Big Food, Environment, and Climate Change
Chapter 3. Big Food Costs: Environmental Damage, Resource Depletion, and Climate Change
This chapter examines the major challenges, environmental impacts, and sustainability of today’s global agrifood system, including conventional (industrial) agriculture, commercial fishing, and food waste. It discusses how agriculture causes climate change while being shaped by its effects, as warmer temperatures and unstable weather like droughts and floods impact crop productivity and nutrient composition, threatening global food security. It describes how livestock production and factory farms (to make meat, dairy, and eggs) and the agrifood system drive deforestation, emitting greenhouse gases carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, contributing to global warming. It examines water, fertilizers, and pesticides in food production and their relation to dead zones, pollution, soil degradation, and climate change. It scrutinizes the commercial fishing industry, sharing how overfishing and bycatch have diminished biodiversity and disrupted ocean ecosystems. The chapter closes on food waste and food loss, including its magnitude, causes, and impact on climate change and the environment.
Core Topics This Chapter Addresses
Guiding Questions
⮞What is the relationship between agriculture, greenhouse gases, and climate change?
⮞ How do fertilizers contribute to soil erosion and climate change?
⮞ How do pesticides threaten human health and the environment—and are they necessary for food security?
⮞ How much water does agriculture use, and what is a dead zone?
⮞ What’s behind commercial wild-caught fishing—and why do overfishing and bycatch matter?
⮞ How and why is food wasted, and what are the planetary impacts?
The Environmental Cost of Diets
Explore the intersection of environmental impact and food systems in Chapter 3; perfect for environmental sciences, nutritional ecology, and climate-focused courses and investigative journalism.