An Aside about food

We care about food, & the earth. If we had some land, we would like to maybe plant a garden, as Michael Chabon Crichton Graves Pollan recommends. However, local-food-ism, as a way of (imagining we are) doing something about global warming is not something I (B) have much patience for, since "food miles" are not any kind of real proxy for carbon emissions.

By contrast, here's a concrete way to shrink the footprint: cut down on red meat by about 1/4.

As a thought experiment, the authors examine how an “all local” diet — i.e., a diet that has zero emissions between producer and eater — compares to shifts in diet in terms of greenhouse emissions. Since that is nearly impossible to achieve, they found that one could achieve equivalent reductions through the following changes:

• Reduce red meat expenditures by 24% and spend the savings on chicken
• Reduce red meat expenditures by 21% and spend the savings on a nondairy vegetarian diet
• Reduce red meat and dairy expenditures by 13% and spend the savings on a nondairy vegetarian diet