Five Ways to Make Your Food Help Save the Planet

Every action you take in buying foods and beverages has an ecological footprint. There is a CO2 footprint associated with every item you buy. From the transportation of the food item to the fossil fuels spent in the farming, ranching or processing of the ingredients, it all adds up to an "ecological footprint" that's invisible but very real.

How big, exactly, is this ecological footprint? Astonishingly, the eco-footprint of your food is larger than the eco-footprint of the car you drive!

It's also larger than all the energy you use in your day-to-day life (heating hot water for your shower, heating your home, etc.) and all the travel you pursue. In fact, for the average person the food and beverages they consume are the single largest determining factor of their overall ecological footprint.(Source: Cardiff's Ecological Footprint study)

This is tremendously good news because it means that you can greatly reduce your ecological footprint without having to spend a fortune. You don't have to "go solar" to save the planet (although it helps). You don't necessarily need to buy a Prius. The No. 1 thing you can do right now is make new choices in the foods and beverages you purchase and consume.

Making that one change is, without question, the single most powerful thing you can do right now to reduce your ecological footprint. Below, I list the five action items you can follow that will have the most dramatic footprint-lowering effects.

But first, let's answer the question: Why does this matter at all?

Global warming, ocean acidification and more CO2 emissions, of course, are causing a sharp increase in the levels of measurable CO in the atmosphere. It's currently more than 380ppm and rising at an unprecedented rate due to the burning of fossil fuels.

But does this really lead to global warming? Some people (even a few scientists) argue it doesn't. The chemical composition of the atmosphere has no effect on the climate, they say. That position strikes me as quite odd, especially considering the undeniable fact that glaciers and Arctic ice sheets that have been since the industrial revolution are now melting away right before our very eyes (2008 was a devastating year for the melting of polar ice).

Even for those who do not believe CO2 emissions cause global warming, there's another big reason why CO2 emissions matter: Ocean acidification. When CO2 levels rise in the atmosphere, most of that CO2 gets absorbed by the planet's oceans. Because CO2 is slightly acidic, this causes the oceans to become more acidic, too.

Why is that so bad? Because the ocean's creatures can't build coral reefs in acidic water. The acid decomposes their tiny shells. This is partly why we are already seeing disturbing episodes of "coral reef bleaching" around the world. Coral reefs are dying everywhere, and when they die, the entire marine ecosystem is devastated by the loss of life and biodiversity. -naturalnews