By Peter Nix

After our last week meeting, we calculated our families total carbon footprint using “carbon calculators” such as http://calc.zerofootprint.net/. The four major sources of carbon emissions for our group were: 1) transportation (cars, airplanes), 2) electricity, 3) home heating and 4) eating habits.

Many in our group had carbon emissions substantially less than the Canadian individual average of about 10 tonnes per year, some as low as two or three tonnes per year. These low values reflected a “low carbon emission life style” such as living in apartments or small houses, driving fuel efficient cars, buying local food and/or using vegetable gardens, using fuel-efficient furnaces and lowering thermometers.

I learned that eating habits are a large part of my family’s carbon footprint, likely because we are not vegetarians and eat many dairy products. According to “Kick the Habit”, the United Nations Guide to Carbon Neutrality, food production worldwide account for almost one third of total greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.

The livestock industry alone contributes 18 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gases. One cow produces about 3.5 tonnes of methane per year — releasing more greenhouse gas equivalents than driving 40,000 km in our hybrid car. Holy cow!

Most food-related greenhouse gases result from a complex chain of energy-related events such as the use of oil-based fertilizers, power to irrigate and tend crops or livestock, the production of insecticides, and finally, packaging and transporting the food to us.

I am sure that organic farmers would protest my use of the word “need”, and rightly so.

In the long-term, what we really “need” is a sustainable food production system.

Scientists say that if we want our children and grandchildren to enjoy our quality of life, we must start reducing our carbon emissions – now! So in terms of our food, the best action you can do is eat more vegetarian and buy more locally grown foods grown as organically as possible; that is, using less gas and oil products.

We did discuss briefly the 100-mile diet; that is, eating only food produced from within that radius. This concept is useful as a general guide, but we thought it unrealistic in terms of a total commitment. For example, there will never be enough agricultural land on Vancouver Island to produce the wheat needed to make our toast for breakfast, let along sandwiches for lunch.

After all, global trading of food has existed for thousands of years, like the spice trade from Asia. Ideally, we could still have a worldwide trade in essential foods, but use non-carbon-emitting energy for its transport, like trucks powered by electricity. Did you know that there already are ships out there that use giant sails to supplement their energy needs? A sustainable future is possible.

On the other hand, winter vegetables like broccoli and kale, could be grown here more successfully than most people realize – in the garden or in simple “hoop” green houses. There are also farmers markets as well as local farms, which sell food directly from the farm gate.

However, money matters. Many mass-produced foods transported to us are definitely cheaper than local foods – maybe even if you include the real but elusive damage from carbon emissions by those big trucks. For example, my two boys eat lots of cheese and yogurt. If we switched to local cheese, our food costs would increase substantially. But hey, we could compromise and make our own yogurt from local milk instead of buying it.

Most Carbon Busters felt that reducing carbon emissions by changing our eating habits was very possible for the average person. If people do this, we can have huge collective impact on reducing carbon emissions. And we would also reduce our dependency on fossil fuels which are getting more and more pricey and which are definitely going to disappear in the future anyway.

I had championed this common sense idea of a more vegetarian eating habit in a newspaper column this past year. However, when my wife and I attended an outdoor dinner theater at the Cherry Point Winery, I failed to resist a large chunk of roast beef put on my plate by the chef. Sure enough, the climate change gods got me — a man seated right beside me pointed out in a loud, but friendly, voice that “wasn’t this the Peter Nix who advocates vegetarianism?”

So as a Carbon Buster, I got myself busted! Ah well, we must have fun in life and if that means breaking the rules every so often, then so be it.

Peter Nix is one of group of several Cowichan residents attempting to reduce their carbon footprint during a 10-week pilot project. Look for weekly updates on Cowichannewsleader.com.