Less meat is nearly always better than sustainable meat, to reduce your carbon footprint
Plant-based protein sources still have a lower footprint than the lowest-impact meat products.
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Very little of global food is transported by air; this greatly reduces the climate benefits of eating local
Transporting food by plane can come with a large carbon footprint. But very little of our food travels this way – just 0.16% of food miles are from air travel.You want to reduce the carbon footprint of your food? Focus on what you eat, not whether your food is local
“Eat local” is a common recommendation to reduce the carbon footprint of your diet. How does the impact of what you eat compare to where it's come from?Is there a loneliness epidemic?
The media claims we are experiencing a ‘loneliness epidemic’. What is the evidence for this?Are people more likely to be lonely in so-called 'individualistic' societies?
In countries such as Denmark and Switzerland, it is very common for people to live alone; but contrary to what many believe, this does not translate into higher loneliness. Loneliness and aloneness are not the same.Antiretroviral therapy has saved millions of lives from AIDS and could save more
38 million people had HIV/AIDS in 2020. A couple of decades ago, the chances of surviving more than ten years with HIV were slim. Today, thanks to antiretroviral therapy (ART), people with HIV/AIDS can expect to live long lives. How many lives has ART saved?The importance of personal relations for economic outcomes
Social connections matter for economic outcomes. Personal relations, even those that we maintain for non-economic reasons, often give us access to information and provide us with social collateral for economic transactions.Pneumonia — no child should die from a disease we can prevent
How many children die from pneumonia? How has this changed over time, and how can we prevent it?Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture
More than three-quarters of global agricultural land is used for livestock, despite meat and dairy making up a much smaller share of the world's protein and calories.Food production is responsible for one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions
One-quarter of the world's greenhouse gas emissions result from food and agriculture. What are the main contributors to food's emissions?What are the environmental impacts of food and agriculture?
Feeding the world whilst reducing food's impact on the environment is one of our greatest challenges in the coming decades. What are food's environmental impacts?We won the Lovie Award!
The Lovie Award is the European internet award awarded by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.How do CO2 emissions compare when we adjust for trade?
Which countries are net importers and exports of emissions? How much CO2 is ‘offshored’?Where in the world do people emit the most CO2?
There are large inequalities in the carbon footprint of people across the world. How do countries across the world compare? Where in the world do people emit the most CO2?Who emits the most CO2 today?
Which countries emit the most CO2 today? How do annual emissions vary across the world?Who has contributed most to global CO2 emissions?
Our impact on climate change is not just about emissions that occur today. How much we emitted in the past also matters.12 key metrics to understand the state of the world
Our World in Data is home to thousands of charts. But some metrics are core to our work: here we present 12 that help us understand the state of the world.Where does our plastic accumulate in the ocean and what does that mean for the future?
An estimated 8 million tonnes of plastic enter our oceans each year. But the plastic we find in our surface waters is more than 100-fold lower. This is the 'missing plastic' problem.If we can make maternal deaths as rare as they are in the healthiest countries, we can save almost 300,000 mothers each year
Maternal mortality was much more common in the past. Today, it is much lower — but there are still large inequalities across the world.Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not. We are all losing out because of this
The world needs ideas and innovation to make progress. Creative and talented people are everywhere, but the opportunity to develop is limited to only a small number of well-off children. The world loses out as a result.The rise of social media
Social media sites are used by more than two-thirds of Internet users. How has social media grown over time?