Author Talk: Mark Easter

In his new book The Blue Plate: A Food Lover’s Guide to Climate Chaos, Colorado-based ecologist and author Mark Easter offers a detailed picture of the impact the foods you love have on the earth. Organized by the ingredients of a typical dinner party, including seafood, salad, bread, chicken, steak, potatoes, and fruit pie with ice cream, each chapter examines the food through the lens of the climate crisis.

Mark J. Easter researches the carbon footprint of food as part of a Colorado State University team of “greenhouse gas accountants” whose mission is to understand how greenhouse gases move into and out of soils and plants on farms and ranches. He has traveled globally to collaborate with farmers, ranchers, foresters, and others to learn how the ways people grow food and fiber make agriculture healthier and less damaging to the climate.

Organized by the ingredients of a typical dinner party, including seafood, salad, bread, chicken, steak, potatoes, and fruit pie with ice cream, each chapter examines the food through the lens of the climate crisis. He covers the causes and effects of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as the social and environmental impact of out-of-season and far-from-home demand.

Food lovers everywhere will be happy to know that the answer to eating more sustainably is not necessarily a plant-based diet, but instead, to educate yourself about the best way and time of year to eat the foods you enjoy, including steak, dairy, and seafood. The typical plate of food, he says, can be transformed into a “Blue Plate,” a diet that is healthy not just for the people who eat it, but good for the planet.

“Easter cites concrete ways to avert total climate crises, from eating closer to home to farming innovations to lofty goals such as the perennialization of staple crops—collectively leaving readers with a sense of purpose and hope.” —Booklist

“Tag along with one of the premier scientists studying our food system’s carbon footprint, as he takes us on a fascinating journey to meet the farmers, ranchers, and composters who are dramatically slashing emissions and transforming agriculture from a climate problem to a climate solution.” — Liz Carlisle, author of Lentil Underground, Grain by Grain and Healing Grounds