RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—The largest newspapers in the country failed to make the connection between our food system and global warming, according to a Johns Hopkins study appearing in the journal Public Health Nutrition. Despite a pair of United Nations reports that cited livestock, meat production, and farming as major sources of global warming emissions, the press did not give the subject very much attention in the past three years, the study finds. Food production and agriculture were cited as contributors of global warming pollution in just 2.4% of articles about climate change. Less than 1% of climate change articles connected greenhouse-gas emissions to livestock and meat production.
THE DETAILS: Study author Roni Neff, PhD, research director for the Center for a Livable Future at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, and other researchers searched for “climate change” and “food and climate change” in articles published between Sept. 2005 and Jan. 2008 in the nation’s 16 largest-circulation newspapers. Those papers included The New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, Rocky Mountain News (Denver), Houston Chronicle, New York Post, Detroit Free Press, Dallas Morning News, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Boston Globe, Newark Star-Ledger, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Arizona Republic, Long Island Newsday and San Francisco Chronicle. The study was funded by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future.
Researchers scanned the papers and found 4,582 stories that used the term “climate change” or “global warming” in the headline or first paragraph. They searched that set to see how many articles also mentioned “food,” “farm,” or “agriculture” anywhere in the story and found 109 articles (2.4%) matching the criteria. “When I talk to people, it is clear the information is not broadly known,” Neff says. “I still do not meet many who can identify meat production as the top food/agriculture contributor to climate change, and fewer still who can correctly explain why.”
WHAT IT MEANS: Those big papers reach a lot of people—their combined readership is estimated to be about 20 million. While everyone was following the newspapers’ lead on automobile pollution’s contribution to global warming, an even larger source—food production—did not receive anything close to equal attention. The study’s author argues that if more people knew about food’s impact on global warming, they could make made better decisions.
Now that you’re in the know, here are some ways to enjoy good food while reducing the carbon footprint of your dinner:
• Replace premade, processed meals with whole, organic foods from local farmers. Buying a CSA (community-supported agriculture) share in your area and shopping at local farmer’s markets are convenient ways to eat local organic victuals. Buying local and organic is important because it reduces the food processing and packaging; the production, shipping, and application of chemical pesticide and fertilizers; and the distance food travels to get to your plate—all of which contribute to global warming. Also, organic farming creates healthy soil that traps more carbon dioxide and keeps it in the ground, instead of emitting it into the atmosphere. Find healthier choices through Sustainable Table's Eat Well Guide.
• Buy meat, eggs, and dairy products from local farmers who don’t cram their animals into tiny cages or disease-ridden feedlots. Confined animal-feeding operations (CAFOs), a.k.a. factory farms, create massive concentrations of methane-gassing livestock (cows and goats), and huge liquid manure lagoons that sometimes leech into the water supply and stifle air quality. Aside from the pollution that causes human and environmental health problems, factory farms just aren’t humane.
• Stop overdoing it with the meat, especially beef. Neff works with Meatless Monday to help people find dinner-table alternatives that aren’t only healthier for us directly, but also for our planet. “The number one food-related change people can make is to eat less beef,” Neff says. “This doesn’t mean they have to give up meat completely, but just work towards eating less of it, and substituting other forms of protein like beans, nuts, chicken, turkey.” You'll find plenty of tasty, easy-to-make meatless recipes in the Rodale Recipe Finder.