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from the do-you-want-[endangered]-fries-with-that? dept.
Some of our favorite foods and drinks could be considered "endangered" because the places where they are grown are being severely impacted by climate change. If this isn't proof that we need to do something about climate change, I don't know what is. To start off, here are a few foods that are part of our every lives that might not be around for long.
- Coffee
- Chocolate
- Beer
- Maple Syrup
- Seafood: Lobsters and Salmon
- Peanut Butter
- Potatoes
What can we do about it?
Some farmers and researchers have started looking into bringing back ancient or near-extinct crops that might be better suited for this new reality.
Amaranth is one example. Once considered a sacred grain by the Aztec, amaranth was banned by the Spanish because it was used in sacrificial ceremonies.
[...] Cultivated in Ethiopia for more than 7,000 years, the enset plant is known as the "false banana" because of its similarity to the banana tree. It can withstand heavy drought and heavy rain, making it a plant that can naturally withstand climate change. [It] produces two times more food per unit of land than cereal crops.
[...] While most plants making a comeback are known for being drought resistant and having a high tolerance for heat, other plants (like taro) can be grown in flooded areas, a concern for rising sea levels in Asia and other parts of the world.
[...] Some believe that [...] seed banks are the best way to prepare for climate change. John Torgrimson, executive director of the Seed Savers Exchange in the United States, told Truthout that "while not every traditional variety tastes great or looks great, its genetics may be invaluable 50 or 100 years from now when the climate is different. There are qualities in varieties that we don't even know about. It might be resistant to a particular disease; it may grow well in a particular region; it may have certain traits that will allow us to deal with climactic conditions going forward. Diversity is an insurance policy".
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Monday October 03 2016, @01:15PM
Won't places like Russia and Canada just grow the necessary crops? Siberia could become a new frontier in farming.
Canada and Russia also have a lot of the planet's available fresh water.
Only the finest Canadian maple syrup.
A potato cannon straight to Siberia, to make more nutritious vodka for Russia.
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(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday October 03 2016, @01:24PM
The question is: Will they still have it after the climate change?
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Monday October 03 2016, @02:07PM
I enjoyed reading the wikipedia articles and in summary at least WRT rainfall and temps the further north you go the better it gets. Southern Europe, not gonna be much fun, tropical anywhere not gonna be fun, Canada and Russia will be net average winners.
Its a problem in that the geology is built around the winter snow pack slowly melting and now you're gonna get more precip that ever before and being rain its going to flash flood in minutes not slowly melt snowpack over weeks. So there are problems, merely having better temps and more precip isn't purely all good.
A good analogy is living in the north vs south WRT rainfall is its gonna be like the current west of Mississippi river vs east of Mississippi river. Its not that it never rains in the west USA or nothing grows there, its just in the east we generally speaking have more water than we possibly know what to do with and not enough people to use it all and the west is the opposite on all counts. And most post-global warming scenarios read like that tipped sideways north and south in both hemispheres. So Siberia rivers are going to be a headache for their equivalent of the army corps of engineers but its going to generally be a nice place to live, vs southern europe is going to be basically unlivable.
Of course by immigration, legal and otherwise, invasion, whatever you want to call it, southern europe is going to be entirely non-euro anyway, so for example ethnic Italians might have no idea what to do culturally and traditionally with a desert (well, il duce didn't handle the ethiopian army adventure very well almost a century ago, anyway) but by then the ethnic Italians will all be dead or displaced and the population will be 100% Somalian and they understand the climate they'll be in, the "new" climate of the Caliphate of Italy, so it'll be "all good" kinda. Well, not so good if you're a racially genocided white person, but whatever. My point being that in the current world, we have a lot of more significant problems coming due a long time before it rains a little less in three centuries or whatever. Worry about how to eat next year, or what will life be like for your kids in 30 years at the direction and current rate of change, no need to worry about 300 years.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday October 03 2016, @04:34PM
Western Canada gets much of its rainfall from glaciers in the mountains. They are shrinking. When they disappear, in maybe a decade or two, western Canada may well turn into a dust bowl unless another source of water steps up to replace the glaciers.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday October 04 2016, @12:12AM
No, no. Canada may get much of it's water from melting snowpack, but it doesn't get rain from that. Rain generally comes from clouds sourced in evaporation from the oceans.
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