Michael Grunwald
Journalist and New York Times contributing writer, author of We Are Eating the Earth: The Race to Fix Our Food System and Save Our Climate. Argues that land, not energy, is the hard part of the climate problem, and that the world has to grow much more food on much less land.
Michael Grunwald did not write this page.
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Our reading
It is false that the world needs no more food and only better distribution of the food it has.
Their wordsThe main argument they trotted out in that article was that we don’t need more high-yield agriculture because we don’t need more food, just better distribution of the food we already have. That’s wrong
- 13 days earlier
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Our reading
Grass-fed organic beef is worse for the climate and the planet than beef finished in a feedlot.
Their wordsWe need better beef - which means more efficient beef, not organic grass-fed beef, which is even worse for the climate and the planet than conventional feedlot-finished beef - but in the rich world we also need to eat less beef.
- 2 months earlier
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Their wordsUnfortunately, making those simple changes is infuriatingly difficult. Global meat consumption keeps rising every year. The world still wastes at least one fourth of its food.
↗It's Hard to Change Our Behaviorsmichaelgrunwald.substack.com
- 20 months earlier
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Their wordsThey suck! But they also feed the world. Half the people alive today would be very not alive if fertilizers manufactured from natural gas weren’t super-sizing our harvests.
↗Farming Needs to Suck Lessmichaelgrunwald.substack.com 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsthe solutions to our food and climate problems need to scale up absurdly quickly.
↗Farming Needs to Suck Lessmichaelgrunwald.substack.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 8 weeks earlier
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Their wordsI explain why in the essay; the TLDR is that they’re energy hogs. The sun is a really awesome source of calories, and it’s kind of dumb not to take advantage of it.
↗The Food Problem Is Bigger Than Lettucemichaelgrunwald.substack.com 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsit’s going to be incredibly difficult, but also incredibly necessary, for the world to produce much more food with much less land.
↗The Food Problem Is Bigger Than Lettucemichaelgrunwald.substack.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsBut vertical farms are not technologies. They’re farms.
↗The Food Problem Is Bigger Than Lettucemichaelgrunwald.substack.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 4 weeks earlier
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Their wordsIt’s not exactly news that the American government’s support for biofuels increases food prices, intensifies global hunger and wastes taxpayer dollars.
↗A Climate Killer Disguised as a Climate Solutionmichaelgrunwald.substack.com 1st of 5 in this piece
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Their wordsBut I think it’s important to tell the whole story, so I have a new piece in the New York Times pointing out that biofuels are also a catastrophe for the climate and the environment.
↗A Climate Killer Disguised as a Climate Solutionmichaelgrunwald.substack.com 2nd of 5 in this piece
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Their wordsan acre of solar panels generates as much energy as 100 acres of corn grown for ethanol.
↗A Climate Killer Disguised as a Climate Solutionmichaelgrunwald.substack.com 3rd of 5 in this piece
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Our reading
The world spends an area larger than California growing under four per cent of its transport fuel.
Their wordsThe world now uses a land mass larger than California to grow less than 4 percent of our transportation fuel.
↗A Climate Killer Disguised as a Climate Solutionmichaelgrunwald.substack.com 4th of 5 in this piece
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Their wordsLand is really good at growing food and storing carbon, but it sucks at growing energy—and fortunately, we have better ways to grow energy.
↗A Climate Killer Disguised as a Climate Solutionmichaelgrunwald.substack.com 5th of 5 in this piece
- 7 weeks earlier
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Our reading
We know how to make cattle much less destructive; what nobody has solved is how to pay for it.
Their wordsGive me a degraded pasture and a bunch of money, and even I can probably increase its beef yields 400 percent. I’m just not sure how to make the bunch-of-money part happen.
↗Beef Sucksmichaelgrunwald.substack.com 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsOur species isn’t going to quit beef anytime soon, so we’re going to have to fix beef.
↗Beef Sucksmichaelgrunwald.substack.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 3 months earlier
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Their wordsMy column is about how we’re going to need plant-based meat, cultivated meat, and all kinds of futuristic genetic engineering to grow enough food to feed humanity without frying the planet.
↗Get Over Your All-Natural Selfmichaelgrunwald.substack.com 1st of 2 in this piece
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Our reading
Changing what food is made of will work better than changing people's minds about what to eat.
Their wordsThe food and climate stuff I write about would be simple if everyone just went vegan, but it turns out to be hard to change hearts and minds, so we’re going to have to change our food.
↗Get Over Your All-Natural Selfmichaelgrunwald.substack.com 2nd of 2 in this piece