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As climate change and sustainability continue to be hot topics in our everyday lives, we can look at our carbon footprint to see how we are impacting the environment around us, both individually and as a society. This week, many of us will be sitting down with family and friends to enjoy our national holiday, Thanksgiving. But amid the joy of turkey dinners and large get-togethers lies the potential for environmental impact.
As scientists, we couldn't help but consider what cooking and traveling on a larger scale could mean for our environment. It turns out that the carbon footprint of our Thanksgiving dinner is dependent upon such seemingly innocuous details as where our meal originated (were the ingredients locally grown or were they shipped in?) and how we travel to our dinner (by car? by plane?). Even the different types of stoves and ovens we use to cook our meals impact our Thanksgiving carbon footprint.
While we certainly wouldn't want to dissuade anyone from enjoying the holiday (we certainly will enjoy it and hope you do as well!), it may be possible to celebrate and include environmental opportunities at the same time. Carnegie Mellon University researchers made that job easier through their own research on Thanksgiving's impact found at the following link. We also share tips on reducing all of our carbon footprints this Thanksgiving in our article below.
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