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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: 3, Funny) by VLM on Monday October 03 2016, @07:05PM
I think wikipedia has been spammed by every combination of "climate change" plus "noun"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_and_potatoes [wikipedia.org]
I'm sure there's a
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_and_soylent_news [wikipedia.org]
in there somewhere
The TLDR is potatoes are not viable above 85F or 30C which is why nobody seriously tries to grow them where I live other than the occasional amateur hoping for a cool summer. Planting hot peppers seemingly guarantees a summer below 80F (they kinda require thermal heat to grow tasty), so it would be interesting to plant both and see which "wins".
They're also a rather thirsty crop.
Finally they suck at the whole immune system thing and some climate peculiarities make life OK for the 'tater while making life hard for their diseases and bugs.
Something like contemporary Idaho is near ideal for potatoes. Looks like Africa and the UK are going to suck for 'taters in the next centuries.
We have quite a while to prepare and there's some screwing around with selective breeding and genetic engineering to make a high temperature potatoe. That would fix things for the Africans. Adding irrigation would fix things for the UK.
Farmers generally farm what's most profitable for them. I'm sure growing pecans would be profitable however due to pre-climate-change-climate, pecans can't grow where I live, just sugar maples. It seems I'll be in a bread basket of pecan orchards after some global warming, or so they say. So even if I could grow sugar maples using star trek technology after climate change, being a fan of pecan pie means I'd probably end up growing pecans instead. I think its possible to make more $ per acre off pecans than off sugar maples at this time. Or maybe not. There is a strange vision that if you can't grow sugar maples on a plantation, I guess the farmers will get pissed off and nuke it from orbit and leave the smoking ruins and nothing will grow there ever again not even grass, but on real planet earth, despite all the shrieking about we all gonna die, they'll just gradually replace the maples with pecans and call it good, near as I can tell.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @04:28AM
The TLDR is potatoes are not viable above 85F or 30C
Well lots of people grow them where I live and summer temperatures average above 32C. We grow them all year round. None of us are doing so commercially. My potatoes tend to be small and a little bit scabby, because I'm not great at watering and we've been drought stricken a few years. They're still food though and quite tasty actually. My neighbours who tend their plants better than me have big beautiful potatoes that are much better than what is typically available in stores. Grown organically of course.
I think what the article meant to say is that certain foods will no longer be viable to produce commercially according to the modern brain dead industrialised food production techniques because of global warming. The earth is healing itself.
Sooner or later, you humans are going to have to accept that your experiment of collecting in cities and centralising production while most of you do "work" that entails sitting on your arses and interacting with computers in ultimately non-productive ways is a pretty dumb experiment and as any idiot could have told you, it doesn't work. Stop expecting to be able to do absolutely nothing productive with your life and still get fat off of chocolate and beef. You're being fattened for the slaughter, fattest will die first.
Just a friendly public service message from an intergalactic visitor who thinks you guys are all nuts but who sticks around for the weather. You have a beautiful planet, many of you don't seem to have noticed.