A Beginning

In December 1972, the Apollo 17 mission was on its way to the moon. As the astronauts looked back at Earth, they were greeted by a spectacular sight: Our planet, fully lit against the darkness of space. The photograph would become one of those images that many of us know and recognize.

“Blue Marble” shows not only our planet, but also our environment: at the top you can see the Sahara, at the bottom the ice sheet of the South Pole. The photo is more than fifty years old, and in that time global warming has accelerated. The poles are melting, and for some years now many people have been talking about a “climate crisis” rather than “climate change”.

We now have a better understanding of what is driving global warming and how we can slow and limit climate change, but action is lacking. The problem is huge and complex, and there is no simple solution - many elements of our economic system and our daily lives influence global warming. Our diet is one component. We won’t be able to stop global warming just by eating differently - but we can at least try to eat in a way that minimizes our impact.

With this blog I would like to make a contribution. I have been trying to find information on how to eat in a climate-conscious way. There are now several scientific studies that look at the carbon footprint of food, but relatively little concrete information on how to apply this in everyday life. That’s what this blog is about: I’ll be looking at recipes that are delicious and compare them with each other. These recipes should be an invitation for you to cook them!

This carbon footprint will certainly be an approximation and not accurate to the last gram: I’ll have to make do with estimates, but the order of magnitude should be about right. It’s not about being perfect, it’s about doing better than before, step by step.

The Blue Marble photo was the beginning of a better realization of how vulnerable our planet is. In that sense, it is also an apt symbol for the beginning of this blog.