Climate Change and Food

First, and biggest, the good news: the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law just days ago, is a big step in the fight against climate change. Witness this very excited video detailing the bill, including the many ways it is poised to make a difference and a few, strange ways that pork barrel politics got some wins for Manchin. But also note with this Vox article that this big new policy seems to gloss over agriculture, an industry with issues.

Although the Beyond Burger hasn't been doing super well as of late, apparently failing to convince McDonalds that they should be on menus worldwide, there is still some room to be optimistic about "alt-meat." Building meat from raw (plant) materials results in less waste (i.e. animal parts), a lot of saved time waiting for animals to mature, and potentially may allow the same equipment to produce different products. 

Bottom line: Big Meat is still boss, but this fight isn't over....

NYC Congestion pricing still "coming soon"

Any policy is going to have winners and losers, though it sounds like the South Bronx is pretty much a guaranteed loser. There are a lot of cats to try to herd, but I'm impressed they're still at least trying!

Chicken in Maryland

In 2021 the chicken industry on the Delmarva peninsula produced 567 million chickens, 3 million fewer than in 2020. Still, local industry profits hit $4.2 billion which doesn't sound too bad, especially given that had to pay higher wages to workers in processing plants and higher costs for feed. 

However, the Biden Administration has taken notice of the way the industry is run, and they are trying to keep the few huge processors from taking all of the profits, as has long been done via the tournament pricing system, which pits growers against each other. In the face of those large profits (remembering that Delmarva is less than 10% of US production) the Feds imposed fines of.. 85 MILLION dollars!

That's got to be maybe half a percent of industry profits, imposed one time. 

Anyway, suffice to say I'm not too impressed. Meanwhile, an environmental group continues to complain about the many externalities of the industry, noting that the Maryland Department of the Environment inspected just 134 farms per year out of the 500 or so statewide. Of those inspected, most had some infraction found, but mostly the issues were dealt after a follow-up visit. Farms can often do a better job keeping the manure out of local waterways, but fines are rarely levied. Should they be levied more? I'm not sure: I certainly hope that not every inspection results in a fine. I do think that MDE should hire more inspectors: maybe paid for by a small additional tax on farms?

Nuclear waste

Just a twitter thread, but some interesting thoughts here. The author says that there just isn't much nuclear waste to deal with, making it not much a problem. Too bad mostly people don't think very rationally about nuclear energy: although the damages are much worse from coal, they are more incremental while the nuclear meltdowns that have happened a few times really capture people's imaginations.

Beef or fish?

I'm cheating, I'll admit, combining two posts that are only tangentially related. However, what do we think can replace the giant beef industry? While it's not in any danger, one thing taking a few acres of land in a way that wasn't done before is aquaculture. This video is produced by a news organization in North Carolina and is somewhat propaganda-esque promoting local businesses, but I still think it's interesting. Much of NC is lowlands, and more of the state may be available for this kind of business going forward.

Meanwhile water is an issue in the arid southwest, where lots of land is devoted to cattle ranching. Flows down rivers are down about 17% (alternate source) and irrigation used to grow alfalfa for animal feed all over. Basically that's repackaging water, which is a tough sell in places like the southwest. 

While the land and water aren't comparable, the food produced might be....

Natural gas

For a long time, advocates have praised natural gas as being "better than coal." That's still true: no argument from me! However, that's a pretty low bar. Coal creates all kinds of pollution from mining and burning it, and the impact on climate change is also large. So gas is better, right? Well, maybe.

First, extraction. While coal mining has a pretty bad reputation, researchers have also tied natural gas extraction to deaths of people near drilling sites and downwind. 

Second, emissions. An eight year study of gas emissions in the Boston area found that emissions were much higher than predicted by known usage patterns. This suggests that gas might be seeping out around pipelines, but more ominously in homes. 

On a semi-related note, in addition to the climate change impacts of air pollution, a study in India finds that smog hurts children's cognitive and academic performance. While pollution in India is likely worse than it is here, all damage is cause for alarm... and consider that 30 minutes with a two stroke leaf blower emits more carbon than a trip from Texas to Alaska in a pickup truck. Another study in Chile finds that particulate matter (a kind of air pollution) is associated with a small but significant increase in emergency room visits.

Finally, an interesting chart shows the sources of greenhouse gas emissions: about 3/4 are from energy, at least as of 2016.

Again, gas is definitely better than coal, but hopefully that isn't the comparison we continue to make. Remember, renewable sources are more than economic in many places: bringing them in makes profits and helps the environment. 

Rethinking the importance of food miles

A new article in Nature claims that the supply chain is responsible for a fairly large share of the emissions associated with food- as much as 19%, but the figure is 36% for vegetables and fruits. This runs counter to the more established wisdom from writers like historian James McWilliams that food miles matter little. This 2010 NYT editorial by Stephen Budiansky says that transportation accounts for 14% of the total energy consumed by the American food system. Clearly one big factor is exactly what counts in each number: are we including processing? Are we including transportation for the inputs such as fertilizer? (Not sure, but it seems like the Nature article might be.) 

As usual, Hannah Ritchie at Our World in Data provides an array of helpful stats, concluding that "eating local only slightly reduces your emissions." For a more general summary, Tamar Haspel has some words of wisdom: think first about your diet and second about where food comes from, and keep in mind that salad is silly. Not many calories or nutrients there: just more of a crunch experience for the global rich like many of us here in Baltimore.