Climate change and summer barbecues—the two go together like a bike ride during a hailstorm.
So, what do the two have in common and why must we talk about them in the same breath? To understand, we must first talk about climate change.
Since the industrial revolution, we’ve been relentlessly adding chemicals, known as greenhouse gases, into the Earth’s atmosphere. They’re coming from plastic-making factories, cars, airplanes, landfills and even the livestock we eat! These gases act like a blanket, trapping heat in our atmosphere, and disrupt our usual climate.
But we can help—by having better barbecues! Here’s why: according to scientists from the University of Manchester, a typical summer barbecue for four people releases more Earth-warming gases into the atmosphere than an 80-mile trip in your car. That’s a hefty footprint for a burger in the park!
You can reduce this footprint, and thus your personal contributions to mounting heat-trapping gases, by exploring and evaluating how you cook your food, what food you choose to serve and what you’re serving that food on. So, in celebration of summer, here are five ways to reduce your eco-footprint as you fire up the grill!
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1: Use a gas or electric grill instead of charcoal.
The charcoal nuggets used for charcoal-fired grills release carbon dioxide–a major heat-trapping offender–into the air as they burn. According to a 2009 study that compared gas and charcoal grilling emissions, cooking with a charcoal grill emits up to 11 pounds of carbon dioxide per session, whereas grilling with propane gas emits just 5.6 pounds. That’s the difference between gassing up your car to drive 22 miles down the road versus just 8.
2: If you’re grilling meat, swap beef for chicken or pork.
Have you ever heard that cow farts are a major contributor to climate change? As juvenile as that may sound, raising cattle has serious impacts on our climate (for example, cow farts and burps release some major heat-trapping gasses!) and is the reason many scientists suggest reducing how much red meat you’re eating. In fact, studies show the entire process of raising and producing food-ready beef (aka meat for burgers and steaks) produces 11 times more Earth-warming gases than other meats, like pork and chicken.
3: As meats mean emissions, go heavy on the fruits and veggies.
Food products that come from livestock contribute to a whopping one-fifth of all global heat-trapping gas emissions. As such, choosing more veggies and reducing how many animal-based foods you eat is one way to reduce your personal emissions. You can go a step further by buying your fruits and veggies from a local farmer’s market, which reduces how far that food needs to travel from the farm to your plate.
4: Keep food out of the trash.
If you manage to overshoot the appetites of your guests, be sure to compost or take those leftovers home instead of throwing them in the garbage, as meal scraps in landfills emit a highly potent gas called methane. In fact, food waste globally is such a major contributor to the buildup of harmful gases in our atmosphere that if it were a country, it’d be the third largest emitter in the world behind China and the U.S.!
5: Choose reusable plates, cups and cutlery—and encourage others to do the same!
When serving up your barbecue dishes, opt for reusable utensils instead of disposables. As we learned in Surge’s Issue newsletter, single-use plastics account for 3.8% of heat-trapping gas emissions across their lifecycle. Avoiding single-use plastic cutlery (among other single-use items) can have far-reaching, positive impacts on our environment and help reduce contributions to climate change. It can also limit plastic pollution piling up in our waterways!
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