Geographies of Green Diets

With the discursive onset of “global warming” in the global lexicon, seemingly inconsequential personal choices are subject to questions of ‘Greenness’ (Green indicating an alternative that is better for the environment than the status quo).  In a world that is increasingly linked technologically, economically, and culturally in a complicated web of globalization, your diet (what you eat, not your weight loss plan) raises convoluted issues of scale, politics and environment that are not always so easy to comprehend.

Perhaps the most interesting characteristic of the questions behind a “Green Diet” is how geography is implicated in all aspects.  Whether this is a question of agricultural and land-use practices, of environmental problems or solutions, of scale from the local to global, or of socio-economic, culture or politics, each has a spatial component and consequence.

The United Nations International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management argues in a June 2010 report that, “Current patterns of production and consumption of both fossil fuels and food are draining freshwater supplies; triggering losses of economically-important ecosystems such as forests; intensifying disease and death rates and raising levels of pollution to unsustainable levels.”  The report calls for a controversial shift in global diets to reduce such environmental pressures.  This shift would be away from those including a large amount of animal-based products to those including more vegetable-based foods.  This report was certainly not the first to call for such a dietary shift, another contribution came from well-known author and activist, Michael Pollan who challenged readers to eat whole fresh foods, a little meat, and avoid processed foods.

Yet, after the UN-backed report, there seems to be a resurgence of dialogue over the greenness of our diets.  An author from the Atlantic asks, “Can Meat Eaters be environmentalists?” arguing that the two are not a contradiction.  She has also authored the New York Times article “The Carnivore’s Dilemma” researching the connection between meat and global warming.  An excellent Mother Jones article tackles the “merits of vegetarianism” by taking the question to a panel of experts and to readers, cheekily poised as “Bacon Lovers vs. Soy Huggers.”  This article is an outstanding source for both sides of the debate and includes plenty of interesting, albeit covert, geographical references from trophic structures to cultural preferences.  Another aspect of greening diets comes from the Local Foods movement, dubbed by the USDA as “Know your Farmer, Know your food”, which focuses more on where your food comes from rather that what you eat.  An NPR program and article offers a very interesting once over of the movement, but also of the economic and logistical challenges, combined with the overall reluctance of food distributors to make the change.

Overall, the underlying issues behind these questions have to do with various ‘costs’:  energy costs, food supply costs, economic costs, and environmental costs.  Each of these costs indicates difficulties that can be best understood in a holistic, interconnected way.  Indeed, geographers best understand the human-environment connections behind our diets:

-  How fossil fuel use may be translating into warmer climates;

-  How most crop agriculture is devoted to animal agriculture, creating fossil fuel and economic entanglements in between, and then topping it all off with the addition of more heat-trapping methane into the atmosphere;

-  How the economic networks associated with status quo crop and animal agriculture mean jobs, taxes, and livelihoods to large populations of Midwestern and Central United States;

-  How environmentally costly, both looking back and forward, commercial agriculture has been for native grassland ecosystems and rainforest ecosystems, freshwater supplies, and perhaps for climates throughout the globe.

Discussion Questions:

1. Do you know where your food comes from or how it is produced?  When you are out at your local grocery store, favorite restaurant, school cafeteria, café, farmer’s market, etc. look for clues about where food products come from, how they are produced, and how they are delivered.
2. What do you think about the arguments made in the “Bacon Lovers vs. Soy Huggers” article?  What conclusions can you draw about which diet is greener?  What are some further questions you might have?
3. Think about the connection between food production (meat, vegetables, and processed foods) and climate.  List the various ways that production, distribution, and consumption contribute or neutralize effects on climate.

Sarah Goggin

Concept Caching: Energy Needs in Japan

From our Concept Caching image cache that hopes to promote student spatial awareness by relating specific features on the Earth’s surface with their visual character and GPS coordinates. Through the site photographs and GPS coordinates demonstrate core concepts in geography.  Images are “cached” for viewing by core concept and by region.  Images are certainly useful for introducing visual content to students in all  Geography classes.

This image submitted by H.J. de Blij, exemplifies the great technological, economic, and environmental investment and consideration of global energy security.  A fitting complement to the news stories and Geography Compass article discussed in the post Geography Directions: Energy security.

Geography Directions: Energy Security

From our Geography Directions site reviewing Wiley-Blackwell’s Geography Compass review journal covering the entire discipline.  Keep up with cutting edge academic geography.  These articles may be useful for introducing students to the discipline or may be appropriate for upper division Geography classes.

Our dependence on energy is increasingly fragile. In the US, oil companies are drilling deeper and taking more risks in response to the demand for cheap oil. In April, a Transocean/BP oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded and sank, resulting in a massive oil spill. Regardless of how the situation has been managed, it was the demand for oil that meant that the oil rig, with all its associated risks, was there in the first place. Energy supplied by fossil fuel is becoming more risky to obtain.

Meanwhile, on the Isle of Eigg, off the west coast of Scotland, residents have been urged to use household appliances less as a lack of rain has reduced the amount of electricity generated through hydro-power schemes. Energy supplies are becoming more difficult to sustain.

In Belarus recently, piped gas supplies from Russia were reduced in response to a disagreement over payment for gas and the use of transit pipelines. Energy security is therefore not just a case of the geographical distribution of supply and demand, but is also dependant on complex social processes and international relations.

Michael Bradshaw deals with these themes in an article in Geography Compass, published in 2009. Bradshaw illustrates the multidimensional nature of energy security. For example, climate change policy is driving a reduction in reliance on carbon-based fossil fuels. At the same time, China and India’s rapidly developing economies are increasing their demand for energy, reshaping the challenges of energy security as they add their voices to the debate.

Geographers are well placed to understand the interface of the physical and political drivers of changing energy supply and demand. A key challenge remains in translating this into an understanding of energy security and the policies needed to sustain affordable and sufficient energy supplies.

By I-Hsien Porter
To view the original article please visit the Geography Directions Blog.