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Thanks to Paul Constant.

Food Miles and Climate Change

This is a topic I've been thinking a lot about lately. Lots of well-intentioned people say that sourcing food locally, or indeed, growing it yourself, is the most eco-friendly option. But this article from Environmental Science and Technology (via Freakonomics via Andrew Sullivan) explains why this may not be so:

Transportation as a whole represents only 11% of life-cycle GHG emissions, and final delivery from producer to retail contributes only 4%. Different food groups exhibit a large range in GHG-intensity; on average, red meat is around 150% more GHG-intensive than chicken or fish. Thus, we suggest that dietary shift can be a more effective means of lowering an average household’s food-related climate footprint than “buying local.” Shifting less than one day per week’s worth of calories from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more GHG reduction than buying all locally sourced food.

The authors here are referring to the US. I live in the UK (though I am American), and I don't know about the corresponding numbers. But I'm going to do some looking and find out.

Nuclear Is Not The Answer

Intelligent people all over the place are still touting nuclear energy as the solution to the problems of growing energy demand, dependence on fossil fuels, and climate change. This is increasingly hard to understand, given what's true about nuclear generation and its alternatives. Nuclear is not the answer. It's not even part of the answer. Why?

1. It takes too long. It takes at least a decade to get a nuclear power plant up and running. Climate scientists (actual scientists, not politicians or energy companies) say we need to reduce CO2 emissions by 80 percent by 2050 in order to avert catastrophe. The hundreds of nuclear plants we'd need to achieve that reduction won't happen in time.

2. It's economically unviable. Nuclear power plants cannot exist (let alone compete) without massive government subsidies. Wall St. banks and insurers won't put up the money. A subsidiary of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. recently abandoned a multi-million dollar investment in a plant in Idaho because "it does not make economic sense." The Congressional Budget Office estimates that risk of default on loan guarantees for new nuclear plants is "well above 50 percent." By the way, the industry will be asking Congress (i.e., American taxpayers) for $30 billion in loan guarantees this year. A "carbon tax" of $45 per metric ton might make nuclear more competitive, but there's a lot of uncertainty about even that assessment.

3. We haven't even fully sorted out the issue of nuclear waste for existing plants. What are we going to do with the waste from hundreds more plants?

4. There are better, cheaper alternatives. The idea that renewables like wind and solar are unreliable has been convincingly debunked. Plus, each dollar spent on nuclear generation displaces up to 11 times less carbon than a dollar spent on renewables or more efficient use of electricity, so investment in nuclear is actually the worse option in terms of climate protection.

For a much more elegant argument than I've provided, read this (link to full story at bottom of page).