Anna Lappé is a national bestselling author, widely respected for her work on sustainability and food systems. Her most recent book is Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do about It. Anna lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter. Learn more at www.takeabite.cc.

Unseasonably hot days feel different lately. They don’t just make me feel warm; they make me worried, too. I get to thinking about whether the sweltering is a bellwether of our future. Climate scientists tell us we can’t extrapolate from anecdotal experience like my weather worries, but we now have the data to confirm that spikes in temperature worldwide are indicating an irrefutable fact: the age of climate chaos has begun.

Being aware of the scale of the climate crisis can make us simultaneously want to do something and feel overwhelmed that we can’t possibly reverse this disaster. Thankfully, there’s a lot we can do—from big picture tough-stuff like taking a stand as citizens for forward-looking environmental policies to the most simple act of all: making climate-friendly choices when it comes to the food on our plate.

For the food system—from seed to plate to landfill—is responsible for as much as one-third of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions. The livestock sector alone is responsible for nearly one-fifth of the world's total emissions–that’s more than every gas-guzzling SUV, jet plane, or tanker on the planet combined.

What can we do to support a climate-friendly diet? Here are a few ideas to inspire you. You might already have been making these choices without realizing you were helping the planet.

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