Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and now, our climate story of the week, calling all climatarians. You know who you are. Today, we're talking about a new shift in eating to reduce our impact on the climate. More and more people, especially younger folks, are changing their diets in an effort to align their food consumption with sustainability goals. Agriculture and food systems, you probably know, account for very much. They say up to 29% of greenhouse gas emissions. That's according to the World Bank.

Now, more consumers are trying to do their part to reduce that by encouraging diets that are less reliant on foods that produce a lot of emissions. Foods like red meat, avocados, did you know that? Even coffee are some of the worst culprits. As people make their diets more climate-friendly and new vocabulary for describing these dietary choices is emerging from climatarians to regenivores to sustainatarians, people are starting to create new language to describe their climate-based diets.

Our next guest is here to break it all down and to take your calls. Jennifer Kingson is the chief correspondent for the What's Next Newsletter from Axios. Jennifer, welcome to WNYC.

Jennifer Kingson: Great to be with you, Brian. How are you?

Brian: I'm doing okay. Listeners, climatarians, regenivores, sustainatarians, if you use any of those terms to address your own eating habits, call and tell us what they mean to you and what you eat and what you don't eat. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. To start off, what is a climatarian?

Jennifer: A climatarian is someone who follows a diet that has their carbon footprint, or as they call it foodprint in mind. They choose foods that are lower in carbon, that are better for the planet. It's a label. It's part of a trend towards what we call identity-based diets, where people define themselves by their values. Food production currently contributes to about 26% of global carbon emissions. More and more young people are mindful of this and trying to choose foods that will lower their footprint.

climatarian.com has lots of guidance on this about how you can choose things like pork, poultry, sustainable fish that are actually better for the planet than beef and lamb because of the way they're farmed or raised.

Brian: Do all these words in--?

Jennifer: It's really a throwing number of these labels.

Brian: Go ahead. Before we get into locavores, which listeners, spoiler alert, being a locavore may not be as climate-friendly as you may have assumed. We're going to get into that aspect of the article, but these words, climatarian, regenivore, sustainatarian, do they all mean exactly the same thing or do they mean different things?

Jennifer: Well, there are nuances of meanings and probably a lot of the people who are adopting them just choose their own path. There's a lot of flexibility. There's broad agreements that the vegan diet is highly climatarian to begin with, that eating no animal products is probably the best way to go, but not everybody's willing to take those steps because of taste and what we want to eat every day.

Other options that are perhaps a little less draconian involve being a climatarian or climavore, those are interchangeable terms, or a sustainatarian is someone who looks at how foods were farmed or produced or raised as part of their lens. Reducetarian, this is a niche movement started by a man named Brian Kateman, who is trying to get people to eat less meat for whatever reason, whether it because of animal rights or their own health or the price of meat.

These are all kind of variations on a theme, but the general idea is that consumers are gravitating towards foods that they think are better for the planet and Corporate America is responding. A report from the consulting firm, Kearney predicts that by 2030, our routine food choices will be climate-directed, and that companies that mobilize now will be in the best position to do that. Chains like Chipotle and Panera, and most notably, Just Salad are actually doing something new called carbon labeling that we're likely to hear a lot more about.

They are posting the carbon footprint of some of their dishes on their menus and allowing consumers to choose lower carbon options. At Just Salad, for example, which was a bit of a pioneer in this, they have a climatarian menu that you can choose from on their app or elsewhere, and it includes a super green salad with tofu beyond Tex-Mex salad and a Banh Mi bowl. I think we're likely to see a lot more of these labels going forward to get more conversant in the language of carbon as people grow more concerned about this.

Brian: How do they label the carbon footprint at those restaurants? I know if you see food labeling at fast food chains or wherever, it'll say, the number of calories, some label say the amount of sodium or saturated fat, other things that are required on labels of foods we buy in stores. What metrics are they actually using on menus to refer to the climate footprint?

Jennifer: It's a kilogram and carbon-based system that is opaque to those of us who are new to it, but that we will likely grow more conversant in as these labels grow more omnipresent. There's a host of websites and apps now, a growing number really, where people can go to either calculate their own carbon footprint overall or specifically of their food. climatarian.com allows you to do this. There are apps like GreenSwap that you can go to the supermarket and try to buy 100% climate-neutral groceries.

There's an app called Kuri that lets you do meal planning that it says is climate-friendly. They call themselves the climate-friendly answer to what's for dinner. Just Salad, the chain, uses a service or a website called Planet FWD, that's forward with an FWD, is a carbon management platform for consumer brands. You can go in and see what brand you use, not just in food, but in other products like clothing and so forth. The Planet FWD looks at the cradle-to-grave emissions of every ingredient on a menu item, as well as the packaging that's used to serve it to you.

It's a comprehensive way to compare things that you might buy or eat based on their suitability for planet health.

Brian: Before we go to some calls and climatarians, show us your diets here on our climate story of the week, or ask a question of our guest, Jennifer Kingson, chief correspondent for the What's Next Newsletter from Axios. She has written up an article about climatarians, regenivores, sustainatarians, all these new words for people who are trying to eat with the climate in mind. 212-433-WNYC, if that includes you or if you have a question, 212-433-9692 or tweet @BrianLehrer. Before we go to the phones, I mentioned that I would ask you about climatarian versus locavore.

Of course, one of the most popular climate diet slogans for quite a few years now has been to eat local. Eat local came out of the idea that transportation costs in emissions terms are a huge part of what comes to the climate that's bad from agriculture and other kinds of food production, but you in your article draw a contrast and say being a climatarian is, to some degree, at odds with the idea of being a locavore as the guiding principle of your diet. Can you elaborate on that?

Jennifer: I think that locavores, people who choose their diet based on what's grown nearby, are kind of a subset of climatarians. The climatarian label recognizes that transportation is just one aspect of what goes into making your food and how the food is made or grown or raised, whether it uses sustainable agriculture, whether the land that is used to grow your coffee beans, for example, is taken to reduce biodiversity or whether there are ethical farming principles and labor practices used in the raising of your crops.

On the animal side, meat is a big villain among both locavores and climatarians in general because of the way beef and goats are raised for food. I'd say that locavores are kind of an old label and the climavore and climatarian labels which are interchangeable are coming to the fore. Interestingly, climavore traces its roots to the UK where a pair of performance artists did an exhibition on climavores that appeared in the Tate Museum. They showed how factory-farmed salmon emerged not pink the way salmon are supposed to look, but gray.

Their exhibition was so dramatic that it got factory-farmed salmon off the menu at the museum and other places in England, and the term radiated. That's one of the origin stories behind the name and the movement.

Brian: Let me read a tweet that's kind of pushed back, I think not so much against you, but against what you described that some restaurants are trying to do, and see if you've heard this before. Listen to rights, "The notion of carbon footprinting food content at a restaurant is bogus, false, misleading, and dishonest. Money spent is a far more accurate measure of the CO2 produced per dollar by the world economy delivering goods, roughly 16 ounces per dollar."

I don't understand all of that, but the idea at the beginning that the notion of carbon food content at a restaurant is bogus, I guess she's accusing it of being greenwashing. Have you heard any criticism along those lines of what they're doing?

Jennifer: Absolutely, Brian. This is a somewhat controversial topic. Interestingly, after my article on this was published, I got an avalanche of reader mail. Some of it trying to point out new options for plant-based foods that are climate-friendly, but a lot of it saying the same things as that tweet, calling it a bunch of bunk or greenwashing when you consider that people go to conferences to discuss climatarian topics and that flying there produces a lot of carbon. That's one question mark that might be raised about how much good you're actually doing for the planet if you eliminate avocados, coffee, meat, and so forth from your diet.

Some readers wrote to me saying that people who do this are sanctimonious or high maintenance or needy. Perhaps the more substantive question is how much you're actually contributing to planet health by making these choices. Is it just a kind of feel-good thing? Is it greenwashing because companies are known to seek out questionable certifications for their farming or animal husbandry practices? The label organic and other labels are thrown around somewhat haphazardly with little regulatory oversight.

There are a lot of questions about how much good this does, similar to the whole recycling movement that you could look at it as every little bit counts, and that's good. The idea of trying to combat global warming is a good thing, or you can say that it's just a bunch of corporate marketing. Both views are out there. We're likely to see this debate continue as this trend plays itself out.

Brian: Sharon in Livingston, New Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sharon. Thanks for calling in.

Sharon: Thanks. I'm a very long-time listener, addictive listener, and first-time caller. I'm just proud to say that I have a 15-year-old and now a 13-year-old, who are both climavores. The 15-year-old been doing this since he was 13, and my younger son just became a climavore for his bar mitzvah. It's tricky though, because every meal, we all have to figure out which foods are actually reducing our carbon emissions.

There's a lot of greenwashing out there, they don't eat meat, but when it's other fruits and vegetables and grains and where it comes from, what the packaging is, how much water is being used to grow these things, where in the world it's coming from? It's very tricky. There's a lot of conversation at our house as to what is actually reducing our carbon emissions, but I'm proud that at least my two young sons are on this path.

Brian: That's cool. Do they use the word climatarian?

Sharon: They don't. They do not, but I just texted them the words and I'm sure they will start to. My older son is the policy director of a Climate Group, and I think he will start to use that word now since he writes a lot of the marketing communications.

Brian: That's really great.

Jennifer: That's so interesting.

Brian: Go ahead, Jennifer.

Jennifer: It's fascinating, and I imagined that dinner table conversations in your household are an interesting minefield, but there's so much debate. As I was researching this topic, I was finding out that individual plants like almonds are such a lightning rod for disagreement over how much they actually contribute to climate change. Almonds are obviously a very water-intensive plant. During the California drought, they become villains for the amount of water they suck up, but farmers who haven't abandoned the crop entirely are fighting back by trying to use less water. Is almond milk something that's good or bad for you to eat if you're a climatarian? Opinions may differ.

Sharon: We are listening from California and do not drink milk for that reason because of water-intensive-- [crosstalk]

Brian: You don't drink almond milk for that reason.

Sharon: No.

Jennifer: What about coffee? What do your children say about coffee? Were they [unintelligible 00:16:48] coffee because of the climatarian arguments?

Brian: Oh, I think usually a 13-year-old says about coffee, "Eww, ma," but Sharon, how about your kids?

Sharon: One of them loves coffee, but he knows he shouldn't, so that's a tricky minefield. It really is.

Brian: Sharon, thank you so much for your call. I really appreciate it. Jennifer, tell us more about the coffee story from a climatarian standpoint.

Jennifer: One study that I saw produced research that said that a pound of roasted coffee produces an average of 11 pounds of carbon. What that means for us is that if you have one cup of coffee every day, it's calculated that in a year, you may produce as many greenhouse gas emissions as driving a car 400 miles. That's one cup a day for a year. The issue is not just the carbon emissions from the crops, but the coffee industry is plagued by human rights abuses and environmental issues, such as water pollution and habitat destruction.

There are all kinds of social issues affiliated with the growth of coffee beans that are parenthetical to the actual carbon production of the crop itself. There's a lot of debate around all those issues, too. That's why coffee on every level is everybody's favorite water cooler topic.

Brian: Janine in Bergen County, you're on WNYC. Hi, Janine.

Janine: Hi, I love your program, love your show. To address something, is it Sharon? Hello.

Jennifer: I'm Jennifer. Sharon, the last caller, yes.

Janine: I'm sorry, Jennifer. From my perspective, I'm a social worker. I work with a lot of different populations, and I guess what comes to my mind is the disparity, if you will, of where people can even get food, to begin with, and fresh food and food that is, yes, shall we say sustainable when they don't have access? We look at 20% of children in our country who are food insufficient. I don't mean to go off-topic, it feels a little bit like a niche to me, but it is an amazing movement and I fully support it. I've started not drinking so much coffee, but it's hard to reconcile. Those two problems, like we've got two major problems of accessibility for people to be able to choose these foods to be able to afford them, and then how they can't even get-- there's not even a good supermarket near them. They have to go to these very small bodegas or markets that don't carry these kinds of climate-conscious foods and sustainability, I think recycling needs a whole lot more work and packaging.

To go with that, I take my own little-- I bought them online, these bags that I take with me to get my own fruits and vegetables. I put them in these reusable bags, A, because I can't open those ridiculous plastic ones in the store and I hate using those, I don't want to use those. If we're going to go forward, I just like to consider that as a whole minded approach to looking at both sides of this and how could we possibly [inaudible 00:20:35] that.

Brian: That's great, Janine. Thanks for raising both halves of that. How about the accessibility question, and that would go with the expense question too, does it cost more to eat as a climatarian?

Jennifer: You make such an important point. Food deserts, where people, particularly people in low-income communities that have trouble accessing fresh foods because it's just not grown near them. That's a major problem. It almost makes the climatarian lens feel like a luxury which can be for some people. Clearly, it's much harder if you're in a subsistence mode to be able to make these choices which are easier if you're able to afford the takeout salads and the food chains that I mentioned earlier, and so forth.

I imagine that these labels that people are applying are a bit niche but as with so many food trends, once they start to catch hold, they become more of an ethos that permeates the culture and become symbolic of efforts to eat more sustainably that one can apply at one's own price and budget point to the extent you can. If you look at them as flexible rules and labels that make you choose sustainably grown salad over a meal of beef wellington, then that's just a guiding principle that you can use wherever you're able to shop.

Your point is an important one, that one of the biggest problems our country confronts particularly in this era of inflation is the affordability of food and diet.

Brian: She mentioned packaging. Does that come into play in anybody's climatarian or sustainability food ratings?

Jennifer: Yes, absolutely. Just salad, for example, make sure that the packaging is included in its carbon labels. The more we hear about carbon labels, the more I think we're going to start learning more about the packaging choices that companies are making as they continue to shed plastic in favor of recyclables. That's going to be a big thing coming into play here. We're just starting to see the beginning of that and that the way the food is raised and grown is perhaps further along than the packaging question.

Brian: We've got two minutes left in the segment. I want to read one more tweet from a listener who backs up with a social worker caller says that talking about climatarians individually overlooks the bacon privilege and classism that are inherent and says these are issues that need systemic solutions, not simply house-to-house band-aids, and obviously that's true. Are there systemic pro-climate food policies that are being inaccurate or under consideration?

Jennifer: I am sure that the groups that are pushing these sustainable options are doing so. I don't know specifically what's happening on Capitol Hill on this front, but I do know that a lot of change is being driven by big corporations that see the consumer appeal of this whether they're acting for honorable and heartfelt motives and trying to address it or whether they're just trying to go where the consumers want them to go.

It probably doesn't make a huge bit of difference but I think that the power of huge food manufacturers to affect change will be where we start to see this if they see that people care about the climate choices in what they eat and what they buy, then companies are going to make changes hopefully, that are meaningful and substantive as well as cosmetic and marketing oriented. That will lead what's in the marketplace and hopefully what legislators are looking at.

Brian: Yes, I think that reinforces the idea that personal responsibility, individual choices, household to household also matter. They put pressure on companies to deliver more systemic change, as you say, if they think consumers want it, and we're all responsible for our choices to the extent that we have options based on finances as well. We leave it there for our climate story of the week with Jennifer Kingson, that's like Kingston, but without the T, who is chief correspondent for the What's Next Newsletter from Axios. Thank you so much.

Jennifer: Thank you, Brian. Great to be here.

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