

• Visit your local college because many colleges and universities have organizations devoted to food sustainability. Groups have sprung up at Cornell, Emory, and Cal Berkeley.

• Find out what cities in your area are doing, including organizing sustainability collectives and institutes.

Plating It Forward

Every movement starts somewhere…and that somewhere is usually with one person taking a stand and sharing their experience and conviction with others.

In this era of social networking, where making connections is always at our fingertips and where we can share our choices and the reasons for our choices with everyone we know (and everyone that they know), each of us has the opportunity to make a big impact. Each of us has ideas and experiences that can inspire others and have the potential to go viral.

And while we should start with food, it doesn’t have to end at our plates.

Each and every one of us can rethink our daily routine and make sure to incorporate as planet-friendly actions (eg, recycling, using glass instead of plastics, or using canvas shopping bags, etc.) in addition to looking at the impact of our food choices.