Carbon Neutral on the tip of your tongue

  Do you really know about carbon neutrality? Do you really know how to reduce carbon emissions? In fact, in most people's eyes, how to reduce carbon emissions is something that companies and factories in various fields need to solve, and is not much related to our lives.

  The important way to reduce carbon emissions

  After China put forward the goal of "carbon peak, carbon neutral", all industries have made changes in low carbon transformation, the concept of "carbon emissions" has entered our life, and various low-carbon products have appeared in this way. Of course, this includes the aluminum-clad wood air-conditioning windows in the home of Mori Kitty Hawk.

  There is no doubt that reducing carbon emissions from an industrial perspective is an important prerequisite for achieving "carbon neutrality", but it is certainly not the only one. In addition to corporate-led measures to reduce carbon emissions, it is also important to reduce carbon emissions from our own food, clothing, housing and transportation.

  Today, let's discuss how to achieve carbon neutrality from the perspective of food.

  Carbon emissions of food throughout its life cycle

  Before that, let's understand how the carbon emissions of different types of food compare.

  The graph above shows an analysis of a study published in Science in 2018, which takes into account all factors that go into food production, including the land needed for production, the farming process, and the transportation and marketing processes.

  It is easy to see that the carbon emissions of meat foods far exceed those of vegetarian foods, with beef and lamb "leading the way" in carbon emissions.

  The main reason for the high carbon emissions of beef and lamb is that they are ruminants with four stomachs, which produce a lot of methane when digesting food, and their "contribution" to the greenhouse effect is much larger than carbon dioxide, up to 20 to 30 times.

  In addition, the farming of cattle, sheep and other animals requires a lot of deforestation. This is one of the main reasons for the excessive deforestation in the world, including in the Amazon. At the same time, raising cattle requires large amounts of pasture, which means that farmers often use nitrogen fertilizers to promote pasture growth. And the production of nitrogen fertilizers leads to the release of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide (N2O).

  So it's still very good to be a vegetarian when we want to reduce carbon emissions from the food we consume itself. If you are a meat eater, it is also fine to properly circumvent high carbon emission foods such as beef and lamb.

  Promote the carbon footprint of CD-ROM

  According to the "Carbon Calculator" launched by the "I Love Green" environmental protection website, for every 1 kg of food cooked, the carbon emission of vegetarian food such as apples and potatoes is about 0.3 kg, fish and pork is about 1.4 kg, and beef is 6.4 kg.

  As you can see, in addition to the above carbon emissions for the process of growing and selling food, cooking food also generates carbon emissions. In this case, the question arises, that is, whether the carbon emissions released can really be of value? Is there a duplication of carbon emissions?

  According to the United Nations Agri-Food Organization (FAO), one third of the world's food intended for human consumption is lost and wasted, amounting to about 1.3 billion tons of food loss and waste per year (FAO).

  According to the Institute of Geographical Sciences and Resources of the Chinese Academy of Sciences & WWF, per capita food waste in China's restaurant industry is 93 grams per person per meal, with a waste rate of 11.7%, large parties waste 38%, and 1/3 of student box lunches are thrown away.

  When we translate food waste into carbon emissions when food is raised and cooked, it is easy to see how important the CD-ROM initiative really is.

  Carbon Neutrality on the Tip of Your Tongue

  In summary, we have a good understanding of how to reduce our own carbon emissions from the perspective of "food" to help achieve the goal of "carbon neutrality", right? One of the ways is to be a vegetarian or a meat eater with high carbon emissions. Secondly, it is probably more important to practice good CD-ROM action and let the food give full play to its value.

  In our daily life, we are releasing carbon dioxide to the outside world all the time, but this is indispensable for human survival and life, so all we can do is to adopt a low carbon emission form of life under the premise of ensuring survival, so as to help achieve carbon neutrality and make our life better and better!