I suppose it’s a toss up between “do you want fries with that?” and all the food content danger it implies, or the chance that you’ll get moldy or infected food. Our society has made great advances in food safety in the last century, I don’t expect a few tenths of a degree temperature rise in the last century to change that much. In fact, a sweeping change to food safety laws has just been passed.
Climate change affecting food safety
Unless action taken, the world’s food supply could be endangered by climate change
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Climate change is already having an effect on the safety of the world’s food supplies and unless action is taken it’s only going to get worse, a Michigan State University professor told a symposium at this year’s meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Ewen Todd, an MSU professor of advertising, public relations and retailing, organized a session titled “How Climate Change Affects the Safety of the World’s Food Supply” at which several nationally known experts warned that food safety is already an issue and will worsen unless climate change is confronted.
“Accelerating climate change is inevitable with implications for animal products and crops,” said Todd, who also is an AAAS Fellow. “At this point, the effects of climate change on food safety are poorly understood.”
However, Todd said there are already a number of examples of climate change taking its toll on the world’s food supply. One is Vibrio, a pathogen typically found in warm ocean water which is now becoming more common in the north as water temperatures rise.
“It’s been moving further up the coast these past few years,” he said. “There was an outbreak of it near Alaska in 2005 when water temperature reached 15 degrees Celsius.”
Todd also said that extreme weather – droughts and heavy rains – is having an impact on the world’s food supply. In some areas crops are being wiped out, resulting in higher prices and other issues.
“Mycotoxins are molds that can sometimes cause illness in humans, and where you have drought and starvation there can be a mycotoxin problem,” he said. “That’s because people will store their meager resources of crops for longer than they should.”
Speakers at the symposium included Raymond Knighton of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture; Sandra Hoffman of the USDA’s Economic Research Service; and Cristina Tirado from the University of California, Los Angeles.
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It’s been moving further up the coast these past few years,” he said. “There was an outbreak of it near Alaska in 2005
Oh, yeah, it’s unusual, it’s never happened before…..
http://www.epi.alaska.gov/bulletins/docs/b1990_20.htm
Do you want to know what REALLY makes me sick?
There’s obviously an Argo embargo on the current ocean temperature data…
One thing for sure, the cold is taking a bite out of Florida crops ;-(
The world’s food safety is going to be endangered when there’s a critical shortage of fuel for the machines needed to plant and harvest it. How could this possibly happen? Oh, say if some angry rebels choose to take revenge on the Libyan government by blowing up the oil pipelines that are responsible for much of the European supply.
Isn’t this nothing but fantasy? Actually, they threatened to do this *Yesterday*. But do they have the military hardware to do this? Why yes, they do. They got it from defecting members of the Libyan military, who object to being told to target civilians.
Some fears which may seem real, ie “climate change”, are nothing but fantasy. But some fears which may seem like fantasy – ie, the Libyan oil infrastructure getting blowed up – may turn out to be very real indeed.
And then we’re going to find out who really prepared for the worst.
Hmmm – a professor of advertising, public relations and retailing!
Well, whoopee do – he must therefore be an expert on health, horticulture, agriculture, visiculture, farming and biochemistry. Otherwise he might be tempted to cherry-pick one or two pathogens that thrive in warmer conditions and imply that their increased numbers will produce a food safety crisis, in order to fund a nice little talkfest junket that could recommend more funding and be quoted as authoritative support for increased taxes to fight climate change.
OK, /sarc off.
Funny how many spin doctors are involved in AGW publicity, isn’t it?
and not a word about the biggest food shortage in our lifetime….
…..from converting food to biofuel
@Dave Ward:
“At this point, the effects of climate change on food safety are poorly understood”
is code for “feed me more grant money”.
I am to assume that Alaska is planting wine grapes then? What’s funny about that assumption is that there is some food scientist somewhere currently working on that.
wws says:
February 22, 2011 at 5:34 am
The world’s food safety is going to be endangered when there’s a critical shortage of fuel for the machines needed to plant and harvest it.
==============================================
Almost everything to do with food, is petroleum based.
Not just the obvious, gas for transportation….
…fertilizer, bug spray, weed killer…….
I was going to make a few well reasoned comments on improving food and grain storage in third world countries as a way to prevent the food they produce from going to waste and lost in storage. And comment that gm corn bred to resist root worms has lower levels of mold but. I think my comments will be lost in the yelling match going on.
If warming is the problem, why did Mexico suffer a big crop failure do to unprecedented freezing earlier this year.
And the weather men missed that warning by almost 10 degrees.
I see government interference the largest threat to food supplies.
Robert E. Phelan says:
February 22, 2011 at 5:24 am
It’s been moving further up the coast these past few years,” he said. “There was an outbreak of it near Alaska in 2005
Oh, yeah, it’s unusual, it’s never happened before…..
http://www.epi.alaska.gov/bulletins/docs/b1990_20.htm
Do you want to know what REALLY makes me sick?
================================================
The article says the oysters came from Puget Sound, which is in Washington State. Not to say that I think the “Diseases moving North theory” is valid, however.
Using agricultural land for fuel directly increases food prices:
4-1-2010 Are Ethanol Policies Affecting Crop Prices? An Empirical Analysis of US Ethanol Policies
A much better policy is to use desert land to make thermochemical solar fuels and use agricultural land for food.
Don’t buy votes at the expense of starving the poor.
Frost can more easily wipe out crops than drought or flood. It just takes one sufficiently cold night, and all the crops for a huge region can be destroyed… not just places subject to flooding or areas without recourse to irrigation. Citrus is most subject to this.
These last few years have brought a lot of early and late frosts, and freezing where it normally never occurs (Mexico was ravaged a few weeks ago).
Anyone here ever grow crops for a living, or live with those who do?
The Los Angeles times had an article up this weekend blaming the prevalence of breathing-related disorders, asthma, etc… on Climate Change.
I laughed.
“Ewen Todd, an MSU professor of advertising, public relations and retailing….”
Just another professor in a totally unrelated field climbing aboard the federally funded, AGW gravy train.
“Mycotoxins are molds that can sometimes cause illness in humans, and where you have drought and starvation there can be a mycotoxin problem,” he said. “That’s because people will store their meager resources of crops for longer than they should.”
Mycotoxins are the endangered species during a drought.
Achoo! http://news.discovery.com/earth/allergies-climate-change-ragweed-pollen-110222.html .
I would think that AGW Alarmists would positively welcome food shortages and mass starvation since
“The common enemy of humanity is man”.
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up
with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming,
water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these
dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through
changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome.
The real enemy then, is humanity itself.
– Club of Rome,
premier environmental think-tank,
consultants to the United Nations
See this and other ravings from politicians and Climate “scientists” alike at
http://green-agenda.com/
“At this point, the effects of climate change on food safety are poorly understood.”
The prof needs to get with the extortion program. What follows the above is always: “MUCH more research is needed.”
“poorly understood” translation…we need millions to study this
Having been exposed as frauds they now intend to shotgun the issue by overwhelming the argument with volumes of claims of impending disaster in all areas imaginable.
Never before has a theory been used to predict impending disaster that repeatedly fails to happen with so flagrant a use of the word could. Such an operation takes money and the source should be known. A WAG would be tax dollars.
Food pathogen temperature criticality is much wider, often 5 to 10 degrees F. Depends upon the beasty. Though toxins once produced cannot be neutered by cooking, the amount of projected rise due to AGW should have no appreciable impact. Besides our food storage folks who routinely monitor and adjust food environments for atmospheric variability have more than enough savy, even in the third world, to deal with the supposid gradual increases over the time frames projected. A tenth of a degree increase has no significance when you are routinely correcting for five or ten. This is all about ‘more study is needed’.
At a more basic level as things are currently going I anticipate future pronouncements, at least in the UK, approx. as follows:
Government Health Warning.
Due to the continued increase in mass outbreaks of food-poisoning, householders are advised to check their freezers after each and every power cut, and discard any contents that have gone soggy/misshapen.If the power cut is known to have lasted more than 24 hours it is advised that the entire contents be discarded.
By command: Chief (Eco Friendly) Scientific Officer Beddington.