Many people will be pleasantly surprised to learn that eating beans can improve the climate – and reduce emissions!

‘To understand why the climate impact of beef alone is so large, note that the image at the top of this story is a sea of soybeans in a silo in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest. The beans belong to a feed lot that holds 38,000 cattle, the growth and fattening of which means dispensing 900 metric tons of feed every day. Which is to say that these beans will be eaten by cows, and the cows will convert the beans to meat, and the humans will eat the meat. In the process, the cows will emit much greenhouse gas, and they will consume far more calories in beans than they will yield in meat, meaning far more clearcutting of forests to farm cattle feed than would be necessary if the beans above were simply eaten by people.’

Source: If Everyone Ate Beans Instead of Beef | The Atlantic

‘Big Basin — and big swaths of California — are still recovering from historic wildfires that ravaged the state this year, displacing tens of thousands of people and wildlife, burning more than 4 million acres and killing at least 33 people. They also ripped across groves of giant, coastal, old-growth redwoods here in the Santa Cruz Mountains. And while these trees are incredibly resilient, there’s concern that even they may find it harder to rebound amid the mounting impacts of climate change.’

Source: California’s Ancient Redwoods Face New Challenge From Wildfires And Warming Climate : NPR

‘Scientists with the Copernicus Climate Change Service said that global temperatures in November were 0.1 degree Celsius (about 0.2 degree Fahrenheit) above the previous record-holders, in 2016 and 2019. November 2020 was 0.8 degree Celsius (or 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the average from 1981 to 2010.’

Source: November’s Global Temperatures Are Highest Ever, Breaking Records – The New York Times