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Meet the climate researcher who wants to take away your refrigerator
First, they came for our gas guzzlers and Caribbean getaways.
Then, climate activists wanted us to stop eating burgers and ban gas stoves.
Next, it seems, they're coming for our refrigerators.
That, at least, is according to climate researcher Nicola Twilley, who says fridges in family kitchens hurt the environment.
Her new book, Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves, makes the case against the humble household fridge.
Author Nicola Twilley says the humble household refrigerator leads to food-stockpiling and climate-harming waste
'You really don't need to have a tomato in December,' says author Twilley.
It also takes aim at the system of 'cold chain' storage that keeps food chilly until it reaches our local supermarket.
'Food waste is often touted as the reason to build a cold chain,' Twilley told Bloomberg.
'The problem is that in the developed world, we are throwing away 30 to 40 percent of our food at the retail and consumer end.'
Twilley says it's become too easy to drive to Walmart and load up on groceries that fill our fridges — and often just sits there, forgotten about, slowly rotting as we order take-out pizza.
'The abundance that refrigeration has given us has translated into a sort of lack of care, a willingness to waste,' she says.
'The food is so plentiful and so cheap that people would rather go and buy something else.'
As a result, the typical US household has become dependent on their fridges.
The average household fridge in the US is opened an average of 107 times a day, Twilley found.
In the US, total annual food waste adds up to some 170 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, the Environmental Protection Agency says.
That's equivalent to the annual CO2 emissions of 42 coal-fired power plants.
The cold storage chain also uses cooled trucks and cavernous, chilly warehouses that sap power grids.
That cold chain preserves almost three-quarters of the food Americans eat, says the book.
According to Twilley, cold storage companies are currently the third-highest industrial consumers of energy.
The power to run cooling equipment is more than 8 percent of global electricity usage currently.
That means more power stations belching out heat-trapping gases, which raise global temperatures and lead to more storms, wildfires and droughts, UN scientists warn.
It's going to get worse too, warns the host of the Gastropod podcast.
The cold storage chain preserves almost three-quarters of the food Americans eat.
The power to run cooling equipment is more than 8 percent of global electricity usage currently.
The New York Times Book Review called Twilley's text 'engrossing' and 'hard to put down.'
China and swathes of Africa are still building their cold storage chains, which means many more Megawatts of power consumed over the coming decades.
Twilley calls for big changes in the ways that Americans eat, shop and store their food.
Fridges are great for milk and meat, she says, but there's no need to keep bread, potatoes, or onions chilled.
Shoppers should also try to buy seasonal fruits and vegetables and, where possible, keep them out on the counter so they're not forgotten about.
Once they get left in that drawer at the bottom of the fridge, they are out of sight — and out of mind.
'Like I just don't eat apples outside of the autumn,' Twilley told the Zero podcast.
'I have citrus in the spring and I have berries in the summer and it's annoying and obnoxious and I try not to be preachy about it, but also it all tastes better.'
She added: 'You really don't need to have a tomato in December, it's going to taste like nothing anyway, just don't do it.'
Twilley's concerns are supported by the climate policies of the Biden administration.
John Kerry, US Special Envoy for Climate, late last year committed to slashing emissions from refrigerators, air conditioning units and other cooling-related products in the battle against man-made global warming.
Kerry signed the US up to the Global Cooling Pledge, which commits nations to cut their cooling-related emissions by at least 68 percent by 2050 compared to 2022 levels.