Food waste a contributor to green house emissions
By Kiera Butler, Mother Jones
A full third of the world’s food is wasted. According to a report from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, discarded food accounts for a staggering amount of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, if food waste was a country, its 3.3 gigatonnes of emissions would make it the third highest-emitting country in the world, after China and the United States.
What exactly makes all that waste and its emissions?
It’s not just consumers throwing dinner scraps away. Some food spoils before farmers can harvest it, other food goes bad on its way from the farm to the market, and still more food ends up rotting on supermarket shelves. Looking at emissions of uneaten food from farm to table, the researchers found that food wasted at the consumer phase had the highest carbon footprint. That’s because by the time food gets to that stage, it’s already accumulated emissions from production, harvest, and distribution.
In other words, when chuck food that you buy at the supermarket, you’re throwing away every part of the process that has gotten it there, as well.
Some kinds of food waste create more emissions than others. Wasted fruit, for example, has a relatively small ratio of food waste to carbon emitted. Meat’s ratio is much larger. That’s because meat production is exceptionally carbon intensive.
Does that mean that if we stop eating we will deter global warming?
My compost Box where I throw food scraps is bad for the environment?
Too bad, making good DIRT is my right as an american.
The world has warmed 0.05 degrees Celsius (0.09 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade over the past 15 years, a fraction of the 0.2ºC (0.36ºF) per decade rate confidently predicted by the U.N. six years ago, according to a leaked copy of the foremost climate report in the world.
That report, which is updated every six years by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is called the Assessment Report, and the fifth version (AR5) will be released Sept. 27.
Meanwhile, the planet has gained 19,000 Manhattans of sea ice since this date last year, the largest increase on record, ever.
The arctic ice cap is 60% larger than it was at this time last year. The Antarctic ice is at a record.
Now remind me again how Global Warming was going to affect sea ice?
Only someone without the ability for critical thought would cut and paste some foxnews.com climate denial story that was re-moronically cut and pasted from the English tabloid for the dullards, The Daily Mail.
These “stories” are complete fiction aimed at trashing the real IPCC report that says the exact opposite and will be released in it’s actual form on Sept. 27th.
Yeah AB. Cite your sources so we can point an laugh.
Just going by this sentence: “per decade over the past 15 years”
I expect it to be hilarious.