Data scientist and author Hannah Ritchie details these examples in her upcoming book. It’s not the end of the world: How you can be the first generation to build a sustainable future. Everything from watching Netflix to charging your phone to drinking tea involves greenhouse gas emissions. No wonder we feel stressed about all the decisions we have to make. “Tackling climate change feels like a massive sacrifice that hits our lives. That would be fine if all these actions were actually making a difference, but they aren't. It's misplaced effort and stress, and sometimes at the expense of some actions that are actually needed. intention It’s important,” Ritchie wrote.
The problem is even worse when the most impactful actions you can take don't feel all that “natural.” Buying a plastic-wrapped plant-based burger designed by San Francisco scientists doesn't seem like a more environmentally friendly option than eating cows raised locally, but by every metric, In fact, it is.
The same goes for living in a city. Dense urban environments filled with glass and concrete may not seem like green spaces, but people who live in cities have a smaller carbon footprint. This is mainly due to improvements in the efficiency of public transport and heating. There are big challenges when it comes to urbanization, such as reducing emissions from concrete production and ensuring a good living environment for everyone, but cities themselves need not be seen as symbols of humanity's destruction of nature. . Done well, they can become symbols of opposition.
Organic farming is environmentally friendly, but the situation gets more complicated when you dig into the details. “It is not clear whether organic farming is better for the environment than 'conventional' farming,” Ritchie writes. Organic farms tend to be good for local biodiversity, but have negative impacts on land use because they produce less food per acre. The EU has set a target for 25% of its agricultural land to be organic by 2030, which could reduce production by 7-12% and require more land to be used elsewhere in the world. There may be a need to convert to agriculture.
There's nothing wrong with eating local or organic food, but we need to be more honest about the values and trade-offs involved in making these decisions. If supporting local farmers is a top priority for you, choosing locally sourced beef may make sense. If emissions are your biggest concern, you may want to switch to chicken. If animal welfare is a priority, you should choose plant-based options. That way, it also has the benefit of being lower in carbon than meat.
Part of the problem is that when we talk about climate action, we tend to emphasize nature and the non-human world. We think of organic produce as the “green” option and cotton tote bags as more “natural” than plastic alternatives, but when you actually look at the numbers, the benefits aren't as clear. Although the idea of a giant, high-tech nuclear power plant hardly conjures up images of idyllic hills, nuclear energy is one of the safest and cleanest ways to generate electricity. Riding a crowded, dirty subway may not bring you closer to nature, but public transport is one of the greenest ways to get around.
Perhaps it's time to ditch the atmosphere-based approach to environmental protection and go for something a little more solid. As Ritchie writes, there's nothing wrong with making a small impact on the environment or doing something that's helpful in a way that's personally important to us, but it's not a bad thing to do just because it doesn't feel obvious. We must not miss out on the bigger changes that can be made to us.
