Pursuing the Paris Climate Accord Goals: Martin Heller

0:00 welcome back to this teach out on food 0:02 sustainability I here I'm here again 0:04 with dr. Martin Heller to talk about 0:06 kind of the Paris climate Accord and 0:09 carbon emissions and kind of how we 0:11 think about our food choices and how 0:14 they impact those overall emissions so 0:16 jumping into it I know that you you 0:19 recently co-authored a study that 0:21 explored the variability that there is 0:24 between emissions that are associated 0:25 with a kind of a variety of American 0:27 diets and you found a striking result 0:31 here that 46 percent of total emissions 0:34 from food came from the diets of just 0:36 one-fifth of the population you tell us 0:39 a little bit more about that finding and 0:41 that study sure and so that's you to 0:43 utilizing diet data from the National 0:49 Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 0:52 so this is a this is an ongoing survey 0:55 that we conduct in the US to ask people 0:58 about what they're eating and about 1:00 their health and a lot of other 1:02 associated questions but it's really the 1:06 the best source of information in the 1:08 u.s. that we have for understanding 1:10 people's diets and what and what they're 1:12 eating you know the big advantage of 1:15 using that to look at a question like 1:17 this is like you said we can begin to 1:20 look at what the with the the the spread 1:22 is rather than just looking at a single 1:24 number at the average the average u.s. 1:26 diet we can begin to look at how how the 1:30 variation in us in diets in the u.s. 1:34 influenced that that carbon footprint 1:36 and one of the striking things we found 1:40 is just how much that that high-end tail 1:43 the the diets that are very high in 1:46 greenhouse gas emissions contribute to 1:49 the overall total so like you said that 1:51 the top fifth something like 46 percent 1:55 of the total there's like an Eightfold 1:57 difference in the contribution from that 2:01 highest fifth the highest twenty percent 2:04 of of the population to the lowest 2:07 twenty percent of the population so 2:08 pretty big spread there can you tell us 2:11 a little bit more about these groups and 2:13 who who was in which groups and how you 2:15 kind of partition that sure yeah the 2:18 stuff that's a challenging thing to 2:20 generalize I mean that they're 2:22 partitions simply by looking so linking 2:27 environmental-impact linking greenhouse 2:29 gas emissions associated with producing 2:31 different foods to those individual 2:34 diets and so then assigning a carbon 2:38 footprint greenhouse gas emissions 2:39 associated with that given diet and then 2:42 just ranking them based on on that total 2:44 so you know that's what what gives the 2:47 the order and then we divide them evenly 2:49 up into fifths and can start to look at 2:52 at what's going on in those groups you 2:54 know because of the nature of this data 2:57 you know statistical stuff and it's it's 3:00 difficult to just hone in and look at 3:02 individuals you kind of have to look at 3:04 them in in some sort of an aggregate so 3:07 we can start to look at what's driving 3:10 those those differences a big part of it 3:14 is the folks in those high-impact diets 3:18 simply are eating more that contributes 3:22 a lot but if even if we normalize by the 3:24 caloric intake that difference between 3:27 the high-impact diets and the low-impact 3:30 diets is still a factor of five so the 3:33 composition of their diets between those 3:36 two groups is a big contributor as well 3:39 and you know largely what we see is the 3:45 the amount of meat and in particular the 3:47 amount of beef in the diets is is a 3:51 large large driver so more meat in the 3:55 high-impact diets more likely to be beef 3:58 versus poultry in the lower impact diets 4:04 yeah it's helpful so thinking back to a 4:07 previous segment we were talking about 4:09 how small decisions can have a really 4:11 really large positive impact on the 4:14 environment 4:14 terms of your your food choices looking 4:17 at that 46% there's a huge opportunity 4:19 there to make even marginal changes for 4:22 for that group can have a really big 4:24 impact yeah so we just just to kind of 4:27 put those numbers in perspective we 4:29 looked at a hypothetical diet chef just 4:32 kind of a what if and what if we were 4:34 able to bring the greenhouse gas 4:39 emissions of those upper v diets just 4:43 down to the average of the total 4:45 population so if we're thinking about 4:48 that in terms of food intake again 4:51 picking on beef because that's a big 4:53 driver of what's going on up there but 4:56 the average beef intake in that in that 4:59 upper fifth was something like a third 5:02 of a pound a day 5:03 that's that's a fair amount of beef the 5:05 average for the whole population was I 5:08 think 51 grams so that's something like 5:11 a quarter pounder every other day you 5:13 know but you know that gives you a 5:15 little sense of the kinds of reductions 5:17 we're talking about here 5:20 of course beef isn't the only thing 5:23 that's driving those changes but you 5:25 know it's a big part of the driver and 5:27 gives you a little sense of what the 5:28 scale is but what we found is if we were 5:30 able to bring that that upper fifth down 5:34 to the average and you know assume that 5:38 that could happen every day of the year 5:41 it would bring us ten percent closer to 5:44 reaching our our Paris Accord agreement 5:47 so it starts to put I think it starts to 5:50 put in perspective the kind that the 5:53 role that that diet ship can have in 5:56 climate action that you know these net 5:58 numbers or those types of changes really 6:01 do matter from sort of the broader 6:04 perspective of of our overall u.s. 6:10 emissions sure now that's that's really 6:13 striking especially you know thinking 6:15 about you know across all sectors not 6:18 now not just looking at food I mean 6:19 there's so many different behaviors that 6:21 an individual can change to have a 6:23 positive impact on their their own 6:26 contribution to carbon 6:27 as we're looking for these kind of 6:29 marginal decreases across the board they 6:31 add up exactly which is great it's 6:33 really exciting to kind of see those 6:35 opportunities so I want to talk a little 6:38 bit about kind of the this concept of 6:41 food miles you know we're thinking of 6:43 everyone you know a lot of people think 6:46 about you know the the transportation 6:48 associated with food as having a really 6:50 large kind of emissions impact right so 6:53 we see a kind of movement toward eating 6:55 local and kind of supporting things that 6:57 are grown within certain amount of miles 7:00 from where you live right yeah but I'm 7:03 curious to hear a little bit more from 7:05 your perspectives looking at the 7:06 lifecycle analysis of how food is 7:08 produced and also taking in 7:10 consideration pre-production and 7:12 production as you mentioned earlier yeah 7:15 I'd love to start by saying that I'm a 7:18 huge proponent of local food you know I 7:21 think that growing growing food among 7:25 our neighbors grow you know having 7:26 having food and agriculture as part of 7:29 our community is is a huge importance 7:32 you know there's lots of benefits in 7:35 terms of nutrition and just the quality 7:39 of food that you can get by having it 7:42 grown locally but what we see when we 7:45 look at at sort of these lifecycle 7:48 studies of food production is on the 7:52 whole those transportation miles those 7:55 food miles don't contribute all that 7:58 much to the overall total again there's 8:00 there's a lot more emissions associated 8:03 with the actual on-farm production and 8:07 you know again on the whole the the 8:11 transportation you know is probably in 8:15 the like five to ten percent of total 8:17 emissions associated with with our food 8:20 you know that's that's not to say that 8:23 that those food miles don't matter but 8:26 if we are going to make a choice of you 8:30 know you know choosing something because 8:32 it's local or choosing something because 8:34 it's it's a low emission food 8:37 plant-based food rather than an 8:39 animal-based food 8:41 you're going to see a lot much greater 8:43 reduction by choosing a different food 8:46 than by choosing the local one that's 8:49 great I mean that's really helpful so 8:50 thinking about you know individual 8:52 changes that we can make to kind of help 8:55 take that step in the right direction 8:57 thinking about growing a garden in your 8:59 backyard right so going out and that 9:01 really cuts down on the food miles right 9:03 so trying to kind of reconnect there to 9:05 to your local food economy in a 9:08 different way is meaningful and 9:10 understanding that you know the 9:12 production is gonna be a huge huge part 9:14 of of where our food comes from and 9:16 where a lot of the emissions are but 9:18 knowing that you know wherever you want 9:20 to buy your food you have these kind of 9:22 decision points maybe you have these 9:24 moments where you can kind of weigh 9:25 those options so I think that kind of 9:27 the critical thinking skills associated 9:29 with that are super important so you 9:32 know from what you've seen in your 9:33 research you know what do you think the 9:35 best way that we can kind of continue on 9:38 this path to reduce our carbon emissions 9:40 is as it kind of relates to you know 9:44 everything that we've discussed in this 9:46 assignment sure and I really think that 9:49 the two standout pieces are are reducing 9:54 food waste and and that's a tricky one 9:57 you know it's it means changing our 10:00 relationship with food in a lot of ways 10:02 and changing our behaviors around how we 10:07 purchase and how what our what our 10:09 thoughts are about leftovers and you 10:13 know how we prepare food and all of 10:15 these other bits but and I also want to 10:19 make it clear that when I'm talking 10:21 about reducing food waste I mean not 10:24 necessarily just composting it I mean 10:28 that's a great thing right if if you 10:30 have to waste food it's it's better to 10:32 dispose of it in a in a proper way then 10:36 send it off to the landfill but again 10:39 the impact associated with that the 10:41 greenhouse gas emissions associated with 10:43 it comes from production right so so you 10:49 know regardless of how we dispose it 10:51 we've already invested that those 10:54 those carbon emissions so that's a big 10:57 piece and the other one is thinking 11:00 about about our diet and the composition 11:04 of our diet and eating less animal-based 11:07 foods you know there again there's 11:10 there's plenty of evidence that 11:13 demonstrate that the benefits of that 11:15 from an are environmental perspective as 11:18 well as a health perspective you know I 11:21 think we're always going to have these 11:23 sort of cultural discussions about what 11:25 kind of diet is is most health promoting 11:29 and best for weight reduction and all 11:32 these other things and and you know at 11:36 the end of the day those are those are 11:38 individual choices but we do know that 11:40 reducing animal-based foods in your diet 11:44 can have a notable impact on your carbon 11:48 footprint all right well thank you so 11:50 much for joining us Martin and thank you 11:52 for joining us we look forward to 11:54 continuing the conversation and the 11:55 discussion forums