Turkey can be climate friendly; spinach, not so much

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November 24, 2010

With Thanksgiving approaching and Christmas just around the corner, we here at the Climate Desk thought it would be a good time to take a hard look at how our food system is effecting the climate, and how climate change might impact the future of food. What we found was a lot more complicated than we imagined. Counterintuitive even. Would you ever have guessed, for example, that spinach is as bad for the planet as beef? It all depends on how you measure, of course, but one of our guests, geophysicist Gidon Eshel, says it might be. Or that global warming might actually be good for agriculture? NASA agronomist Cynthia Rosenzweig says that, at least in the short term, that’ll be the case. We also spoke with bestselling author Anna Lappé, agricultural analyst Philip Thorton, and Tara Oresick, the manager of Farm Sanctuary, an animal rights organization that conducts an annual adopt-a-turkey drive every Thanksgiving.

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Last modified: November 24, 2010 at 3:16 pm
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Comments

  • Tom Yulsman

    A compelling, meticulously reported story! Please keep these stories coming!

  • Bainhndy1

    The truth is in there, but not in the headline. The reason given why spinach was not climate friendly was that in the northeast in the winter it is grown in green houses. Was the extra energy needed for meat production in the winter factored into the equation? Can you really say that producing food from animals given the extra labor involved in managing the animals is more efficient than growing vegetables?

  • http://growthisnotsustainable.blogspot.com/ Growth is not sustainable

    Shows to go to not overgeneralize