The airport chaos of the Summer of Revenge, in numbers + Veggies are taking a toll on the environment
Some of the world’s biggest airports saw the worst flight delays this summer, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing data from flight-data specialist FlightAware tracking flights between 1 June and 24 July. At the top of the list: Toronto Pearson International and Montréal-Trudeau International Airport, which each saw more than half of their departing flights facing a delay of more than 15 minutes. These airports also saw relatively high flight cancellation rates, but still fared far better than several airports in Asia, including Shanghai Pudong International (38.8%), Nanjing Lukou (15.7%), and Xi'an Xianyang International (14.9%).
Remember: It was a logistically rough time for air travel during the Summer of Revenge: Pent-up tourism demand led global travel rates to jump this summer, coinciding with low staff levels at many major airports that caused them to struggle to keep up with the boom in demand for travel. Thousands of travelers reported lost or delayed luggage, with data from a Spanish ins. firm indicating a 30% y-o-y jump in lost luggage reports.
Could vegetarians’ dietary habits be damaging the environment? Some vegetables come at a hefty environmental cost due to the large amounts of fertilizers and pesticides needed for their cultivation, according to a study from the University of California which looks specifically at broccoli crops. The relative cost of vegetables on the environment also grows higher when considering their perishability, as nearly “half of the fruits and vegetables grown in the US go to waste,” according to a report.
To conserve our ecosystem, we should ideally plant crops that have both calories and nutrients. Although fruits and nuts also have high pesticide requirements to cultivate, they are good for the environment as farmers can replant them every year without having to till the soil. Nuts like almonds and walnuts offer 6-7 mn calories per acre — even better than fruits such as apples, oranges and avocado, The Washington Post reports. Although corn and soy are “the highest-producing cereal grass and plant protein we grow,” whole grains, legumes, tubers like potatoes and sweet potatoes, as well as starchy fruit such as jackfruit and bananas are the ideal sources of food for climate action, according to The Washington Post.