What’s the True Price of a School Lunch?

An emerging body of research aims to put dollar figures on the environmental costs of foods we eat everyday.

When government agencies are choosing how to spend tax dollars, they typically have one primary benchmark: Who can deliver goods or services at the cheapest price.

But researchers are pushing governments to re-evaluate. They argue that some goods, particularly certain foods, may have a lower price tag, but may impose additional costs, such as the loss of species as cropland takes over habitat or the greenhouse gases from cow burps.

For years, economists have been developing a system of “true cost accounting” based on the growing body of evidence about the environmental damage caused by different types of agriculture. Now, emerging research aims to translate this damage to the planet into dollar figures.

In an article published today that I wrote with Manuela Andreoni and Catrin Einhorn, we explain what real world prices might look like if these environmental harms were factored into the prices of proteins we eat everyday, such as beef and tofu.

Accounting for these hidden costs could change the way governments decide what to buy, and those decisions could have implications for human health, biodiversity and more.

Consider school lunch.

Apples transported over long distances might cause more air pollution, for example, which ends up causing costly respiratory conditions that might have been avoided. Milk from dairies in areas with low rainfall might deprive other users of scarce water. Serving hamburgers supports an industry that generates planet-warming methane, accelerating extreme weather events that destroy homes and kill people.

Add up all those extra hidden costs, and local, plant-based menus might start to look like a better way to spend government money. A team at Cornell University is trying to get New York State to incorporate the full scope of those costs into the $1.3 billion it spends buying food every year.

“What we’re trying to do is build the labor and environmental externalities into a tool that allows for computation of a ‘net cost,’ and argue that’s the big cost that public agencies should use in making their decisions,” said Todd Michael Schmit, a professor at Cornell’s SC Johnson School of Business who focuses on agricultural marketing.

The tool that Dr. Schmit’s team is developing isn’t just about the environment. It also favors New York vendors, on the proposition that buying local supports the businesses that pay taxes back to the state. Another feature adds more cost for goods that were likely produced with prison labor. If adopted, bidding on public contracts would require more documentation about sourcing and supply chains.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s State Council on Hunger and Food Policy expressed support for the idea, and the Cornell researchers are currently introducing their portal to state agencies for comment. Mario Herrero, a Cornell professor who is working on the tool, said the agencies seemed open to trying it, but that legislation might be necessary to fully implement it.

One obvious difficulty: The tool’s recommendations might suggest buying more expensive, climate-friendly food, but the benefits might not show up immediately, or ever, in the form of fiscal savings for the state.

The effort draws on a larger movement. International institutions have supported extensive research on how to take all these hidden costs, both social and environmental, into account. Last year, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization pegged the global hidden costs of food systems at $10 trillion in 2020 dollars.

In our article, we wanted to distill those costs down into the kinds of choices that consumers might make at the grocery store every day, and we asked True Price, a Dutch organization that has been working on just that, to help. We hope you will make time to read it.

It’s a preliminary effort, and because food producers aren’t required to disclose this kind of information, the researchers have to stitch together academic research and broad national averages. That’s why projects like Cornell’s are important: They could provide more data to help governments buy things that don’t end up costing them more money in unpredictable ways.

Read the full article.

U.S. methane emissions rise again

The United States’ booming fossil-fuel industry continues to emit more and more planet-warming methane into the atmosphere, new research shows, despite a U.S.-led effort to encourage other countries to cut emissions globally.

Methane is among the most potent greenhouse gases, and “one of the worst performers in our study is the U.S., even though it was an instigator of the Global Methane Pledge,” said Antoine Halff, a co-founder of Kayrros, the environmental data company that issued the report. “Those are red flags.”

Many of the world’s efforts to combat climate change focus on reducing carbon dioxide emissions, which result largely from the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, and whose heat-trapping particles can linger in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. But methane’s effects on the climate, which have earned it the nickname “super pollutant,” have become better appreciated recently, with the advent of more advanced leak-detection technology, including satellites. — Max Bearak

Read the full article.

Floods wreak havoc across four continents

Chad. Vietnam. Austria. The American South.

In disparate regions of the world, extreme rainfall in recent weeks has killed thousands of people, submerged entire towns, set off landslides and left millions without power. It’s a an example of the wild weather events that are a hallmark of climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, and it is highlighting the need to urgently adapt, in rich and poor countries alike.

Bursts of extreme rainfall are making both coastal and riverine flooding more dangerous and unpredictable.

“Extreme events are getting stronger everywhere, so we should expect floods to be bigger regardless of where we are,” said Michael Wehner, a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “There is no question that these kinds of floods all over the world are getting worse.” — Austyn Gaffney and Somini Sengupta

Read the full article.

More climate news:

• The Washington Post calculated the hidden environmental costs of A.I.
• How the Federal Reserve’s interest rate cut could help renewable energy, according to Heatmap News.
• The U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, told a Financial Times podcast why he thinks the organization still matters in the effort tackle global challenges like climate change.
• ProPublica interviewed scientists for the Environmental Protection Agency who said that they were victims of retaliation during the Trump administration after their managers pressured them to downplay harms from chemicals.

Thanks for being a subscriber.

Read past editions of the newsletter here.

If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Browse all of our subscriber-only newsletters here. And follow The New York Times on Instagram, Threads, Facebook and TikTok at @nytimes.

Reach us at climateforward@nytimes.com. We read every message, and reply to many!

Our Coverage of Climate and the Environment

• Climate F.A.Q.: Do you have questions about climate change? We’ve got answers.
•  Colorado Cowboys and Conservationists: The members of a self-described ragtag group had little in common, but their campaign against drilling leases could serve as a model for future environmental efforts.
• Climate Lawsuits: The courts around the world have become one of the most important battlegrounds in the fight over planet-warming emissions. Here are some prominent cases to watch.
• Landslide Potential: Almost 44% of the United States could experience a landslide, according to new data from government scientists. Some of those potential landslides could be catastrophic, but no one knows when they could happen.
• Green Washing, Not Greenwashing: The suds that go down the drain when doing laundry can be harmful to wildlife. We’ve got tips on how to clean clothes and support nature.
• Ask NYT Climate: Will A.I. ruin the planet or save it? The technology is a notorious energy hog, but it could speed the global transition to cleaner power.