It’s easy to believe buying Norwegian salmon or Peruvian blueberries is bad for the environment. Just think about the gas-guzzling airplanes that flew that food to your favorite supermarket!
But as Michael Grunwald writes in his forthcoming book, “We Are Eating the Earth,” the agriculture industry’s climate problem is really about the land.
Our planet has a finite amount of farmland, which has forced farmers around the world to clear rainforests to grow crops for fuel, like ethanol, or feed for cattle — an inefficient, albeit delicious food. Cutting down trees frees the planet-warming carbon stored in their trunks and raises the climate impact of our meals, Grunwald says.
We spoke with Grunwald, a climate journalist and occasional writer for POLITICO, about the need to make more food with less land, his hopes for meat alternatives and what America can learn from Denmark’s agriculture climate policies.
