Your Bowl of Rice Is Hurting the Climate Too
Rice cultivation could be as bad for global warming as 1,200 coal plants, so why aren’t consumers more bothered?
Rice is the staple food of hundreds of millions of Asians and by far the most polluting grain.
Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg
Eco-conscious consumers are giving up meat and driving electric cars to do their part for the environment, but what about that bowl of rice?
Global rice farming, it turns out, could have the same detrimental effect on global warming in the short term as 1,200 average-sized coal power plants, according to the New York-based Environmental Defense Fund advocacy group. That means the grain is just as damaging over the long term as annual carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in Germany, Italy, Spain and the U.K. combined.