sustainability – Super Facts

Many Popular Environmental Actions Are Ineffective

Super fact 33: Actions such as eating locally, buying organic produce, using paper straws, and recycling can be good for the environment but can also be worse for the environment and these actions often have a much smaller positive impact than alternative rarely considered actions. What are popular actions for the environment is often different from what is effective.

I consider this a super fact because the beliefs regarding what is good for the environment and what is bad for the environment and what has a significant impact and what has not, are often based on popular trends and culture rather than knowledge. We need to educate ourselves. Following trends is not the answer to good stewardship of the planet.

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Is Locally Grown Food Really Better for the Environment?

As I explained in this post eating locally is not necessarily ecological. Agricultural products that are grown off season or in non-native environments are often grown in greenhouses, which require a lot of energy and generate significantly more emissions than shipping the produce across oceans would. This is especially true for crops like tomatoes, cucumbers, mangoes and bananas, that require warmer climates to be grown in open fields.

In some cases, the crop requires significant water resources or chemical inputs to thrive and may not be suitable for warmer climates, for example, apples. Some crops, like avocados or almonds require a lot of water but despite that they are grown in dry places like California (80% of California’s freshwater is used for agriculture). From an environmental perspective it would be better to grow these crops in a suitable environment and then transport them.

Is Eating Organic Really Good for the Environment?

As explained in this post eating organic is not necessarily ecological. Despite strong public perception of organic agriculture producing better environmental outcomes, conventional agriculture often performs better on environmental measures including land use, greenhouse gas emissions, and pollution of water bodies. There are, however, some contexts where organic agriculture may be better for the environment.

The graph below gives an overview of the environmental impact of various types of crops grown organically and conventionally. As you can see organic crop often require double as much land compared to conventionally grown crops. It is complicated.

Shown is the relative environmental impact of organic and conventional agriculture across various ecological and resource indicators based on a meta-analysis of 164 published life-cycle analyses (LCAs) across 742 agricultural systems. Roughly, lower in the graph means organic is better and higher up in the graph means conventional farming is better. Data source: Clark & Tilman (2017) – Comparative analysis of environmental impacts of agricultural production systems, agricultural input efficiency, and food choice. In Environmental Research Letters. The data visualization is available at OurWorldinData.org<<Link-10>>. There you can find research and more visualizations on this topic. Licensed under CC BY-SA by the authors Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser.

What really matters though is the type of food you eat, not whether it is organic or not. For example, beef (from beef herd) causes emissions 188 times larger than nuts do for the same amount of protein provided. Another thing to note is that if you eat 300 steaks per year you will have a 100 times larger environmental impact from your meat eating compared to someone who eats 3 steaks per year. You don’t have to become a vegetarian to have a smaller environmental impact but quantity matters.

Is Recycling Important?

The common perception that recycling is one of the best things you can do for the environment is not correct. Its impact is often not very large and if not done properly it can be counterproductive. If you throw a greasy pizza box in the recycling, you can ruin the entire batch.

Surveys across 21,000 adults in 30 countries showed that the two actions among twelve that people believed saved the most greenhouse gases were recycling (59%) and upgrading lightbulbs (36%). As it turns out, those two saved the least greenhouse gases among the twelve options. The option saving the most greenhouse gases among the 12 was giving up an SUV, which saved 18 times as much greenhouse gases as recycling. 17% of respondents picked that one.

According to Our World in Data (and the book Not the End of the World page 114<<Link-6>>), which is based on this research, giving up an average SUV for a sedan would save 3.6 metric ton, or 22.5% of the carbon emissions for the average American. Switching to a plant-based diet would save 2.2 metric ton per person, or 13.8%. Recycling comes in at a savings of 0.2 metric tons according to the same data. EPAs estimates are slightly higher but still low in comparison.

Plastic straws versus paper straws

Producing a plastic straw requires 39 kilojoules of energy and produces 1.5 grams of carbon dioxide emissions. However, producing a paper straw requires 96 kilojoules of energy and produces 4.1 grams of carbon dioxide emissions. So, plastic straws are better for the environment from that perspective. However, this could be compared to a typical passenger vehicle, which emits about 4.6 metric tons of CO2 per year according to EPA. That corresponds to more than 3 million plastic straws and more than one million paper straws.

According to the same article the average passenger vehicle emits about 400 grams of CO2 per mile. So, driving just one mile corresponds to hundreds of plastic straws and paper straws.

One advantage of paper straws is that they are easier to recycle, at least under ideal circumstances. Unfortunately, they often get soggy, and recycling plants don’t want that so they often throw them out. Another advantage is that paper straws decompose and don’t end up in our ocean.

However, not only are straws very small items, most of the plastic pollution in the ocean does not come from north America(1%) or Europe (1%). Paper straws versus plastic straws seem like a complex riddle but it may not be an important one. Whether you drive more or drive less is probably a lot more important.

Plastic bags versus paper bags

As with plastic straws versus paper straws plastic bags versus paper bags is a complicated question. From an environmental perspective they both have advantages and disadvantages. Plastic bags are less carbon intensive to produce, are easier to reuse several times, and the production of plastic bags require on average four times less energy than the production of paper bags.

On the other hand, paper bags are decomposable and easier to recycle. However, the chemicals and fertilizers used in producing paper bags create additional harm to the environment. It is a complicated question.

Plastic Ocean pollution. Whale Shark filter feeds in polluted ocean, ingesting plastic. Asset id: 1120768061 by Rich Carey

Having a Significant and Positive Impact on the Environment

Some of the allegedly sustainable practices and actions mentioned above are counter productive and others have a very small effect, for example, carbon emissions savings that are a few grams. According to the “Our World Data” and the book “Not the End of the World” page 114, a compilation of data research, some actions that you can take that will significantly reduce carbon emissions are (savings in metric tons per year, for flight it is per trip):

Giving up an SUV 3.6 tons
Go car free (average car) 2.4 tons
Switch to plant-based diet 2.2 tons
Avoid transatlantic flights 1.6 tons
Buy green energy 1.5 tons
Switch to electric car (from average sedan) 1.2 tons
Switch from electric car to none 1.2 tons
Avoid medium flight 0.6 tons (1,700 miles each way going and returning)
Laundry in cold water 0.25 tons
Hand-dry clothing 0.2 tons
Recycle 0.2 tons
Upgrade light bulbs 0.1 tons

As you can see in the graphs below, the largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in the World and in the United States is electricity and heat. Unfortunately, the composition of the electric grid is something we as consumers have very little control over. We can save energy, get solar panels for our roof, or buy our electricity from green energy companies, but we cannot easily change the composition of the grid. Energy companies and politicians must do that.

However, we can make our voices heard by calling and writing to our representatives. This might be the single most impactful action that you as an individual can take. Your congressman, senator, or state legislator will probably not read your letter. They have hundreds of thousands or millions of constituents and get lots of letters every day. What is likely to happen is that a staff member will skim the letter and note the concern in a database.

Just make sure that your letter is politely written so it does not go in the wastebasket. Also make sure that you are a constituent. Writing to Ted Cruz when you live in Florida is not going to have an impact. They are interested in finding out what the concerns of their constituents are and according to staff members and other information I have come across, this really has an impact.

Data source : Climate Watch (2024). Note : Land use emissions can be negative. OurWorldinData.org/co2-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions| CC BY

Conclusion

The survey mentioned above showed that among the twelve environmental actions an individual could take, the one with the second to smallest positive impact was the one that the majority thought had the biggest positive impact, despite it having a relatively tiny impact. The actions that could really make a huge difference were hardly considered.

We, the public, are very bad at determining what is good or bad for the environment and what has a significant and positive impact or not, even though the data is out there and we easily can look it up. Maybe the biggest positive impact one could have on the environment is to look up the facts and get better educated.

To see the other Super Facts click here

Environmental Benefits of Recycling Are Overestimated

Super fact 32: The common perception that recycling is one of the best things you can do for the environment is an exaggeration. Its impact is often not very large and if not done properly it can be counterproductive.

In general recycling is beneficial, because you conserve natural resources, reduce climate change, save energy and reduce waste and pollution. Battery recycling is particularly important since it reduces toxic waste and reduces the risk of a future shortage of certain minerals. Recycling is often viewed as a very important activity that everyone should participate in, and neighbors often shame those who fail to comply.

The shocking news is that even though recycling in general is good for the environment it may not be as beneficial as it is assumed. It turns out to be complicated. As you will see later, most people think that recycling is the most impactful action you can take as an individual to reduce carbon emissions, when in fact it is of very marginal importance. This is what made me consider this a super fact.

Recycling and Greenhouse Gases

According to EPA recycling saves 193 million metric tons of carbon emissions, which sounds a lot until you consider that the US emit 6,343 million metric tons per year according to EPA making it 3%. According to this website consumers can save 732 kilograms of CO2 assuming they do the recycling correctly. This should be compared to the average carbon footprint for an American (US), which is 16 metric tons, making the savings for good recyclers 4.6%.

According to our World in Data (Not the End of the World page 114), based on this research, giving up an average SUV for a sedan would save 3.6 metric ton, or 22.5%. Switching to a plant-based diet would save 2.2 metric ton per person, or 13.8%. Actions saving more greenhouse gases than recycling that we as consumers can take, are for example: give up SUV, go car free, have a plant-based diet, avoid transatlantic flights, buy green energy, switch to electric car, switch from electric car to no car, avoid medium flights, laundry in cold water, and hand dry clothing.

Surveys across 21,000 adults in 30 countries showed that the two actions that people believed saved the most greenhouse gases were recycling (59%) and upgrading lightbulbs (36%). Upgrading lightbulbs have an even smaller effect than recycling. It is of course still a good action to take.

However, what this data demonstrates is that we are bad at guessing which actions are impactful. We need to get better informed and not make assumptions. It should be noted that the efficiency of the recycling efforts varies from country to country. Among the 32 developed countries for which there is data the United States ranks 25.

Recycling and Plastic Waste

Greenhouse gas emissions is certainly not the only issue to consider. What about plastic waste? As it turns out plastic is very difficult to recycle (depending on the kind of plastic) and according to the EPA less than 9% of plastic is recycled. According to Our World in Data and the book “Not the End of the World” by Hannah Ritchie the US and Europe have well managed landfills and good waste management systems that make our plastic problem less of an issue. That’s good news.

But what about the awful problem with plastic in the ocean? Plastic ending up in the ocean is indeed a bad problem. However, 81% of all plastic in the ocean come from Asia, and the rest mostly comes from Latin America. Only 1% come from the United States and 1% from Europe and Oceania. According to Scientific American 93% of plastic in ocean come from just 10 rivers. Eight of them are in Asia: the Yangtze; Indus; Yellow; Hai He; Ganges; Pearl; Amur; Mekong. Two are in Africa – the Nile and the Niger.

None of them are in North America or Europe. Therefore, if we in the developed world greatly improve our recycling of plastic, it would not make much of a difference with respect to the problem of plastic in the ocean. What we need to do is assist China, India and southeast Asia with improving their waste management systems.

Another issue to keep in mind is that uneducated consumers can do a lot of damage to the recycling process. For example, throwing a greasy pizza box into the recycling bin can ruin the entire batch. You are not just recycling incorrectly you are ruining the recycling efforts of your neighbors too. There are many ways to ruin the recycling process, by throwing items in the recycling that don’t belong there. Recycling requires consumers to pay attention to the instructions. It should also be noted that some companies have been found to ignore the recycling process and throw all recycled items in with the trash. There are also neighborhoods that don’t have recycling.

Conclusion

In summary, recycling may not be as great as it is often made out to be. You should still do it if you care about the environment. Just be aware that there are actions that you can take and that your government can take that are much more impactful.

One of the conclusions you can draw from this discussion is that if you are driving a big SUV or eating red meat every day you should probably abstain from shaming your neighbor for not recycling.

To see the other Super Facts click here

Eating Organic is not Necessarily Ecological

Super fact 31: The common perception that organic food is by default better for the environment or is an ideal way to reduce environmental impact is a misconception. Across several metrics, organic agriculture proves to be more harmful for the world’s environment than conventional agriculture.

There are things you can do as an individual to reduce your carbon footprint, use public transportation instead of driving, fly less, eat less read meat, don’t waste food, reduce your energy usage. There are straightforward actions you can take to reduce your use of water and avoid adding harmful pollution to the environment. However, as with eating locally grown food, eating organic food is often viewed as an environmentally friendly choice even though it often is not.

Organic farming is a method of growing food without using synthetic chemicals or genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Organic farming practices are intended to protect soil fertility, promote ecological balance, and reduce environmental impact. That’s all good. On the other hand, it should be noted that modern farming techniques, for example, using synthetic pesticides, have greatly increased cereal yield per acre and GMOs can reduce the use of toxic pesticides. It is complicated.

I consider this a super fact because it is often incorrectly assumed that eating organic food is the best choice for the environment.

Global Land Use

Before looking at the details of conventional farming versus organic farming lets look at global land use. In the figure below from Our World in Data you can see that agriculture already uses nearly half of all habitable land in the world. We cannot easily enlarge this percentage and therefore crop yield per acre is a very important factor to consider, and this is a great weakness for organic farming.

Also notice that 80% of agricultural land is used for livestock, meat, dairy and textile, but it only provides 17% global calorie supply. This second observation indicates that the type of food you eat may matter a lot more than whether it is produced via organic or conventional farming.

Global land-use graphics. Licensed under CC-BY by authors Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser (September 2023).

As you can see in the graph below, again from Our World in Data, the land used for producing 100 grams of protein varies enormously between different food groups. 100 grams of protein from lamb and mutton require on average 52.8 times as much land as 100 grams of protein from groundnuts. This graph does not make a distinction between organic farming and conventional farming, but it highlights the huge difference between different food sources. I’ll get to the difference between organic farming and conventional farming with respect to land use later in the post.

Additional calculations by Our World in Data. OurWorldinData.org/environmental-impacts-of-food | CC BY

Agriculture and Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The next two graphs focus on the greenhouse gas emissions including those from agriculture. Electricity and Transport dominate both globally and in the United States, but globally agriculture comes in at 6 billion of the 40 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions for 2021, which is 15%. For the United States agriculture comes in at 10.6% of greenhouse gas emissions for 2021. In other words, agriculture was not the largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions but still an important factor.

Finally, the contribution for different types of food. Notice that beef (beef herd) at 49.89kg is 188 times larger than the 0.26kg for nuts. 188 people eating nuts contribute as much to carbon emissions as one person eating beef.

Greenhouse gas emissions per 100 grams of protein. Greenhouse gas emissions are measured in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents (see below). Data source: Poore and Nemecek (2018). OurWorldinData.org/co2-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions| CC BY

Carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2eq)

Carbon dioxide is the most important greenhouse gas, but not the only one. To capture all greenhouse gas emissions, researchers express them in “carbon dioxide equivalents” (CO2eq). This takes all greenhouse gases into account, not just CO2. To express all greenhouse gases in carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2eq), each one is weighed by its global warming potential (GWP) value. GWP measures the amount of warming a gas creates compared to CO2. CO2 is given a GWP value of one.

If a gas had a GWP of 10 then one kilogram of that gas would generate ten times the warming effect as one kilogram of CO2. Carbon dioxide equivalents are calculated for each gas by multiplying the mass of emissions of a specific gas by its GWP factor. This warming can be stated over different timescales. To calculate CO2eq over 100 years, we’d multiply each gas by its GWP over a 100-year timescale (GWP100). Total greenhouse gas emissions – measured in CO2eq – are then calculated by summing each gas’ CO2eq value.

Environmental Impact of Organic Versus Conventional Agriculture

At this point it should be clear that eating different types of food, nuts and vegetables versus red meat makes huge difference regarding the environment. How about organic versus conventional farming? Well, it is complicated. You have to take into account land use, greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity, pesticide application, energy use and more.

Clark and Tilman (2017) published a meta-analysis of results of published organic-conventional comparisons across 742 agricultural systems over 90 unique foods. The food groups consisted of cereals, pulses and oil crops, fruits, vegetables, dairy and eggs, and meats. As you can see in the resulting graph below organic agriculture is worse for the environment for most food groups with regards to land use, eutrophication potential, and acidification potential. The result is mixed with respect to greenhouse gas emissions and energy use.

It appears that it is best to choose organic pulses and fruits and choose non-organic for all other food products (cereals, vegetables, dairy and eggs, and meat). However, if your primary concern is whether the potato accompanying your steak is conventionally or organically produced, then your focus is arguably misplaced. Whether you go organic or non-organic the steak is much worse for the environment.

Conclusion

In this post I present empirical evidence from reliable sources comparing organic to conventional agriculture in terms of environmental impact. Despite strong public perception of organic agriculture producing better environmental outcomes, conventional agriculture often performs better on environmental measures including land use, greenhouse gas emissions, and pollution of water bodies. There are, however, some contexts where organic agriculture may be better for the environment. In short it is complicated.

What really matters though is the type of food you eat, not whether it is organic or not. Another thing to note is that if you eat 300 steaks per year you will have a 100 times larger environmental impact compared to someone who eats 3 steaks per year. Quantity matters. This post was about environmental impacts. There are other considerations such as health, what you like, whom you want to support, etc.

To see the other Super Facts click here

Eating Locally is not Necessarily Ecological

Super fact 30: Eating locally is often promoted as an environmentally friendly choice, but that is not always the case.

Whether the food you eat is sustainable and environmentally friendly or not depends on a lot of factors including agricultural methods, whether greenhouse farming or monocropping was used, and whether the crop is natural to its environment. In addition, inefficient local transportation can result in higher emissions than faraway transport by ships and trains. If a crop is grown locally in greenhouses, the extra energy that is needed, and the resulting extra carbon emissions are often much larger than the emissions from the transport.

I consider this a super fact because it is often assumed that buying locally is the best choice for the environment. After all, transporting something across the world causes a lot of emissions, right? It turns out not to be that simple.

Articles on Transportation of Food in my French Book

The first time this issue was brought to my attention was in my French class. I am learning French, just as a hobby. There was an article in our French book on the transportation of food around the world “Notre planète ne tourne pas rond!”.

We read that cashews were grown in the Ivory Coast in Africa and then sent for peeling and cleaning in Brazil and then sent to France to be sold. The cashews travelled 10,000 kilometers or 6.250 miles. We read about cod that was caught in Norway then sent to China to be cut into filets and then sent to France to be sold. That cod travelled 15,000 kilometers. We all thought it was crazy, and very bad for the environment, so much unnecessary emissions from transportation. But we all learned a few new French words.

Then at our next class, we turned the page “Consommer local, vraiment bon pour la planète?” / “Consuming locally, really good for the planet?”. Wait what? The next article confused us since it stated that in many cases eating locally was bad for the environment, not good for the environment. Transporting the food around the globe might be good for the environment.

Incidentally, at the time I was reading “Not the End of the World, How we can be the first generation to build a sustainable planet” by Hannah Richie, the research director for “Our World in Data”. “Our World in Data” is a highly regarded free and open-source website that collects and analysis vetted statistics on a large range of topics. In that book she stated that the data showed that tomatoes imported to Sweden from Spain caused less carbon emission than tomatoes grown locally in Sweden.

The Problem with Locally Grown Tomatoes

This article from University of Southern Denmark claim that importing tomatoes from warm countries are better for the environment than buying locally. The reason being that when tomatoes are grown in an open field, the production emits an average of 80 kg CO2 per ton, but if the tomatoes are grown in a greenhouse, they emit up to 700 kg CO2 per ton. In northern countries it is common to grow tomatoes in greenhouses, especially when they are out of season. The long transport of the tomatoes causes much less emissions than that.

This scientific article analyses the issue a bit deeper and concludes that “that the distance travelled by the tomatoes is not the most important environmental burden”. Whether the tomatoes were grown in greenhouses or not matters a lot, but there are many other factors. In short, it is complicated.

This study of local vs. imported tomato production in Canada concludes that locally grown tomatoes grown in greenhouses on average cause 1,070 grams of carbon emissions per kilo of tomatoes grown and tomatoes grown open field in Mexico cause 775 grams of carbon emissions per kilo of tomatoes, despite the 3,800-kilometer journey from Mexico to Ontario, Canada. The reason for the higher emissions for locally grown tomatoes is again that greenhouses use a lot of energy.

Naturally, this would change if you grew the tomatoes in season without using greenhouses. The article also notes that carbon emissions are not the only issue for sustainability. Water usage is another important factor.

The Problem with Locally Grown Vegetables and Fruits

Tomatoes are just one example. The same hold true for cucumbers, lettuce and salad greens, potatoes, bell peppers, hot peppers, green beans and other bean varieties, berries, pineapples, bananas, mangoes, other tropical fruits. In addition, some of these crops can deplete the soil and require large amounts of water, which can be bad if they are being cultivated in areas where water resources are already scarce such as growing avocados in California. In general, growing vegetables and fruits in their natural environment tends to be the most sustainable.

The Problem with Locally Grown Apples

The problem with apples tends to be the opposite, geography wise. In warmer areas, they might require significant water resources or chemical inputs to thrive. Apples from cooler climates need less water and fewer chemicals, reducing their ecological impact.

Photo by Pierpaolo Riondato on Pexels.com

Local versus Imported It’s Complicated

I should point out that growing locally sometimes being worse for the environment than importing does not mean that importing produce is better for the environment. It just means that it is complicated and that you need to make that determination on a case-by-case basis. The environment is also not the only concern. Another consideration is the protection of local farmers and the local economy.

My opinion is, instead of worrying a lot about local versus imported produce, it is better to focus on things that we know cause a lot of emissions. A dirty grid, coal power stations, a non-hybrid SUV with an internal combustion engine, unnecessary business trips, eating a lot of red meat, basically start with the low hanging fruit.

To see the other Super Facts click here

Wind power is providing more than a quarter of Texas Power

Superfact 16: Wind power is providing more than a quarter of Texas Power. In 2023, wind represented 28.6 percent of Texas energy generation. In 2022, wind power accounted for about 25 percent of Texas’ energy generation.

I am referring to this fact as a super fact because, it is true, important, and yet it’s a fact that is difficult to believe for many people. That wind power, allegedly a marginal energy source, is successful in fossil fuel loving Texas is hard to believe. I have come across what appears to be well informed people who were certain it was nonsense. However, as you can see from the Texas government links above, it is true, something they could not dispute.

The reason for the success of wind power in Texas is economics, which is another fact that may be surprising to some. Fossil fuels are a major source of income for us in Texas, but everyone also wants to save money. Texas has its own electric grid, it’s deregulated, and organized along free market principles.

When companies sell their energy (to ERCOT) it works like a continuous auction. The one with the lowest price is picked first and allowed to contribute with whatever they are able to and also, of course, considering what the grid-powerlines can carry safely. Naturally, the price of wind in Texas includes federal subsidies, which make it even cheaper.

However, all energy sources are subsidized, and fossil fuels have a long history of government subsidies. Below is the average unsubsidized levelized cost of energy according to Lazard. Levelized means that construction costs, land rent, and other costs not directly caused by electricity generation are taken into consideration. Notice how cheap wind is (blue line). This is for the United States not just Texas. I don’t have any numbers, but I’ve heard that for Texas solar is the cheapest .

Average unsubsidized levelized cost of energy. Notice that the light blue line indicates that wind power is pretty cheap. Mir-445511, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

Affordability

Windpower is not only relatively cheap. Wind power is one of the most efficient and sustainable energy sources available. The energy required to manufacture, install, and maintain wind turbines is small compared to the energy they produce over their lifespan. This is known as their energy return on investment (EROI), which is quite favorable for wind energy.

The Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA) states that the average wind farm will pay back the energy that was used in its manufacture within 3-5 months of operation. This article in the journal Renewable Energy found that the average windfarm produces 20-25 times more energy during its operational life than was used to construct and install its turbines. It included data from 119 turbines across 50 sites going back 30 years.

False Claims

It is important to be aware that there are many false claims floating around about wind power. The sound from wind power stations does not cause cancer, it does not use any other energy sources while operating; it solely harnesses the kinetic energy from the wind to generate electricity, meaning it only relies on wind to function as its primary energy source. Windpower is not a major cause if bird deaths. To read more about false claims about wind power click here.

There are positive and negative aspects of wind power, like any other source of energy. One issue with wind power (and solar) is that it is an intermittent source of energy. When the wind is not blowing you need other sources of energy (until there is sufficient energy storage). This is less of a problem when you have a mix of energy sources as Texas does.