Climate Point: What to eat to help Earth
Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate, energy and environment. From Palm Springs, I'm Janet Wilson.
Want to eat healthy and help save the planet? Small changes add up, according to new research. “It can be as simple as ordering a chicken burrito instead of a beef burrito when you go out to eat," said Diego Rose, senior author of the study told Paste BN's Doyle Rice. "When you’re at the grocery store, move your hand 1 foot over to grab soy or almond milk instead of cow’s milk. That one small change can have a significant impact.”
Doing so could reduce your risks of diabetes and other illness, and reduces damaging emissions. Cows release tons of methane, and food production, transportation, delivery and disposal account for about 20% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. "We’ve identified simple, achievable substitutions – small changes – that can still produce a meaningful impact,” said co-author Anna Grummon.
Spurred by this type of research, I recently bought a carton of oat milk. Now I need to overcome an irrational aversion to something unfamiliar and use it in my coffee, on cereal and in recipes. Why do I have visions of oatmeal in my java? I'll keep you posted.
Keeping good company. While individual actions help, corporations are the biggest greenhouse gas emitters, particularly the oil and gas industry. But it can be tough to track how much businesses pollute. That's on track to change, as consumers and investors grow more aware of climate change. The Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to release a rule soon requiring companies to disclose their climate risk, per Paste BN's Elizabeth Weise. And California will require large companies to make climate-related disclosures starting in 2026.
To help readers understand where the companies they do business with and invest in stand, Paste BN is again partnering with market data company Statista to rank U.S. companies. You can submit information about your business and see last year's rankings here.
Crash. Even if we start slashing greenhouse gases by enormous amounts, it's now likely too late to save the massive West Antarctic Ice Sheet, scientists report. "It looks like we’ve lost control of (its) melting," said Kaitlin Naughten, an oceanographer with the British Antarctic Survey. "If we wanted to preserve it ..., we would have needed action on climate change decades ago," she said. The ice sheet collapse could raise global sea level by up to 17 feet. Though full melt could take hundreds of years, it threatens millions living near the world's coasts.
All is not lost. There may be hope for the Greenland ice sheet at the other end of the Earth though. Per a new study, the massive ice sheet is likely to be more resistant to global warming than had been thought. "We found that the ice sheet reacts so slowly to human-made warming that reversing the current warming trend by cutting greenhouse gas emissions within centuries may prevent it from tipping," said Niklas Boers from Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Gone fishing. On Monday, climb aboard four fishing boats with Paste BN's Trevor Hughes to see how warming ocean waters are changing catches off Alaska, California, Maine and Florida. The men and women who fish commercially off the shores of the United States have long battled ocean waves, rogue storms and elusive quary that can swim away. But scientists say climate change is rapidly worsening things. It helps supercharge storms, kills some species and sends others to colder waters. Check your inbox next week for a front row seat.
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