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Comment by shafyy | Hacker News Reader

Here's Hannah Ritchie from Our World in Data debunking this claim: https://twitter.com/_HannahRitchie/status/153893755867520204...

Basically, they make up a non-standard definition of food miles to include everything like fertilizers, pesticides and machinery.

Emissions from food transport are negligible for most foods (except for foods that is transported by planes for long distances, because of very short shelf life, but that's rarely the case) [0].

The best way to cut GHG emissions from food is and will always be to cut out meat and dairy.

0: https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food#foo...

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From that thread:

> If we want to count these emissions from moving fertilizers, tractors etc. around as 'food miles' then the logical conclusion would not be 'eat local'.

> Instead, 'eat from countries that manufacture fertilisers & pesticides' so they don't have to export elsewhere.

When I walk to the farmer's market by my house, I always shudder at all the cars that have driven there and parked. The quantity of emissions from driving a personal gasoline vehicle is really staggering compared to any food related emissions.

And it's really shocking that people are so ignorant of the toll their personal vehicles take. I think that if people had to manually lift all the fuel that they pumped into their cars, maybe even for one filling per year, they would get a better feel for just how bad driving is. And the CO2 is far heavier than even the fuel, pre combustion. A 20 gallon refill of a tank is 400 pounds of CO2, a fifth of a ton.

If we even legalized corner stores for US neighborhoods, we could probably start driving down emissions.

What do you want people to do? I suppose many could walk, take transit or bike. In North American cities, everything is so spread out that walking is prohibitive except in the core of cities and transit is often too unreliable and infrequent to be taken by people with responsibilities. Biking is good, except bike infrastructure is so patchy and car drivers are often distracted that you risk ending up badly injured or dead from them.

Long term we could live in more dense and walkable neighborhoods, but even if we did the zoning changes, it would take decades to swap out all of our infrastructure for a less car dependent built environment.

Short term we could have electric cars. But 60% of our power grid is still fossil fuel driven [1]. Plus electric cars are built with 50% more plastic than ICE cars [2]. Exxon, without selling gasoline, expects to make as much money from petrochemicals as the company as a whole made in 2013 [3].

We really have significant issues, they’re not easily solved. But telling people that they make a lot of carbon is not going to change behavior. There are deeply rooted structures that influence behavior. They can be changed, but they will take a long time and alternatives are needed.

[1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-...

[2] https://www.silverdoctors.com/headlines/world-news/the-green...

[3] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/25/exxon-mobil-ceo-all-new-pass...

I want 1) people to be numerate about actual environmental damage rather than go on marketing vibes, and 2) advocate for ways to numerically decrease their consumption.

That means walkable neighborhoods, which would exist if they weren't blocked by law.

My city, which claims to be lefty, takes great pains to talk about taking climate actions, but takes even greater pains to avoid the numbers that would show that city planning laws and codes and zoning must adapt.

I have been fighting like mad to try to make even small changes to this, but the Overton window remains firmly closed.

EVs are only a partial solution. We should legalize housing and markets and jobs and all sorts of buildings that are accessible without requiring cars.

Wanting people to be numerate about anything seems pretty much pre-ordained to end in disappointment.

I'm not sure I agree, at least for the subset of people that take part in local government and advocate for or against changes.

The bigger problem is not innumeracy, but ignorance, and also a willingness to prioritize short term personal gain over their stated values. It would be a lot easier if everyone was honest and upfront, but I am not so naive as to believe that many people are arguing their true beliefs in my local political arena. Instead people say whatever has the best chance of effecting their desired outcome.

Anytime I start to expect numeracy, I'm reminded of my folly.

https://culinarylore.com/food-history:aw-1-3-pound-burger-fa...

People are ignorant of the toll their personal vehicles take because car driving is so heavily subsidized by all the people who don't drive.

Yep, striking zoning laws to allow markets in residential neighborhoods would do wonders - having markets within biking or walking distance on low traffic roadways or via separated paths.

Not everyone can have a garden in their backyard--if they have a backyard. If people driving to buy food makes you shudder, I wonder what a nation of shut-ins eating their government-allotted-and-delivered-by-vehicle bread would do.

I think the OP was talking about the benefits of improving walkability as a way to reduce emissions, not locking yourself at home.

I've lived in 7 cities in China and wet markets were always within comfortable walking distance.

I've tried biking to supermarkets in America but the closest has always been like 30 minutes away, and I need to have a crate just to sanely carry a decent amount to feed my family.

May not be representative, but it was sure nice always having fresh food nearby.

"And it's really shocking that people are so ignorant of the toll their personal vehicles take."

1. Your claim that people are ignorant is not well supported by the presence of cars at a farmers market.

2. Assuming people are ignorant, why would that be shocking? It's a complex system at work and it's hard to comorehend the effect of a single person's decisions, even if you're an expert.

Does the corner store grow all its food on the roof?

>The best way to cut GHG emissions from food is and will always be to cut out meat and dairy.

Yep. Good. Not doing it. What's next on the list?

With such a dismissive attitude towards the first item on 'the list' it's hard to believe there would be any benefit to engaging you further on the subject.

For many people, reducing or cutting dairy and meat consumption is a non-starter. There are many cultural and personal reasons for this.

I think if your plan to reduce problematic gasses in the atmosphere is to encourage mass dietary change, I don't think that's a realistic plan. Hence, next idea please.

The better and cheaper plant-based meat and dairy get, the more people will switch. Don’t forget the most effective incentive: saving money. We’ll get there!

Try using meat as a flavoring rather than as a big hulking hunk of gunk at the absolute center of the meal.

Life without cheese is no life at all.

This contradicts data from the EPA.

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss...

I have never been able to find any consistency in the data around food sustainability in general. Some meta studies using the same data rank GHG per 100g of protein vastly differently. Milk in particular moves pretty far up or down the list. Somehow cheese always stays at the bad end. Shrimp moves up and down a lot too. Fish and chicken swap around a lot. Pork is usually right above those two. And eggs are always at the bottom of the animal proteins as far as impact. Beans and pulses are always at the bottom. I keep meaning to get some red lentils, I have troubles with all the beans and pulses I've tried, but red lentils supposedly lack whatever it is that messes with some people.

That link doesn't seem to contain any information about food miles, it is irrelevant to this discussion.

I'm really starting to dislike studies that use artificial synthetic stand-in metrics. It's trivial to cook these to mean anything you want.

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