The Fallacy of “What you Eat” vs. “Eat Local”
A growing trend in the popular culture is to claim “What you eat” is more important than “Eating Local.” This claim fails in two significant ways. First it fails to look at the many dimensions of climate change that affect our mitigation and adaptation efforts. Second dismissing the “Eat local” in favour of “What you eat” fails to address the systemic global inequality. Addressing all aspects of climate change as well as building a social foundation to meet every person’s basic human needs should be included in any attempt to describe a sustainable diet.
First, let’s look at several factors that work together to create a Safe and Habitable Planet Earth. Then explore an analysis of one factor: greenhouse gases (GHG). We’ll see where that data is useful, and where it is not. Finally, we’ll expose the system of colonial exploitation that is hidden when the costs of transporting resources is limited to examining GHG emissions.
The Doughnut Model
In 2009 a scientist at the Stockholm Resilience Center published a frame work for A Safe Operating Space for Humanity. Johan Rockström presented 10 environmental conditions: planetary boundaries. An excess of any of those factors creates an unsafe space for humanity. One factor is GHG, but there are nine others.
Three years later another scientist expanded on that concept of a safe space for humanity by including 11 social conditions that all humans need for there to be a safe and just space on Earth for all people. The social conditions that Kate Raworth added created a social foundation, a minimum for each of these factors.
Together the social foundation and the environmental ceiling bounded a safe and just space for humanity in the shape of a doughnut. A subsequent paper in 2015 by Raworth described the doughnut with 9 conditions for the environmental ceiling and 12 conditions for the social foundation. Twenty-one factors set the limits of a safe and just space for humanity on a global scale.
Overlooked Details
Our World in Data hosts a series of articles and charts by Hannah Ritchie. Here’s a list of the other 20 conditions that the Our World in Data misses when they focus only on GHG emissions:
- ocean acidification
- chemical pollution
- nitrogen and phosphorus loading
- freshwater depletion
- land conversation
- biodiversity loss
- air pollution
- ozone depletion
- food
- water
- health
- education
- income & work
- peace & justice
- political voice
- gender equality
- housing
- networks
- energy
Each of these are explained very well.
To only look at one condition out of 21 is to miss most of the characteristics that affect human life on our planet. The “What you eat” vs “Eat Local” only focuses on one of those conditions: GHG.
The Our World in Data breaks down the GHG for 29 food types: 13 animal products and 16 plant products. It does a very nice job of breaking down the GHG of each of the food types into seven categories within the supply chain.
One of those is Land Use Change within which they only consider GHG. Outside of this single study, “Land Use Change” would also include biodiversity loss, fresh water depletion, and land conversation. Unfortunately, here it does not.
Although the study does a nice job of focusing on GHG, such a narrow focus excludes many other factors that are necessary to form a Safe and Habitable Space on Earth.
Data: Aggregate vs Individual
Our World in Data presents aggregate data and it misses the nuance of how people actually feed themselves and how they make decisions and changes to their diet. Changes to many possible, even likely, individual diets are not reflected in this data.
Just a few examples:
- Someone who walks down the street to a farm stand to buy beef that was raised in an open pasture changes to drive a single passenger car to the grocery store to buy rice and olive oil from halfway around the globe.
- Or worse yet, chocolate and coffee from some distant land.
- A person who’s diet is 10% animal based changes to be 100% plant based. The actual reduction in GHG is quite small. In other words, for people who’s diet contains some meat, that last push towards a vegan diet will not have a significant impact.
A person’s existing diet, and the context of the specific changes they’d make, are crucial when applying this data individually,
Even though this data is presented in units (GHG per kg of food) that scale well to individual diets, the wide variance of daily eating/shopping habits make this data incompatible with an individual analysis. The comparisons in this data may be better suited for policy making that is specific to GHG, such as carbon trading where behaviours would be influenced by the inclusion of the costs of externalities.
Social Equity
The Our World in Data Article tries to present transportation as having a very small impact on food choices. However the only impact that they look at is GHG for the transport carrier.
Global social equity is worth consideration when the wealthy in the North benefit from the less expensive resources in the South. The legacy of colonial privilege is so hard to see from a position of power, and focusing on GHG (and the relatively small impact by transport) further clouds that lens. The costs and benefits around chocolate and coffee may be easier to visualize given how much efforts go into fair trade supplies for the pleasure of the North.
Some Notes to Remember
- GHG is one of many conditions that we must address to achieve a Safe and Just Space on Earth for everyone.
- The aggregate GHG data in this Our World in Data study doesn’t consider individual situations or choices
- The GHG comparisons in Our World in Data are better suited where aggregate data is useful such as in policy making
- A narrow focus on transportation costs (GHG) fails to consider global social inequity.
A Final Thought on Which to End
Remember that we are a part of the Earth, not apart from this Earth. When we make daily choices with awareness of our place in the web of life, we naturally act with prudence and conservation towards shared global resources. When we go straight to accounting ledgers of reducing consumption of resources, we miss that Earthly connection. Let’s not miss that connection.
