We Can’t Solve Climate Change Until We Fix Our Food System – CleanTechnica

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Jonathan Foley, a climate solutions scientist and executive director of Project Drawdown, recently gave a TED Talk that lays down some hard truths about the climate impacts of our current food system, saying “… we cannot solve climate change unless we also address the problems of food alongside fossil fuels and energy.” Foley makes the connection between food and climate, and then offers some data-backed approaches that are possible right now — no new technology required — that can effectively reduce the climate impacts of our food system.

When it comes to reducing emissions to address the climate crisis, the food system doesn’t get nearly the attention that clean energy and clean transportation get, but it’s going to take a lot more than solar panels and electric vehicles to “solve” climate change. Our food system has a number of big climate levers that can be pulled starting today, and as Foley concludes, he shares his belief that the challenge is actually “an incredible opportunity.”

“So how are we going to move forward here? Well, I think we actually have an incredible opportunity facing us today. While the food and climate crisis is an enormous challenge, of course, I also see it as an incredible opportunity. And that opportunity is to build an entirely better food system. We could have a food system that truly nourishes the world, today and into the future. We could have a food system that reduces pressure on nature and even help restore some of it. And we could have a food system that actually stops climate change. That’s entirely possible and at our fingertips today. And we could do all of this at the same time.

“And what’s so beautiful today is this is already possible. None of this requires some new technology. It requires us to change. That’s it. And we just need to choose it. But if we do, we can follow the science, and we can collaborate across this whole range of solutions and actually unlock a much better future.”

Jonathan Foley: The problem with food and climate — and how to fix it