Climate Change, Ecology, Environmental Science, Global Food Production, Oceans, Sustainability

Thought Matters Publishes Excerpt of Hot, Hungry Planet

Thought Matters, an idea exchange for the highly opinionated, published an excerpt of Hot, Hungry Planet yesterday.

Here’s how the chapter on California and Syria: A Tale of Two Droughts begins:

In the late spring of 2014, while covering food sustainability at the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sustainable Foods Institute, I took a trip to the Carmel Valley farm stand run by Earth-bound Farm. Earthbound Farm is the largest organic farming operation in the United States. It cultivates about 50,000 acres of produce, and I spent the morning walking in a small demonstration garden that was nothing short of paradise. Everything was a verdant green. Yet just beyond the farm, where the Carmel Mountains meet the horizon, was dry scrub and pale brown grass, a truer reflection of this parched land. The Golden State, which got its name from the grasses that turn a shade of palomino blond in summer, then green up again during the fall and spring rains, was looking more like the Brown State.

As California’s drought dragged into the next year, I couldn’t shake the sense of a crisis brewing in Carmel Valley. I was also hearing reports of conflict over water in war-torn Syria. I wondered, could water conflict on that scale ever occur here? I couldn’t blame Earthbound’s owners for choosing this idyllic spot, or other farmers for choosing any other location along California’s central coast, where morning fog moistens the otherwise dry landscape. When the founders of the farm first started growing raspberries on two and a half acres, they didn’t imagine it would expand to become America’s largest organic producer of salad greens and vegetables. But Earthbound’s growth was only one among the more recent in decades of farming expansion all across California, and especially the nearby Central Valley, since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Through the magic of irrigation, these farmers had made a desert bloom.

While Earthbound’s leafy expanse appeared intact, agriculture is in jeopardy throughout California and other western states. A 2015 investigation in ProPublica reported that California’s drought is part of a much bigger water crisis that is killing the Colorado River, “the victim of legally sanctioned overuse, the relentless forces of urban growth, willful ignorance among policymakers, and a misplaced confidence in human ingenuity.” Climate change will only exacerbate the problem.

Continue reading on Thought Matters and to buy your copy of Hot, Hungry Planet, please go here.

Agriculture, Climate Change, Environmental Science, Global Food Production, Sustainability

The Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting Covers Book Launch at The Wilson Center

Lisa Palmer Book Launch Last month I gave a presentation at The Wilson Center about the publication of my new book, Hot, Hungry Planet: The Fight to Stop a Global Food Crisis in the Face of Climate Change (St. Martin’s Press). I write about how global agriculture is ready for sustainable solutions. The Pulitzer Center provided support for my reporting in India, where I found that climate change is altering agriculture across a variety of societies. I observed how people are working together to develop climate smart villages and asked: What does this mean for their food security, especially for the world’s most vulnerable people?

The Pulitzer Center covered my book launch at the Wilson Center, and this is how their report begins:

A confluence of environmental, social, and economic factors are leading to major food shortages around the world, especially in poorer countries. By drawing upon her reporting and research on the environment, sustainability, and agriculture, Pulitzer Center grantee Lisa Palmer looks at the factors threatening global food security in her new book Hot, Hungry Planet: The Fight to Stop a Global Food Crisis in the Face of Climate Change.

Palmer launched her book at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., where she was previously a public policy scholar. The Wilson Center, a U.S. Presidential Memorial, serves as a policy forum on global issues and supports researchers and discourse. At the launch, the Wilson Center invited Palmer and a group of experts to comment on Hot, Hungry Planet and what challenges and opportunities are currently available to stem food shortages. Panelists included: Channing Arndt, senior research fellow at International Food Policy Research Institute; Roger-Mark DeSouza, Director of Population, Environmental Security, and Resilience at the Wilson Center; and Nabeeha Kazi, president and CEO of Humanitas Global.

In Hot, Hungry Planet, Palmer explores the future of food security through seven case studies located in six regions around the world: India, sub-Saharan Africa, the United States, Latin America, the Middle East, and Indonesia. Through these examples, Palmer looks at how the global population boom (expected to reach 9.7 billion people by 2050), climate change, and the widening socioeconomic divide will make feeding the world challenging.

To read the complete story on the Pulitzer Center website, please follow this link.

Climate Change, Environmental Science, Sustainability

My New Commentary in Scientific American

Here is my latest commentary for Scientific American. I write that creating sustainable food systems in the face of a changing climate isn’t easy—but innovators around the world are making real progress.

sustainable food systemsI argue that “[w]e need to move beyond thinking about the environment—our land, water and air—only as a source of inputs for the food system,” I write. “Instead we need to recognize that global environmental changes can diminish yields, reduce the amount of food we produce, and affect how nutritious it is and where we produce it.”

But change is not easy. How can leverage points in food systems and in institutions help us work toward solutions? I cover some solutions in my new book, Hot, Hungry Planet.

In my commentary, I write:

“Weather extremes and environmental shocks, for instance, will likely occur more frequently in the future. In California, the multi-year drought and recent lifting of the drought emergency after a heavy rain and snow year has had a cascade of lingering effects, calling for greater management of both extremes and making water conservation “a way of life” by executive order. The four objectives of California’s new management plan include educational and policy nudges such as using water more wisely, eliminating water waste, strengthening local drought resilience and water holding capacity, and improving agricultural water use efficiency and drought planning.

Any successful answer to feeding a hot, hungry planet will result from continual changes, shifts, and adaptation to an uncertain future. Figuring out where society can sustainably grow more food and how people might try to do that under climate change will be inextricably linked to national security, public health, and economic goals. Food system challenges in a changing climate have already led to political instability in some places, and migrations and tensions over changing amount and location of natural resources are likely to grow.

Creating sustainable food systems that deliver nutritious food while also satisfying long term food security is a complex undertaking, as I learned over the past few years while writing and researching my new book Hot, Hungry Planet: The Fight to Stop a Global Food Crisis in the Face of Climate Change. I met with the people who are working at the issue from every angle. The farmers, agronomists, and researchers I talked with are trying to fulfill economic, social and environmental objectives while not compromising prospects for future generations.”

To continue reading, please go to my piece in the Observatory blog in Scientific American.

Agriculture, Climate Change, conservation, Ecology, Environmental Science, Sustainability

New article in Nature Energy: Adding power to the value of trees

The thick, mature trees that line the neighbourhoods of Gainesville, valueoftreesFlorida, cast cool shade onto the residences below. Like many cities, Gainesville has policies that restrict the cutting down of trees, on the basis that the 50-to 100-year-old large, healthy trees with unique value (sometimes called ‘heritage trees’) make the city prettier and clean the air and water. Studies also show that leafy streets help sell houses1, benefit mental health2, and reduce asthma3 and crime4.

While municipalities in the southern and western United States are creating ordinances and programmes that restrict clear cutting for development projects and encourage tree planting for aesthetic reasons, they may now have further reason to discourage residential tree removals and encourage extending the life of mature trees: the shade they provide offers significant energy benefits, too. In warmer climates, trees keep houses cool and reduce the electricity needed for air conditioning, which accounts for a large proportion of energy consumption in sunny states like Florida. Despite compelling scientific support for the benefits of urban and suburban greenery, mature trees are at risk due to the lack of valuation for their energy services to homeowners and communities, and due to lack of public information about their energy benefits.

Read the full article: http://bit.ly/ValueofTrees

Agriculture, Climate Change, conservation, Ecology, Education, Environmental Science, Global Food Production, Sustainability, Technology

HOT, HUNGRY PLANET: The Fight to Stop a Global Food Crisis in the Face of Climate Change

The world is on the cusp of a global food crisis. In only a couple decades, an additional 2.6 to 4 billion people will be sitting down at the global table wondering what’s for dinner. That’s the equivalent of adding another New York City each month to the world’s grocery lines for the next 35 years. In HOT, HUNGRY PLANET: The Fight to Stop a Global Food Crisis in the Face of Climate Change (St. Martin’s Press; On-sale: May 9, 2017; 9781250084200; $26.99) I address what needs to happen to reconcile two extreme global threats: climate change and global hunger. Christiana Figueres, diplomat and former executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, says Hot Hungry Planet is, “A deep dive into the realities of some of the Sustainable Development Goals. Through moving personal stories Palmer shows how increased food security and addressing climate change are mutually reinforcing. We can and we must do both at the same time.”

Hot, Hungry Planet focuses on three key concepts that support food security and resilience in a changing world: social, educational, and agricultural advances; land use and technical actions by farmers; and policy nudges that have the greatest potential for reducing adverse environmental impacts of agriculture while providing more food. Palmer breaks down this difficult subject though seven concise and easily-digestible case studies over the globe and presents the stories of individuals in six key regions—India, sub-Saharan Africa, the United States, Latin America, the Middle East, and Indonesia—painting a hopeful picture of both the world we want to live in and the great leaps it will take to get there.

Early reviews:

“This lively, concise book is packed with practical and often surprising ideas for meeting the profound challenges of global food scarcity. Lisa Palmer is a clear-eyed realist, but her fascinating tour of our Hot Hungry Planet will leave you more optimistic than you may have thought possible.”―Dan Fagin, Pulitzer-prize-winning author of Toms River:A Story of Science and Salvation

“A penetrating and sensitive analysis of the urgent need for a sustainable global food system despite widespread socioeconomic inequality, swelling population, and ominous climate change.”― Richard C. J. Somerville, Ph.D., climate scientist

“The global food crisis is a critical issue. Producing more food is key but insufficient by itself. Palmer speaks in no uncertain terms about the peril we find ourselves in. But she also manages to find the bright spots―areas of hope that those of us in the environmental, business, and policy communities can address to cope with and even reverse some of the most alarming trends.”―Jason Clay, Senior Vice President, Food & Markets, World Wildlife Fund

“The time to talk about diet for the health of people without addressing the health of the planet is past. With inspiring examples of sustainable agriculture, thoughtful attention to matters as disparate as biodiversity and family planning, and precautionary tales from around the globe, Hot, Hungry Planet gives us a clear-eyed view of the perils we face, and the promise of overcoming them by truly understanding them.”―David Katz, M.D. President of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine and author of Disease-Proof, The Way to Eat,  and The Flavor Point Diet

“A deep dive into the realities of some of the Sustainable Development Goals. Through moving personal stories Palmer shows how increased food security and addressing climate change are mutually reinforcing. We can and we must do both at the same time.”―Christiana Figueres, diplomat and executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), 2010-2016

“Hot, Hungry Planet is a sober analysis of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in feeding a changing and growing world. Palmer takes her readers on a journey from Vermont through Colombia, India, and the shores of Lake Victoria, examining innovations for sustainable and climate-resilient agriculture all along the way. Her work trumpets the benefits of smaller, more varied systems of food production that increase yields without the ecological harms of monoculture. Above all else, Palmer pens a passionate plea for the inclusion of women in all levels of food production through education and smart investments that forge a path toward a planet that can feed itself in a hotter, more crowded future.”―Shenggen Fan, Director General of the International Food Policy Research Institute

Agriculture, Climate Change, Global Food Production

Fighting Climate Change AND Hunger

By

In the U.S., we waste approximately 34 million tons of food a year.

CAVIN: “That is astronomical. That’s so much food that either just never made it to table or went home and then got thrown away because it wasn’t eaten.”

Keep Austin Fed number of surplus food deliveriesThat’s Russell Cavin of Keep Austin Fed, a Texas not-for-profit that rescues nutritious, edible food, and delivers it to local Austin charities. In a county where almost one in five people do not know where their next meal is coming from, Cavin says food rescue makes sense. The food comes from supermarkets and restaurants, which often toss perfectly good fare that looks less than perfect – like a pre-made sandwich with wilted lettuce.

CAVIN: “At the end of the day, a little wilted lettuce is not bad, it’s not going to hurt you. It’s still good, nutritious food, it’s just that it’s not in pristine show condition.”

Keep Austin Fed is moving mountains of edible food. In 2014 …

CAVIN: “We had twenty-one donors that provided 391,533 pounds of food, the equivalent of 522,044 meals.”

It’s a huge amount of perfectly good food that is now filling hungry bellies. And with less ending up in the landfill, there is less climate-warming methane gas being released into the atmosphere – a win for everyone.

Reporting credit: ChavoBart Digital Media.
Photos source: Keep Austin Fed website.

More Resources
Keep Austin Fed
Waste Not: Local groups work to reduce, redistribute, and “rescue”food from loss and landfills

Originally published in Yale Climate Connections
Filed under: , ,
Food & Agriculture
Agriculture, Climate Change, Global Food Production, Sustainability, Technology

Engineering better food ingredients

Walk down any baking aisle at the grocery store, and you’ll notice two types of vanilla on the shelf. The one with the higher price tag is vanilla extract, made from the seedpods of the vanilla orchid, which grows in the shade in tropical areas like Madagascar and Indonesia. The other “vanilla” is a much lower-priced flavoring made from a chemical compound called vanillin, using a chemical process with petroleum as the base.

Pioneering synthetic biology efforts, however, are leading to a third option that now allows food scientists more control over its flavor profile: the first “synbio” vanilla flavoring. Synbio vanillin, the primary chemical inside the vanilla bean that gives it its flavor, is produced with brewer’s yeast that has been genetically engineered to be able to make a chemical compound—in this case, vanillin. This process is also being used to produce synbio stevia (a sweetener), synbio saffron, and synbio resveratrol, a dietary supplement with antioxidant properties, says Todd Kuiken, a senior program associate with the Synthetic Biology Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. Synbio vanillin and synbio resveratrol have been on the market since 2014, while synbio saffron and stevia will likely be available next year, he says.

Unless we are eating directly from a local farmer, we don’t have a good understanding of what’s in our food.” —Todd Kuiken

And that’s just the start of a wave of new “synbio” food products, predicts Kuiken, whose program at the Wilson Center aims to inform public and policy discourse on synthetic biology. He envisions synbio increasingly being used to make food flavorings and key perfume ingredients that, like vanilla or saffron, are very high in value and difficult to grow or produce.

Synthetic biology uses tools like computers, DNA sequencing and chemicals to design organisms that do new things. The fermentation process that results in the new synbio vanillin, made by the Swiss company Evolva and sold almost exclusively as an ingredient to food companies, is just one method of synthetic biology; others more closely resemble breeding.

“Basically they [Evolva] are able to use yeast as the production factory,” says Kuiken, who adds that the synbio fermentation process is less energy intensive than using petro-chemical methods to make flavorings. Evolva also claims that this process allows the flavor profile of vanilla in foods to be controlled more precisely.

Read the full article as published in Future Food 2050

Agriculture, Climate Change, conservation

Improving Irrigation Efficiency

Many of California’s major farming regions get very little rain, so irrigation is critical. As a result, 80 percent of the state’s fresh water goes to agriculture.

Drip farming example
More efficient irrigation by farmers could help California’s water supply.

Heather Cooley, the director of the water program at the non-profit Pacific Institute says many farmers are replacing traditional furrow irrigation, where the rows between crops are simply flooded, with highly efficient drip irrigation systems.

COOLEY: “You’re also seeing more farmers adopt scientific irrigation scheduling, where they’re looking at either, soil type or they’re looking at weather conditions to determine when to water and how much to water.”

But not all California farmers have adopted the new techniques.

COOLEY: “These efficiency improvements require an upfront investment. They may provide returns over the life of the device, but making that transition can be very difficult.”

If all California farmers implemented efficient irrigation practices, Cooley says it could reduce agricultural water use by about 15 percent. Cooley says incentives and technical support would help farmers make this transition. Given climate projections, it is becoming even more important for California farmers to conserve water since the future is expected to get hotter and drier.

Reporting credit: ChavoBart Digital Media.
Photo: Close up of drip irrigation (copyright protected).

More Resources
The untapped potential of California’s water supply
The multiple benefits of water efficiency for California agriculture

Originally published in Yale Climate Connections
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Climate Change, Global Food Production, Sustainability

A Diet For a Warmer Planet

The choices we make at the grocery store can help reduce climate change.

LAPPE: “I was actually shocked personally when I discovered how much of a connection there is between food and climate.”

Diet For A Hot Planet book cover

That’s Anna Lappé, author of a book called Diet For a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis At The End Of Your Fork And What You Can Do About It.”

From clearing forests for agriculture to manufacturing synthetic fertilizers, using energy-intensive farming, and meeting a rising demand for meat – our complex food system accounts for almost one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions. But Lappé says there is a silver lining.

Organic strawberry farm
Organic strawberry farm

LAPPE: “One of the best things about talking about that food and climate connection is that it is something we can touch and taste. It is something we can do something about on a daily basis.”

About half of the grain produced around the world today is being used to feed livestock instead of people.

LAPPE: “And so it’s a way of producing food that’s very energy-intensive, that uses up a lot of crops and feed.”

So Lappé suggests shifting to a more plant-centered diet.

People can also consider how their food was grown. She says organic practices mean less synthetic fertilizers, agrochemicals, and energy use.

LAPPE: “So by choosing organic foods, we’re choosing to support farms that are having that smaller climate footprint.”

Lappé’s message is upbeat. She says what’s healthiest for our bodies is also best for the planet.

Reporting credit: ChavoBart Digital Media.
Photo: Organic strawberry farm (copyright protected).

More Resources
Diet For A Hot Planet
SmallPlanet website

Originally published by Yale Climate Connection
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Climate Change, conservation, Ecology, Education, Environmental Science

How Rising CO2 Levels May Contribute to Die-Off of Bees

Specimens of goldenrod sewn into archival paper folders are stacked floor to ceiling inside metal cabinets at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. The collection, housed in the herbarium, dates back to 1842 and is among five million historical records of plants from around the world cataloged there. Researchers turned to this collection of goldenrod — a widely distributed perennial plant that blooms across North America from summer to late fall — to study concentrations of protein in goldenrod pollen because it is a key late-season food source for bees.

SteveBurt/Flickr Honeybees feed on goldenrod flowers.

The newer samples look much like the older generations. But scientists testing the pollen content from goldenrod collected between 1842 and 2014, when atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide rose from about 280 parts per million to 398 ppm, found the most recent pollen samples contained 30 percent less protein. The greatest drop in protein occurred from 1960 to 2014, when the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose dramatically. A field experiment in the same study that exposed goldenrod to CO2 levels ranging from 280 to 500 ppm showed similar protein decreases.

Read the full article originally posted in Yale Environment 360

Dispatches from Lisa Palmer on the future of food and the environment