Idaho Mountain Express: Finding the low-carbon diet

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Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Finding the low-carbon diet

Clearly, we cannot keep eating this way.

Eat local! If you grew your own food or bought it directly from local farms, it would curb one-third of your family's carbon emissions, according to recent studies.

By SHAWN DELL JOYCE

Creators Syndicate

When you hear the words "peak oil," the long lines at gas pumps during the energy crisis in the 1970s may spring to mind. However, the continuous decrease in the world's oil reserves more likely will result in longer bread lines than gas lines.

Collectively, we Americans eat almost as much fossil fuel as we burn in our automobiles. American agriculture directly accounts for 17 percent of our energy use, which is the equivalent of 400 gallons of oil consumed by every man, woman and child per year, according to 1994 statistics.

How did this come about? We have seen a major leap in farm productivity in the past 50 years, with food production doubling and, in the case of cereal grains, even tripling. This amazing leap did not come from new farms or farmlands, because we have lost more than half our small farms in that same period. Farmlands are also in decline and being gobbled up by urban sprawl. These massive gains in food production are caused by the use of synthetic fertilizer and, to a smaller extent, better plant hybrids. "Two out of every 5 humans on this earth would not be alive today" without the widespread use of chemical fertilizer, says Vaclav Smil, a Canadian professor, author and energy expert.

We are eating fossil fuels in the forms of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. These marvelous inventions can be traced directly to chemist Fritz Haber. He won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1918 for "improving agriculture" through his invention of nitrate fertilizer. Unfortunately, Haber's invention also was used by the Nazis to create Zyklon B, the gas used in the infamous death camps.

Today a formulation based on Haber's is spread "in quantities of over 50 million metric tons per year" on American farms as insecticides, according to author and energy efficiency guru Amory Lovins. That is 20 times more than what was used when Rachel Carson wrote her compelling book "Silent Spring," which warned of environmental catastrophe occurring from the overuse of pesticides.

The unpalatable truth about our oil-based food system is that "it takes 10 calories of fossil fuels to make 1 calorie of food energy," according to a study by David Pimentel and Mario Giampietro. This scary statistic only takes into account the production of the food itself. If you factor in the processing, packaging, transportation, refrigeration and all the other petroleum-intensive processes, that statistic can inflate to 87 calories of fuel per calorie of food. Why so much? Most of our food travels an average of 1,500 "food miles" to get from the farms to our forks. Once these "fossil foods" get to our houses, we spend even more energy on refrigerating and cooking, until each bite we eat is soaked in oil.

Clearly, we cannot keep eating this way. As oil reserves dwindle, our children and grandchildren will face drastic losses in food productivity. Some experts are predicting massive "die-offs" when grain prices soar. We must start the transition now from the "SUV diet" to a "low-carbon diet." But how can all of earth's people be fed without fossil fuel-based fertilizers and pesticides degrading the environment?

What sustainable agriculture advocates call "organic farming practices" was simply the right way to do it for many centuries. This "new" model could double yields in highly populated countries, without significant expenses or resources. It is based on ecosystems' regenerative capacity as a result of different plant associations; some of you gardeners may call it companion and rotational planting.

Want to lower the carbon in your diet? Follow our first lady's example and maintain a garden in your backyard instead of a lawn. Visit farms and farmers markets in your region. Money spent at a local farm is twice as effective at stimulating the economy as money spent in a chain grocery. To find farms, visit http://www.LocalHarvest.org or http://www.EatWild.com. Host a "locavore" potluck, and ask the guests to source ingredients for their dishes within a 100-mile radius.

Celebrate Earth Day this year by going on a low-carbon diet. Reduce your carbon emissions by one-third by eating local and in season. If we all changed our eating habits, we could cure our national eating disorder and stimulate our local economies, as well as our appetites.

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The comments below are from the readers of mtexpress.com and in no way represent the views of Express Publishing Inc.

TLM – back country

04/17/09 - 00:13

While we would love to "eat locally" we are lucky to be able to BUY our groceries within 100 miles. We do grow what we can in our 90 day growing season.

Using food for fuel (ethanol) has hurt, the price of animal feed has doubled and tripled in the last few years. I don't see it getting any better.

Its also sad to see folks trying to rid our world of free ranging cattle. What is more local than Idaho beef and potatoes?

Neil

04/16/09 - 05:37

"But how can all of earth's people be fed without fossil fuel-based fertilizers and pesticides degrading the environment?"

Replace tractors by horses:

www.lowtechmagazine.com

Daniel Draffen – Madison, Alabama

04/15/09 - 09:14

I agree very much with Mr. Joyce. However, it appears very few Americans understand fully the implications of Peak Oil and Peak Everything coming up to our doorsteps like a great flood. It will take a lot more than alternative energy to save us. We may not know it yet but we are about to be put on a serious "energy diet" - courtesy of Mother Nature.

The whole concept of "Globalization" is a very flawed concept and is totally unstainable. In the long run we will find that locally grown food as well as localized manufacturing, retail and cottage industries will make a big come back, not necessarily by choice but by necessity. The same goes for small town America. We are looking toward a renaissance of small towns and small family farms and a dissolution or major contraction of large cities and associated surburbia. We won't have the "fuel" or resources to run large urban centers and support suburban sprawl anymore. Or run and maintain the interstate highway system.

The airlines will all but dissappear and interstate highways will have to be shut down and the materials recycled to build a new interstate electrified railway system. That is if we want any semblance of modern society to continue to exist. With fossil fuels becoming both more scarce and increasingly more harmful to the environment the electric train will have to become the main transportation of the future for long haul freight and passenger traffic. Europe, India, China, Japan, Russia and many others are far ahead of us here in the USA in implementing large scale electrified rail service. Passenger rail service in this country is pathetic. This must change!

Growing crops will have to be much more localized and organic in the future. Much more human labor input will be required - physical labor. Fuel will not be available to run the huge "industrial farms" or to generate the staggering amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides required for this present scale of agriculture. This means a return to small family farms and the end of large grocery chains and Walmarts. There will be no fuel available at any cost for the huge fleet of interstate trucks plying our highways. Recall the crisis last year truckers were faced with $4 diesel fuel and spot shortages. It only gets worse from here as the impact of decling fuel output from the world's oil fields starts to bite.

Fossil fuel means just that - fossil and in finite supply. We've burned through all the easy to get and low cost crude. The future of coal is looking shaky right now not to mention that burning more coal (to replace oil) would be the death sentance for the biosphere.

The human body was not "designed" to handle all the chemicals and preservatives in food these days or the barrage of junk food turned out from the agri-industrial complex with inputs from all over the world. From a health perspective it is imperative that we get busy putting out kitchen gardens on our lawns, buying mostly from local farmer's markets and cutting down on meat (full of harmful hormones and very energy intensive to produce). It would be great to see the negative impact our heathier livestyle changes will have on the fast food industry and the supermarket junk food asiles! It will be nice to see these culprits go bankrupt and go away. It would save untold millions of children - and adults - from the ravages of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and all the other harm caused by these junk food outlets. Death to fast food!!!

We've got to get busy building a new society and landscape scaled for the new low energy future. Walkable communities with locally grown food is a good start. Getting our railways modernized, electrified and ready to accept the inputs of renewable electric power will be another priority.

Let's get the ball rolling for a brighter, healthier future. Get those kitchen gardens planted!!!