Depending on how intensely you were focusing on the chicken pesto pizza last time you waited in line in Thorne, you may have noticed the informative cards that were recently posted alongside some of the dining options. These signs state the “carbon footprint” of one serving of a given dish.
At dinner last week, a friend expressed mild annoyance at the cards. If something she really wanted to eat was on the menu that night, she said, it was unlikely that knowledge of the dish’s carbon footprint, however high, would affect her decision to eat it. Conversations about the environmental impact of food are often touchy, and I’m sure that many of our peers would agree with her statement.
A carbon footprint is the measure of how much carbon dioxidemust be released into the atmosphere in order to bring a particular product to the consumer, who can then eat it, wear it, or play Candy Crush on it. These footprints have become a concern because mass consumption of carbon-intensive products contributes directly to global climate change.
But let’s say that you buy into the “green” lifestyle. Maybe you pledged to only buy local organic produce and pasture-raised meat and tote it home in your Fair Trade cotton bags, tucked lovingly into the trunk of your plug-in Prius with a “No Farms No Food” bumper sticker on it. Maybe you are even Al Gore. I don’t know Al Gore but I know people like this, and to live this way you have to be willing and able to pay up.
If you’ve ever noticed the price difference between $3 per dozen conventional eggs from Hannaford and $7 per dozen pasture-raised eggs from Morning Glory, you know that the least carbon-intensive food options are often the most expensive. While some people may be able to afford low-carbon, high-price food, others are not willing or simply cannot afford it. Another friend of mine recently raised the question of whether, in a world where low-carbon food and consumer goods are more expensive, sustainability is a rich person’s game.
It shouldn’t have to be, but it is right now. Healthy, sustainably produced food ought to be available to everyone. However, government subsidies that support industrial farming practices have created a reality where a bag of Doritos is cheaper than a bag of organic carrots, despite the fact that the carrots might come from two miles away and don’t need to travel down a factory line. If not for water subsidies in the American West, ground beef would cost nearly $30 a pound instead of $4. I am not advocating for sky-high food prices, but the fact of the matter is that our views on what constitutes “cheap food” are dictated by artificial constraints that serve the interests of industrial agricultural companies over those of small farmers like the ones in Brunswick and Bowdoinham.
A tax on fossil fuels would solve many of our agricultural system’s problems, as it would seriously tip the scales in favor of locally-grown “whole” food by making other foods—the ones made in factories and trucked in from far away—much more expensive. This, of course, would require a nationwide revival of small-scale farming to ensure that local food would be available, which is a separate issue altogether.
As our agricultural system exists now, foods with higher carbon footprints are often cheaper and more readily available than locally produced, low-carbon food. When concerns about human health, community self-sufficiency, and environmental protection are taken into account, this becomes more than an issue of personal eating habits. It’s a structural problem that affects all of us, whether we know it or not.
So, what do I think about the carbon footprint cards in Thorne? I’d like to see them on more items, especially imported goods like coffee and tea—my two great vices. Ultimately, the modern food system is astoundingly complicated—far more so than most of us are aware—and I don’t think it hurts to be reminded of that. But for now, slap a reminder on that chicken pesto pizza. I think we can handle it.