Is local food the greenest choice? New study says no

Dairy cows' rear-ends: bad news for our climate.
Photo by Sally Kneidel

"Local" is the mantra in sustainable food these days. But should it be? Is eating locally-produced food the most powerful thing we can do to reduce our ecological "foodprint?"

A new study from Worldwatch Institute says no indeed. I love Worldwatch. They crank out study after study with lots of hard data, evaluating the environmental impact of various consumer choices. So useful! So fun to quote!

Don't get me wrong - I'm all in favor of local food. We definitely should support small-scale farmers in our own communities who are growing food organically and sustainably. For years now, I've been writing and speaking in support of them, on this blog and in our books and at various conferences.

There's no question that, all other things being equal, buying food grown nearby is better than buying food that's been trucked for long distances. Less transported food means fewer emissions and a smaller carbon footprint. But as Sarah DeWeerdt points out in this new Worldwatch article, we need to look at the whole production picture - not just how far food was transported from producer to market.

As it turns out, when we look at life-cycle analysis, a "cradle-to-grave perspective" on food products, food miles are "a relatively small slice of the greenhouse-gas pie," says DeWeerdt. In fact, according to a comprehensive analysis last year by Christopher Weber and H. Scott Matthews of Carnegie Mellon University, final delivery from the producer or processor to the retailer accounts for only 4% of the U.S. food system's greenhouse-gas emissions! Materials required for cultivation and processing must be transported too; this transport is considered part of the "upstream" miles and emissions. Such materials include fertilizer, pesticides, animal feed, etc. But the transport of these items, together with transport to market, still accounts for only 11% of the food system's emissions.

What's the source of all the other greenhouse gases associated with agriculture? Production. Primarily, production of livestock. Weber and Matthews from Carnegie Mellon found that a whopping 83% of food-related emissions occur before the food leaves the farm. Tara Garnett, in a recent analysis of a U.K. food system reached similar conclusions.

What you eat may matter more than where it came from

Numerous studies reviewed by DeWeerdt have found that livestock production generates a much higher volume of greenhouse gases than does plant production. Beef and dairy cattle are the worst culprits; DeWeerdt calls them "agriculture's overwhelming 'hotspots' " in terms of greenhouse-gas emissions. A group of Swedish researchers has calculated that meat and dairy account for 58% of that country's total food emissions. In Garnett's study, meat and dairy accounted for half of the U.K. food system's greenhouse gases. Garnett writes, "Broadly speaking, eating fewer meat and dairy products and consuming more plant foods in their place is probably the single most helpful behavioral shift one can make" to reduce food-related greenhouse gases. Weber and Matthews reached a similar conclusion: "No matter how it is measured, on average red meat is more GHG-intensive than all other forms of food. " The dairy industry, in their study, was the second-biggest contributor to greenhouse-gas emissions.

A large proportion of emissions associated with beef cattle and dairy cows are the greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide. Methane is 23 times more potent at trapping solar heat than is carbon dioxide; nitrous oxide is 296 times more potent (molecule per molecule). Methane comes from the rear-ends of ruminants such as cows. Both methane and nitrous oxide come from manure, especially the vast, open "waste lagoons" associated with factory farms.

Well then, just how much does food contribute to the planet's overall carbon footprint? I reported on that in a previous post. In 2006, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization published a live-wire of a paper entitled "Livestock's Long Shadow." According to that research document, livestock account for 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. And here's the kicker - that's more than all forms of transportation combined! You can easily google that document for yourself. Just read the 3-page Executive Summary in Part I, which summarizes the the whole 400 page report.

After concluding that red meat and dairy are emissions hot-spots, DeWeerdt does go on to review the merits of buying local food. One clear advantage, which Sadie and I talk about in our presentations, is that local food is in general grown by small-scale farmers who are openly accountable for their treatment of the environment and their livestock. The farmers I know who sell food to their own communities welcome visitors to inspect their methods. This is a far cry from industrial producers who keep their exploitive and often abusive operations shielded from public view.

So buy local. But, if you want to contribute to a liveable planet for your grandchildren, eat low on the food chain too. And join me in a tip of the hat to Worldwatch for another fine study.

by Sally Kneidel, PhD

Sources:
Sarah DeWeerdt. Is Local Food Better? Worldwatch Institute. Accessed May 15, 2009.

Livestock's Long Shadow. United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Rome, 2006.

To see my primary post about Livestock's Long Shadow and about Weber & Matthews' research, click here

To see all my, Ken's, and Sadie's posts that mention Livestock's Long Shadow, click here

To see my favorite Worldwatch Institute document, Happier Meals: Rethinking the Global Meat Industry by Danielle Nierenberg, click here

Key words:: Worldwatch Livestock's Long Shadow meat industry local food red meat cattle dairy livestock greenhouse gases carbon emissions food carbon footprint foodprint Sarah DeWeerdt Weber and Matthews Matthews and Weber Carnegie Mellon

China's Olympic Village is green but the country's environmental record is scary

China has received kudos worldwide for a green Olympics. They've used the latest innovations in sustainable architecture, energy and landscaping for the 2008 Olympic Village in Beijing (see our previous post by Juliana Sloane).

Given the media coverage of the Olympics, such efforts will go a long way in improving the world's impressions of China's environmental scorecard. China's choices for the Olympic village are commendable, in that they've set a precedent for future Olympic villages and other major construction projects, and they've also publicly validated that "green" is a goal to be proud of, for all of us.

But the green Olympic Village is a bit of smoke screen for China. The reality is that China is the world's most polluted nation.

According to Peter Navarro of UC-Irvine, 70 percent of China's major rivers are severely polluted, 80 percent of its rivers fail to meet standards for fishing, and 90 percent of its cities suffer from water pollution. As a result, over half of China's people drink foul water of a quality well below World Health Organization standards. Not surprisingly, liver and stomach cancers are leading causes of death in the Chinese countryside.

The widespread water-pollution problem was evident even in the Olympics, although not widely publicized. One third of the Olympic sailing course was closed for sailing practice due to massive algal blooms which the Chinese scrambled to contain. Algal blooms are a rampant problem from China's overuse of fertilizers, which flood into rivers and streams. When the algae decay, the bacteria use all the oxygen in rivers and lakes, killing fish and other aquatic life, while the high nitrogen levels from fertilizers are dangerous and can be lethal to humans.

algae in the polluted waters of Qingdao, one of the main sailing venues for the Olympic Games (photo courtesy of the BBC)

China's pollution of its waters is only one aspect of its frightening environmental performance. According to Worldwatch Institute, worldwide carbon emissions increased 22% between 2000 and 2007, and China accounted for a whopping 57% of that growth.

China's recent industrialization has been explosive and unprecedented. Because of their huge human populations, the coal-dependent development of China and India is the biggest driver of growth in global carbon emissions. China's fossil-fuel emissions passed those of the United States this year, reports the United Nations Environmental Program.

Stabilizing our global climate will require that industrialized and heavily polluting countries like the United States move to low-carbon energy sources, and that rapidly expanding nations like China and India pursue cleaner energy development.

But China's economy will grow faster if its industries are allowed to minimize costs and maximize profits; in other words, if they're allowed to burn the cheapest fuels, such as coal, and skip the expensive scrubbers that can remove pollutants from smokestack emissions. And just like the United States, China prefers the prosperity of rapid economic growth. I wonder if China's motivation for hosting the Olympics was, at least in part, the opportunity to divert attention from their growing contributions to our planet's climatic plight. With a population more than 4 times that of the U.S., their potential for future damage dwarfs our own.

On the bright side, international action to protect our climate is intensifying. In December 2007, the 192 parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed to establish a new global climate change agreement by 2009. This will build on the existing Kyoto Protocol, which commits industrial countries to reduce green­house gas emissions to 6-8 percent below their 1990 levels. The current Kyoto Protocol has not been adopted by dev­eloping countries such as China or by the United States. We must all work toward the compliance of these biggest offenders with the new agreement of 2009, starting with the candidates we choose in November. Perhaps one day the green face that countries present to the world stage will truly represent a greener way of guarding our rivers, our air, our future. Maybe we'll celebrate our Olympics of the year 2052 in a world where carbon emissions have stabilized and lakes aren't clogged with algae.

by Sally Kneidel

Sources:
United Nations Environmental Program. "Carbon emissions are rising, and policies to address them are growing too, think tank reports." http://www.climateneutral.unep.org/cnn_contentdetail.aspx?m=175&amid=2154

Peter Navarro. "China's Pollution Olympics." AlterNet. July 15, 2008. http://www.alternet.org/environment/91471/

James Russell, Worldwatch Institute. "Carbon Emissions on the Rise But Policies Growing Too." August 6, 2008.
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5839?utm_campaign=vital_signs_online&utm_medium=email&utm_source=carbon_emissions

Our previous posts about China (click to view):

• The greening of the games: Beijing's Olympic village makes strides in sustainable housing
  
• Hemp clothes
• China's growing appetite for meat will strain world's water supplies
• Top 6 ways to protect wildlife from commercial trade
• Tyson and Smithfield drooling over untapped meat profits abroad
• Environmental footprints of rich nations outweigh the debt of developing nations
• Organic cotton - it's worth every penny
  

Keywords:: Olympics Olympic games Olympic village Beijing China carbon emissions population growth greenhouse gases climate change Kyoto

April 14, 2007: National Day of Climate Action

Photo courtesy of peacecorpsonline.org

Here's your chance to meet other global-warming activists in your own community.

The website Step It Up! 2007 is promoting a "national day of climate action" on April 14, 2007. Great idea, and a desperately needed action. Already 920 events are planned in 50 states. The Step It Up 2007 website has an interactive map that allows you to locate the event closest to your home.

Step It Up! is pushing Congress for an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by the year 2050, which is just a 2% reduction per year.

Here is Step It Up's explanation of why they've chosen this particular goal. From their website:

"The latest science tells us that temperatures are increasing faster than expected, and the results are showing up in melting ice caps, intensifying storms, and rising sea levels. America's foremost climatologist, NASA scientist James Hansen, has said that we have just a few years to start reducing carbon emissions, and he's endorsed our goal of 80% by 2050. That won't prevent global warming - it's already too late for that - but it may be enough to stave off the most catastrophic effects.

"While few experts have said explicitly 'we need to reduce carbon emissions 80% by 2050,' we're sticking to this message. Here's why: Scientists have resisted in nearly every case prescribing policy because they don't want to enter the political realm. That's why the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and others won't suggest policy, but rather leave it up to legislators to do the dirty work. That said, Jim Hansen, the Stern Report, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a number of European countries, the State of California and others (including the new USCAP business-environmental partnership) have either suggested or explicitly referred to 80% carbon cuts by 2050 as a solution commensurate to the scale of the problem.

"And it's possible. The cost of renewable energy is falling fast. New conservation technologies, like hybrid cars, are becoming more available. Many Americans are starting to switch already, but only leadership from Washington can allow this transformation to happen fast enough. And if we begin to get our house in order, then we can play some role in helping China and India steer away from cataclysm as well.

"There are no guarantees we'll succeed. But if we act ambitiously, we have reason to hope."

Step It Up's website (link above) also has suggetions for how to plan an action near you, if there isn't one already planned, and other steps you can take to reduce our contribution to climate change. Americans are right now the world's biggest producers of the greenhouse gases that are warming the planet. But we're not helpless to stop it.

Keywords:: global warming, day of action, step it up, Congress, 80% reduction, greenhouse gases, carbon emissions, climate change