Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.
Today, we’re going to talk about eating. How will climate change affect our food?
Megan Hall: Here to tell us more are Isha Chawla and Fatima Husain from our Possibly team. Welcome, Isha and Fatima!
Isha Chawla: Hello!
Fatima Husain: Hi, Megan!
Megan Hall: So Isha, how do rising temperatures affect the plants we grow for food?
Isha Chawla: To find out more, we spoke with…
David Lobell: David Lobell. I’m a professor at Stanford University.
Isha Chawla: David says, rising temperatures can damage crops.
Fatima Husain: But in some cases, giving plants more water will prevent that damage. For instance, he’s found that California almonds….
David Lobell: don’t seem to be that affected by heat, as long as they have irrigation.
Megan Hall: So, a little extra water will solve the problem?
Fatima Husain: Not really, because this doesn’t work for all types of plants. Also, rising temperatures affect water availability, either by changing the amount of rain we get or by contributing to more droughts.
Isha Chawla: And California already has a water shortage issue!
Fatima Husain: On top of that, this solution won’t work for farmers who don’t have irrigation systems and rely on rainfall for the success of their crops.
Isha Chawla: But Megan, there’s another problem here.
Megan Hall: What is it?
Isha Chawla: David says there’s evidence that climate change also affects the quality of some of the foods we eat.
Megan Hall: In what way?
Fatima Husain: Higher carbon dioxide concentrations in the air, which cause global warming, also change the chemistry of the crops we eat.
David Lobell: In most studies, what you see is— as you increase the CO2 levels in the atmosphere, the concentration of micronutrients, like zinc and iron, becomes a little more diluted in the crops.
Megan Hall: Wait, So, the foods are actually less nutritious?
Isha Chawla: Exactly. And as carbon dioxide levels increase, this problem only gets worse.
Fatima Husain: If our CO2 levels climb to where experts think they’ll be in 2050, some studies predict that crops like wheat, corn and rice will have around 10% less zinc, 5% less iron, and 8% less protein.
Megan Hall: How worried should I be about this?
Isha Chawla: Well, if you’re lucky enough to live in a place where you have a lot of food options and enough money to buy them, you’ll get your nutrients in other ways.
Fatima Husain: But almost a fifth of people worldwide already have a zinc deficiency, and so decreasing these kinds of nutrients in crops can have serious consequences, especially for child development.
Isha Chawla: In wealthier countries like the US, there are lots of safety nets to protect the food system, like storage and access to irrigation. But that doesn’t make the US entirely immune to this either.
Fatima Husain: Climate change will still affect how much food farmers can grow, which will impact our economy, food prices, and ultimately, nutrition.
David Lobell: Any time food in general becomes more expensive, what you see is that people tend to shift towards less nutritious diets.
Megan Hall: What can we do about this?
Fatima Husain: It all comes back to cutting our greenhouse gas emissions! David recommends advocating for policy changes, and making better decisions about how we power our homes, what kinds of cars we drive, and the types of appliances we use.
Isha Chawla: And if you want to change your diet, eating less meat, and cutting down on food waste are good places to start.
Megan Hall: Got it! Thanks, Isha and Fatima!
That’s it for today. For more information, or to ask a question about the way you recycle, use energy, or make any other choice that affects the planet, go to the public’s radio dot org slash possibly. Or subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts.
Possibly is a co-production of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and the Public’s Radio.
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