Your burger is heating Earth



Shoshana Gordon
Sat, December 4, 2021,

Data: Poore and Nemecek (2018), FDA, UN's IPCC. Note: Dairy cattle is beef from dairy cattle. Chart: Shoshana Gordon and Thomas Oide/Axios

Climate change is ratcheting up pressure to alter how we grow and consume food,

Threat level: Our food chain generates a large chunk of greenhouse gas emissions annually, mainly from animal products, climate scientists point out.

Details: The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says 21%–37% of global GHG emissions may come from food, while a study by Joseph Poore of the University of Oxford points out that food from beef cattle has the largest carbon footprint per typical serving.

America alone — with more than 330 million people — may consume over 100 kilograms of meat products per capita in 2021, the OECD estimates.

Plus, there's growing concern that emissions calculations such as these may be vastly underestimated.

Between the lines: While what we eat may affect global warming, climate change itself has an impact on food systems.

It can cause droughts or floods and alter the nutrition of particular crops, making for a more unstable food supply that's vulnerable to price spikes and shortages.

Axios