Agriculture's carbon footprint

In Oz, a right-wing government has just been re-elected with an increased majority.  It proposes to subsidise new coal power stations, because it knows (though it denies it) that renewables are one third the cost of coal, and so coal power stations would otherwise never be built.  In the US, you guys have had a rabid-right government for nearly three years, which like our bizarrely named "Liberal" Party, also believes in pushing the fossil fuel waggon.

Markets have moved in favour of renewables, and will go on doing so.  But expecting politicians to do something is a waste of time—they are too timid, too many are in the pay of fossil fuel companies, and too many are locked into the dotty right-wing belief system which equates environmental action with socialism.

So it's up to us.   We can buy electricity from a green supplier.  In a couple of years, we will be able to afford to buy an electric car.  In the US, the 5-year cost of a Tesla Model 3 is already better than for a Honda Accord, if you include lower fuel costs and maintenance.  It won't be long before EVs sweep away petrol/diesel vehicles, because they're better as well as cheaper.  Fine, so far.  But agriculture is responsible for 24% of global greenhouse gas emissions.  We'll need to do something about that too.  And we can take individual steps here to cut emissions.

Source: The BBC

I have to confess, I had no idea just how carbon-intensive beef was—roughly ten times as high as beans and nuts.  Eating one serve of beef once every day will create 2.2 tonnes of emissions.  Annual per capita emissions from burning fossil fuels in Australia are 15.83 tonnes, in the US, 15.53.  So not eating beef every day would by itself be the equivalent of cutting emissions from fossil fuel by 14%.  In countries with lower per capita emissions, the percentage decline would be even greater.

The biggest impactors are meats, fish and—alas!—chocolate.  The lowest are dairy, eggs, tofu, beans and nuts.  Nice to see beer is there too.  By the way, tofu has no flavour, but it absorbs the flavour of what it's cooked with.  So you can "extend" fish or meat by cooking tofu chunks with them.  Actually, I'm very partial to tofu with lemon juice, herb salt, and olive oil, myself.  But then I've been vegetarian for over 40 years.

The best can often be the enemy of the good.  Yes, it would slash your personal food emissions 95% if you became vegan. Yet, doing just a little is better than doing nothing.  Cutting your meat from every day to every second day would make a big difference.  And eating less meat would improve your health, too.

We have 30 years to slash emissions to zero.  It's not enough to wait for "them" to act.  We must do what we can ourselves, in addition to pushing for collective political change.  The problem isn't going to magically go away.  Cutting out beef and pork could cut emissions by 10 or 15% all on its own.  Add green electricity and an electric car and the carbon emissions you are responsible for could be reduced by three quarters.   Let's do it.