The Easiest Change You Can Make in the Climate Battle

I was thinking the other day, what is the one thing people can do to help in climate change? What’s the easiest change you can make in the climate battle? I hear it quite often, “I don’t know what to do but I want to help”.

Is it driving less, buying less stuff, eating less beef… All doable, but all require a bit of effort and different levels of sacrifice.

What if I told you it was something you already have. Something that you have already spent your hard earned money on. Maybe inflationary pressures forced you to change your buying habits. Something everyone needs but not everybody has. But for some reason 37% of it gets wasted by North American households.

By now you probably guessed it, but if you haven’t, it’s food. You work hard to buy food but more than a third gets tossed and somehow this has become normal. I will say it again, 37% of household food is wasted in North America.

The easiest change you can make in the climate battle is to use the food you have already paid for!

“Reducing food waste is the low hanging fruit of climate solutions”

Anne-Marie Bonneau the zero waste chef

Food waste has a massive impact on our planet and climate change, let’s have a closer look.

The impact of wasting food

Worldwide, about a third of the food we produce goes uneaten, which generates up to 10 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions. To put that into perspective, the aviation industry generates about 2.5 percent of emissions.

In fact, if food waste were its own country, it would rank third in greenhouse gas emissions, behind only China and the US.

In addition to the food itself, this waste squanders the many resources that went into the food’s production—labor, water, energy, seeds, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and land cleared of trees that can no longer sequester carbon, all for food that no one will eat. To make matters worse, in the oxygen-deprived environment of a tightly packed landfill, the anaerobic that bacteria break down wasted food generate methane, a greenhouse gas 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, according to the IPCC.

Meanwhile, hundreds of millions don’t have enough to eat.

The easiest change you can make in the climate battle is to reduce your food waste

More information and how tos

I could go on more about this but I will leave it to the professionals or at least the professional. In no way do I receive any financial rewards from linking you to the Zero Waste Chef, I just think she is the best source of information in this realm.

Check out her book and blog for more information and how to reduce your food waste.

Reduce Food Waste, the Low Hanging Fruit of Climate solutions, is a great resource to get you well on your way to making a difference.

In the end

Remember this isn’t to make you feel bad if something ends up rotten in the back of your fridge. As a friend of mine says “guilt is a useless emotion”. Just doing better is progress.

I have certainly had to throw some moldy food in the compost over the years. Do your best, enjoy your food and save money while your at it. You never know, we might help save the planet while we’re at it.

“Of all the available climate solutions, what could be easier than eating?”

Anne-Marie Bonneau the zero waste chef

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Thanks for reading,

Pat

Check out 50+ Easy Resolutions to Reduce your Environmental Impact for more ideas.