These are all good, but I’ll add another that could reduce your emissions more than any one of those (especially if you’re a hungry guy): reducing or eliminating your consumption of beef. If you believe that humans need to reduce GHG emissions to minimize the impact of climate change, I believe you will find the reasons to join me as a “non-beefitarian” quite compelling. You may end up switching the slogan from “Beef, It’s What’s for Dinner” to “Beef, the Meat That’s Cooking the Planet.”
For beef, it really comes down to this shocking statistic: One kg of beef is responsible for roughly 14.8 kg of GHGs, compared with 3.8 kg for pork and 1.1 kg for chicken, according to Nathan Fiala of UC Irvine in a 2008 article. In other words, eating beef is about 10 times as bad for the climate as eating chicken!
Of course, 14.8 kg GHG per kg of beef needs some context; it might just be 10 times an insignificant number and itself meaningless. Well, imagine you’re a guy — and guys consume about 75 percent of beef in the U.S. — who eats a quarter-pounder each day. The 300 Calorie quarter-pounders will result in about two-thirds of the emissions in a 2,500 Calorie diet, according to a 2006 University of Chicago study. The Environmental Protection Agency calculates that agriculture accounts for 6.4 percent of all U.S. GHG emissions, about 40 percent of the amount from all our cars, light trucks and SUVs combined.
Once I realized I could not find a similar study, I also attempted to calculate the GHG emissions of a typical student who is on campus for about 30 weeks each year to provide additional context. I discovered that food generally contributes roughly 30 percent of student GHG emissions, but the amount heavily depends upon beef consumption. It seemed quite clear to me that I could forgo eating hamburgers and switch to chicken breasts and other sources of protein if I could eliminate such a significant portion of my direct on-campus GHG emissions.
Other prominent sources of GHGs are dorm heat (55 percent) and electricity (15 percent). Ted Borer, the Energy Plant Manager from the Utility Plant, offered me data about heat use in Little and Scully halls and Housing told me the number of students in each dorm. For electricity, Borer told me the carbon intensity of electricity on campus, and I made a calculation assuming a normal student has two of those pre-installed light fixtures on the wall (52 watts each) and a laptop in use (about 50W) half the time and shares a large minifridge (about 100W) with a roommate.
Given how central computers and electronics are in our lives, it may seem surprising that direct GHG emissions from electricity are only half of those of food consumption. This demonstrates the power of changing one’s eating habits, but it does not mean that students should always leave their lights on just because electricity is not the largest source of GHGs.
Another significant source is transportation, though that depends greatly upon where you live. According to carbonfootprint.com, traveling 1,000 miles by plane has the same impact on the climate as the GHGs from one student’s electricity use during two semesters on campus.
Compared with food, heat, electricity or transportation, emissions from paper are small. The GHG emissions of a student who uses 100 pages of the Boise 100 percent recycled paper each week increase by about 3 percent.
Having a sense of your relative GHG impacts allows you to make informed judgments about lifestyle changes, though you’ll need to figure out how you differ from the averages I’ve identified if you, say, leave up Christmas lights in your room until March.
The information also allows student groups such as Greening Princeton and the USG to prioritize their sustainability efforts, and it can help the Office of Sustainability and Dining Services. GHGs from food choices clearly matter, but it will be difficult to significantly reduce emissions from beef unless food purchasing decisions change in response to a change in student eating habits. Otherwise, the pigs that consume our food waste will just be served more beef that students are not eating.
Speaking of pigs, I think a good rule to keep in mind is Snowball’s from George Orwell’s Animal Farm: “All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others.” As the Princeton Animal Welfare Society accurately explains, if one is concerned about harming sentient beings, then yes, all animals are roughly equal. But in terms of their effects on the climate, some animals leave a much smaller hoofprint than others.
James Coan is a Wilson School major from Kensington, Md. He can be reached at jcoan@princeton.edu.
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