{"id":369898,"date":"2025-03-14T16:06:55","date_gmt":"2025-03-14T15:06:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=369898"},"modified":"2025-03-14T16:06:57","modified_gmt":"2025-03-14T15:06:57","slug":"the-independent-is-wrong-avocado-consumption-isnt-causing-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=369898","title":{"rendered":"The Independent is Wrong, Avocado Consumption Isn\u2019t Causing Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From ClimateRealism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Heartland Institute<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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By Linnea Lueken and H. Sterling Burnett <\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

The Independent<\/em> published a story reporting on how British television presenter and gardening journalist Alan Titchmarsh urged UK citizens to stop eating avocados because of their alleged climate impact. This is nonsense. As islands, the United Kingdom imports a lot of their food, and, as a result, attempts to limit a carbon footprint are a waste of time and perhaps detrimental to nutrition. Certainly, the carbon footprint of avocado imports is miniscule relative to the UK\u2019s and the globe\u2019s total output. To pile more alarmism on, The Independent<\/em> also suggests that avocado production is likely to decline due to climate change. This is refuted by available data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Independent\u2019s<\/em> post, \u201cWhy Alan Titchmarsh is urging Britons to eat Weetabix<\/a>,\u201d contextualizes Alan Titchmarsh\u2019s claims that avocado consumption is bad for the environment. Titchmarsh, a regionally famous television personality, goes further advising that people should eat \u201ctraditional breakfast staples like Cornflakes, Weetabix, and Shreddies,\u201d instead. According to The Independent<\/em> Titchmarsh links deforestation to avocado production, and points to the carbon footprint associated with shipping and handling for avocados to reach the UK as contributing to dangerous climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of the reasoning behind the grain-based cereal suggestion is that these are more often locally produced, or are at least produced a shorter distance away, as opposed to tropical avocados. But the \u201cfood miles\u201d theory has lately been debunked, as discussed in the Climate Realism<\/em> post \u201cThanks, WBUR, For Explaining \u201cEating Local\u201d Has No Impact on Climate Change<\/a>,\u201d where recent data showed that locally farmed foods almost always had higher carbon footprints than food grown efficiently elsewhere. This might not hold true for a comparison between local mass-produced wheat versus distantly mass-produced avocados, but the formula is not as simple as \u201cdistance equals higher footprint.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Importantly, wheat and avocados have different nutritional profiles so eating processed wheat doesn\u2019t provide the same nutritional benefits as eating avocados and vice-versa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chasing carbon footprints is a waste of time anyway. Individual efforts<\/a> do nothing at all to impact atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Even if the UK ceased imports of all avocados, the amount of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere from shipping in general would not change. Most goods are shipped combined with other goods by sea and air freight, so picking on avocados alone is pointless on the carbon footprint front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With regards to deforestation, if a UK consumer or importer is worried, a simple solution would be to select growers that do not practice mass deforestation to plant avocado trees. More importantly, they could advocate that the country stop demanding<\/a> and importing palm oil for use as a \u201csustainable\u201d fuel source and cooking oil, since copious research indicates it is responsible for widespread deforestation in some of the most biologically diverse and intact tropical forests on earth. Ending palm oil deforestation would do far more to benefit the environment than foregoing the occasional avocado toast with breakfast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Independent<\/em> also suggests that climate change itself is also impacting \u201cthe largest avocado-producing countries.\u201d They cite a study which predicts that Mexico could see avocado growing regions reduced by 31 percent by 2050 even if global warming is stopped. Despite global average temperatures already increasing to 1.5\u00b0C since pre-industrial times, data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization<\/a> (FAO) indicate that avocado production has skyrocketed in Mexico. (See graph below)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since just 1990:<\/p>\n\n\n\n