Spring Break
Food and climate change: an invisible problem
Issue date: 10/2/08
The next time you're about to bite into a juicy steak, consider the impact your dinner has on global warming.
If the idea that the two are linked comes as a shock to you, that's just the problem. Food and agriculture's contributions to climate change are underreported in newspapers across the country, as a new study out of the Bloomberg School of Public Health shows.
"Yesterday's dinner, tomorrow's weather, today's news? U.S. newspaper coverage of food system contributions to climate change," is the title of a paper published in the journal Public Health Nutrition this month.
From Sept. 25, 2007, to Jan. 28, 2008, the study says, 16 leading U.S. newspapers gave scant coverage to the link between food or agriculture and climate change or global warming.
"We were quite surprised to see just how dramatic the lack of coverage was," Roni Neff, co-author of the study with Iris Chan and Katherine Clegg Smith said.
"Out of 4,582 climate change articles in 16 top circulation U.S. newspapers over a 29 month period, we found that only 2.4 percent even mentioned food or agriculture contributions to climate change, and only a half percent mentioned livestock contributions."
While newspaper coverage has been minor, the problem itself is anything but. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported in 2006 that 18 percent of greenhouse gases worldwide come from livestock production alone.
Carbon dioxide is probably the most notorious of the greenhouse gases because it is so commonly produced in processes integral to our daily routines, like driving cars and heating houses. However, it is crucial to understand the environmental impact of other greenhouse gases as well.
"The food industry has mostly stayed in the climate change shadows compared to other industries such as energy and carmakers," Neff said.
Nitrous oxide and methane are the greenhouse gases most associated with agriculture and food production.
If the idea that the two are linked comes as a shock to you, that's just the problem. Food and agriculture's contributions to climate change are underreported in newspapers across the country, as a new study out of the Bloomberg School of Public Health shows.
"Yesterday's dinner, tomorrow's weather, today's news? U.S. newspaper coverage of food system contributions to climate change," is the title of a paper published in the journal Public Health Nutrition this month.
From Sept. 25, 2007, to Jan. 28, 2008, the study says, 16 leading U.S. newspapers gave scant coverage to the link between food or agriculture and climate change or global warming.
"We were quite surprised to see just how dramatic the lack of coverage was," Roni Neff, co-author of the study with Iris Chan and Katherine Clegg Smith said.
"Out of 4,582 climate change articles in 16 top circulation U.S. newspapers over a 29 month period, we found that only 2.4 percent even mentioned food or agriculture contributions to climate change, and only a half percent mentioned livestock contributions."
While newspaper coverage has been minor, the problem itself is anything but. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported in 2006 that 18 percent of greenhouse gases worldwide come from livestock production alone.
Carbon dioxide is probably the most notorious of the greenhouse gases because it is so commonly produced in processes integral to our daily routines, like driving cars and heating houses. However, it is crucial to understand the environmental impact of other greenhouse gases as well.
"The food industry has mostly stayed in the climate change shadows compared to other industries such as energy and carmakers," Neff said.
Nitrous oxide and methane are the greenhouse gases most associated with agriculture and food production.
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