We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast

by Jonathan Safran Foer

The four highest-impact things an individual can do to tackle climate change are eat a plant-based diet, avoid air travel, live car-free, and have fewer children. • Of those four actions, only plant-based eating immediately addresses methane and nitrous oxide, the most urgently important greenhouse gases. • Most people are not in the process of deciding whether to have a baby. • Eighty-five percent of Americans drive to work. Few drivers can simply decide to stop using their cars. • For Americans, 29 percent of air travel in 2017 was for business purposes, and 21 percent was for “personal non-leisure purposes.” Businesses must rely more on remote communication, “personal non-leisure” flights must be reduced, and personal leisure flights can and must be cut, but the fact remains that a sizable portion of air travel is unavoidable. • Everyone will eat a meal relatively soon and can immediately participate in the reversal of climate change.