The United Nations says fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas are by far the largest contributors to global climate change, but a new book is taking a look at another culprit: food. Michael Grunwald, author of "We Are Eating the Earth" joins "The Daily Report" to discuss.

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A new book by Michael Grunwald, titled 'We Are Eating the Earth,' investigates the substantial impact of agriculture on global climate change. While fossil fuels remain the largest contributors, Grunwald argues that the land used for food production is also a major factor, with agriculture occupying two out of every five acres of habitable land and driving significant deforestation.

Grunwald discusses the challenges of addressing food-related emissions, noting that solutions for the energy sector are clearer than those for agriculture. He suggests reducing beef consumption, minimizing food waste, and increasing food production efficiency as key strategies. The book also raises the controversial point that intensive farming may be necessary to prevent further deforestation and environmental harm.

New book explores how agricultural practices affect climate change

The United Nations says fossil fuels like coal oil and gas are by far the largest contributors to global climate change But a new book is taking a look at another culprit food We are eating the earth by Michael Grunwald argues that the land we use to grow our food is actually one of the biggest contributors to global climate change and that we will need to expand agricultural production by about 50% if we want to feed the world's population by the year 2050 Michael joins us now. Thanks for being here Thanks much. So what does it mean? Exactly? We are eating the earth Well, really agriculture is eating the earth Right now two of every five acres of habitable land on this planet are either cropped or grazed, right? We are losing Soccer field worth of tropical forest every six seconds and we're losing it to agriculture And why aren't the solutions that are currently in place enough to fix this? Well, look on energy at least we kind of know what we need to do right we need to Have an electrified global economy and clean electricity We're even starting to do it despite what's happening in Washington right now, but food We barely know what we're supposed to do and we haven't made any progress It's about a third of the climate problem, but it's 3% of climate finance and it's like 1% of climate conversations That's really why I wrote the book. How can we fix this growing food issue? You know, I hate to say this on July 4th, but one of the big big answers is we need to eat less beef Beef is like 10 times worse than chicken or pork. It is the major source of deforestation It's a huge part, you know, it's a huge part of our water problems whether it's pollution or water shortages But we also need to waste less food because that wastes the farmland and the fertilizer and the water we use to grow The food that we waste You know so far government really hasn't done much about it. So unlike with energy There's not a lot of progress to roll back But we need to start researching these solutions any other solutions that you include in the book that are worth mentioning Sure. Well, it gets people upset. Is that I talked about how we're gonna need to make more land more food with less land We need to make more food per acre so that we can use fewer acres to make food And sometimes that means the kind of, you know, heavily intensive industrial agriculture that a lot of people don't like But these, you know kind of nice twee organic Sort of kinder and gentler farms if they make less food They're gonna use more land and that means more deforestation and if we're serious about decarbonizing the planet We just can't keep cutting down trees It's like trying to clean your house while you're smashing your vacuum cleaner to bits in the living room, right? You're making a mess, but you're also really ruining your ability to clean up the mess. All right, Michael Garner Oh, thank you for being here. Good luck with the book. Appreciate it. Thanks so much

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv will do "anything" to advance EU accession talks. Zelenskyy spoke alongside Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, President of the European Council António Costa and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen.

Kyiv

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