As I started thinking about this piece in January, wildfires had begun ravaging Los Angeles. By the time I had written it, entire neighborhoods had been wiped off the map, from fires that were among the most destructive in California’s history.
While the current administration may blame “woke” DEI environmentalists for the blazes, science shows that the climate crisis contributed to the severity of the damage. Meanwhile, the administration is decimating the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the country’s premier climate research institution.
“Fossil fuel producers continue to shapeshift to shirk responsibility and find new avenues for oil and gas. They’ve got their eyes on one: the food system.”
Most of us didn’t need another reminder that the climate crisis is not a future to fear, but a reality on our doorstep. We are heartbroken for those who have lost everything, and angry and frustrated that our political leaders have failed to confront the driving force behind the crisis: the fossil fuel industry.
The political headwinds we’re facing make it all the more challenging, enabling fossil fuel producers to continue to shapeshift to shirk responsibility and find new avenues for oil and gas. They’ve got their eyes on one: the food system.
The food system is responsible for an estimated one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions driving this crisis. One key reason: the industrial food chain and its ultra-processed foods are deeply dependent on fossil fuels.
Consider, if you will, a simple bag of potato chips with a not-so-simple origin story. At nearly every step of this ultra-processed food’s path from the field to the grocery store, fossil fuels are key. Growing vast monocultures of potatoes requires synthetic fertilizers whose production requires massive amounts of energy. It also necessitates petroleum-based pesticides, from fungicides to herbicides, to ward off weeds and stop sprouting. Irrigation and farm equipment also depend on fossil fuels.
Most processing facilities still rely on non-renewable energy to power the machinery for sorting, washing, trimming, slicing, blanching, frying, and seasoning. Fossil fuels provide the raw materials for the plastics in packaging, and, typically, the power to transport those chips to distribution centers and supermarkets, corner stores, vending machines—wherever you find them.
And that’s just potato chips. Fossil fuels are used throughout our food system—across much of the foods produced by the industrial food chain. By one estimate commissioned by my organization, Global Alliance for the Future of Food, food systems account for at least 15 percent of annual global fossil fuel consumption. (Though, we stress, this is a rough estimate, since assessing usage around the world is exceedingly challenging; we need more and better data.)
The analysis found that 42 percent of that total fossil fuel consumption comes from processing and packaging stages, largely driven by the global rise of ultra-processed food. Another 38 percent comes from retail consumption and waste; and the rest is from industrial inputs (like pesticides and fertilizer) and agriculture production. To paraphrase grocery industry expert Errol Schweizer in the podcast Fuel to Fork, which my organization helps produce, fossil fuels are the lifeblood of the food system.
Fossil fuels are on track to be an even bigger presence in our food system. The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), a nonprofit environmental organization, warns that as sectors like transport are decarbonizing, the fossil fuel industry has its sights on food, particularly through petrochemicals. CIEL notes that an estimated 74 percent of all petrochemicals are already used for agricultural fertilizer and plastic.
The International Energy Agency projects that by 2050 half of all oil and gas will be used for petrochemicals. Based on current levels, 40 percent of that will be going into our food system in the form of plastics and fertilizers.
