Climate Change Is Messing With Your Dinner
The world’s dinner tables are seeing the impact of climate change.
As cold regions become warmer, and warm places hotter still, farming and fishing are shifting. An evolving climate means big changes for people who grow, catch and rear for a living, and everyone else who buys and eats what they produce.
There are winners and losers. There are rich-world problems (less cod, more lobster) and poor (drought and pestilence).
There are threats to the quality of the world’s basic staples including wheat and corn, as well as such nation-defining luxuries as Bordeaux wine and Java coffee. And whether through dearth or deluge, supply shocks can shake up prices.
As temperatures rise, the best growing conditions for many crops are moving away from the tropics, and from lower lying land to cooler climbs. Fish and other underwater catches, too, are migrating to colder seas as their habitats warm.
photo credit: Aravindan Ganesan