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We have the tools to fix our food system. Why aren’t we using them? | Hannah Ritchie
**We are eating our way into climate disaster.**
Even if fossil fuel emissions ended *today*, our current food systems alone would still push us past the 1.5°C global warming target—and nearly exhaust our 2°C carbon budget. Food production isn’t just a contributor—it’s *the* leading driver of deforestation, biodiversity loss, freshwater stress, and pollution.
🔍 **Key Drivers of Emissions:**
- **Land use change** (e.g., deforestation for agriculture)
- **Methane from livestock** (especially cows burping—called enteric fermentation)
- **Nitrous oxide** from fertilizers and manure
These are potent greenhouse gases, much stronger than CO₂.
🥩 **The Cost of Meat:**
Animal-based foods are alarmingly inefficient.
- **Cows**: 100 calories in feed → only 2 calories of meat
- **Chickens**: slightly better, but still 87% of feed calories lost
Even protein efficiency is dismal—less than 10–20% for most animals.
🥦 **Plant-based wins**:
Plant proteins can have **10–50x lower carbon emissions** per 100g of protein than beef or lamb.
📦 **Food Waste & Loss:**
We produce ~5,000 kcal/person/day, yet people only consume ~2,500 kcal. Why the gap?
- Feed inefficiencies (mostly from meat production)
- **Biofuel diversion**
- **Waste**—both consumer-level and supply chain losses.
One example? Crops rotting due to lack of basic storage like plastic crates. This is fixable.
🌱 **Two Key Solutions:**
1. **More productive agriculture** using improved seeds, fertilizers, irrigation to increase yields without expanding land.
2. **Changing diets**—not preaching, but *informed choices*. Reducing meat/dairy intake can dramatically lower one’s environmental impact.
💡 A well-planned plant-based diet can meet most nutritional needs—**except B12**, which must be supplemented.
**Bottom line:**
We can’t solve climate change without transforming what we eat and how we grow it. And the good news? Many of the solutions are already within reach.
0:00 Transforming our food systems
1:14 Greenhouse gas emissions from food
6:19 Increasing crop yields
7:44 Changing our diets
10:00 Calorie efficiency of animals
14:50 Vertical farming
17:30 The solutions to solve our food crisis
About Hannah Ritchie:
Dr. Hannah Ritchie is Senior Researcher in the Programme for Global Development at the University of Oxford. She is also Deputy Editor and Lead Researcher at Our World in Data. Her research appears regularly in the New York Times, The Economist, and the Financial Times, and in bestselling books including Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now. She is the author of Not the End of the World.
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By bigthink
1.8
3838 ratings
**We are eating our way into climate disaster.**
Even if fossil fuel emissions ended *today*, our current food systems alone would still push us past the 1.5°C global warming target—and nearly exhaust our 2°C carbon budget. Food production isn’t just a contributor—it’s *the* leading driver of deforestation, biodiversity loss, freshwater stress, and pollution.
🔍 **Key Drivers of Emissions:**
- **Land use change** (e.g., deforestation for agriculture)
- **Methane from livestock** (especially cows burping—called enteric fermentation)
- **Nitrous oxide** from fertilizers and manure
These are potent greenhouse gases, much stronger than CO₂.
🥩 **The Cost of Meat:**
Animal-based foods are alarmingly inefficient.
- **Cows**: 100 calories in feed → only 2 calories of meat
- **Chickens**: slightly better, but still 87% of feed calories lost
Even protein efficiency is dismal—less than 10–20% for most animals.
🥦 **Plant-based wins**:
Plant proteins can have **10–50x lower carbon emissions** per 100g of protein than beef or lamb.
📦 **Food Waste & Loss:**
We produce ~5,000 kcal/person/day, yet people only consume ~2,500 kcal. Why the gap?
- Feed inefficiencies (mostly from meat production)
- **Biofuel diversion**
- **Waste**—both consumer-level and supply chain losses.
One example? Crops rotting due to lack of basic storage like plastic crates. This is fixable.
🌱 **Two Key Solutions:**
1. **More productive agriculture** using improved seeds, fertilizers, irrigation to increase yields without expanding land.
2. **Changing diets**—not preaching, but *informed choices*. Reducing meat/dairy intake can dramatically lower one’s environmental impact.
💡 A well-planned plant-based diet can meet most nutritional needs—**except B12**, which must be supplemented.
**Bottom line:**
We can’t solve climate change without transforming what we eat and how we grow it. And the good news? Many of the solutions are already within reach.
0:00 Transforming our food systems
1:14 Greenhouse gas emissions from food
6:19 Increasing crop yields
7:44 Changing our diets
10:00 Calorie efficiency of animals
14:50 Vertical farming
17:30 The solutions to solve our food crisis
About Hannah Ritchie:
Dr. Hannah Ritchie is Senior Researcher in the Programme for Global Development at the University of Oxford. She is also Deputy Editor and Lead Researcher at Our World in Data. Her research appears regularly in the New York Times, The Economist, and the Financial Times, and in bestselling books including Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now. She is the author of Not the End of the World.
Folllow this Podcast for daily Episodes
------------------------------------------------------------------06:30-19
---------------------
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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