Apple users running MacOSX 10.4 or later must install Microsoft's Silverlight software in order to view the streaming videos. Once installed, restart your browser before viewing. Silverlight 4.0 intel (14MB) | Silverlight 1.0 ppc (5MB) WATCH AND LISTEN under 10 minutes Science for a Hungry World: Agriculture and Climate Change NASA This short, clear introduction from NASA is worth watching. (5 minutes) longer For additional (older but still relevant) videos having to do with climate change and agriculture, please see the Archive. The Great Challenge: Farming, Food and Climate Change Michael Pollan, NYT Conferences Food journalist and guru Pollan offers a very good overview of both the climate-linked problems our food system faces and of ways agriculture can help us deal with them. (30 minutes, 2014) When the Water Ends: Africa's Climate Conflicts Evan Abramson, Yale Environment 360, MediaStorm This excellent video addresses the impacts of recurrent drought in the Lake Turkana region of Kenya and Ethiopia, with a focus on the lives of pastoralists and rising conflicts over water and inhabitable land. (16 minutes, 2010) READ books Colorado River Basin Study Bureau of Reclamation and 7 Western States, December 2012 From Denver to the California coast, forty million people depend on water from the Colorado River Basin, and climate change seems likely to have serious consequences for these users. This major study looks at the looming imbalance between supply and demand over the next fifty years and considers various means of coping with the coming shortage. Reporter Bruce Finley's Denver Post article and the Bureau of Reclamation's announcement offer useful descriptions of the major findings. articles & essays For Centuries the Rivers Sustained Aboriginal Culture. Now They Are Dry, Elders Despair Lorena Allam and Carly Earl, The Guardian, January 2019 A moving and enlightening article about what is happening to the intimate connections among running water, a living landscape, and the native culture in drought-devasted Australia. Harvesting Peril: Extreme Weather and Climate Change on the American Farm Georgina Gustin and others, Inside Climate News, October 2018-January 2019 What is happening in America's agricultural world as it begins to experience the effects of climate change? Not what one would hope, in large part due to the political and cultural influence of the powerful Farm Bureau. This very informative and readable series explores this complicated question and considers why, how, and to whom these issues do, will, or should matter. Of course some farmers know very well that climate change is affecting their livelihoods and are working on the problem (both as it affects individual farms and as soil sequestration of carbon can help the whole planet); good stories about them are in The Guardian, Civil Eats, and Grist (all December 2018). Huge Reduction in Meat-Eating "Essential" to Avoid Climate Breakdown Damian Carrington, The Guardian, October 2018 To avoid really destructive climate change, according to "the most comprehensive analysis yet of the food system's impact on the environment" described in this article, we need to change both our diets and our farming practices. There are important implications here for all of us, whether we grow food or just eat it. Drought and Climate Change Are Forcing Young Guatemalans to Flee to the U.S. Lauren Markham, Huffington Post, February & October 2017 This excellent feature story connects the dots among coffee, coffee farmers, drought, poverty, attempts at adaptation, migration, and more, focused on Guatemala but with wider implications. Efforts to help coffee farmers are also underway in Ethiopia and Kenya: ee this brief article from July 2018. Running Out of Water: Cape Town & La Paz Unfortunately, stories like these are almost certain to grow more common, but reading them now might help us adapt more successfully as more water supplies dry up. These two are particularly well done. For Cape Town, South Africa (February 2018), see here. For La Paz, Bolivia (May 2018), see here. How Carbon Dioxide Can Make Food Less Nutritious Brad Plumer, New York Times, May 2018 For the billions who rely on rice, this study isn't good news: when it grows in air with more CO2, it is less nutritious. The Washington Post has another piece about this rice study. For an explanation of how this fits into the larger picture of increased CO2 and plants, see this good short piece. Dismal Western Snowpack Is a Climate "Warning Sign" Chelsea Harvey, E&E News, Scientific American, May 2018 When enough snow doesn't fall (in the Sierra Nevada or the Rockies, for instance), or when it doesn't last long enough into the summer, bad things happen: dry rivers, water shortages, earlier and more wildfires, more dead trees, thirsty crops, and so on. It's clear that in the American West, the dry winter of 2017-18 is part of a long-term pattern. For a story about the same pattern, written before that winter, see this piece from News Deeply. Avoiding Meat and Dairy Is 'Single Biggest Way' to Reduce your Impact on Earth Damian Carrington, The Guardian, May 2018 According to what this article calls the "most comprehensive analysis to date of the damage farming does to the planet," what we eat really matters, and we would all do well to switch to a plant-based diet. But the calculations aren't always simple, as this account of the same study from Inside Climate News explains. Feeding Climate Change: What the Paris Agreement Means for Food and Beverage Companies Oxfam America, June 2016 This site offers two good resources. One is a set of clear interactive graphics that illustrate, for 17 major food commodities (from rice to strawberries), greenhouse gas emissions, the scale of global production, and associated water scarcity. The other is a downloadable report, also clearly written and illustrated, aimed at food and beverage companies but of broad interest, that considers what is needed from global businesses while keeping in mind the situations of small-scale producers and agricultural workers. Sustainable Diets: What You Need to Know in 12 Charts World Resources Institute, April 2016 On this user-friendly site, "To make sustainable diet choices easier for consumers, WRI introduces a new protein scorecard ranking foods from lowest (plant-based foods) to highest impact (beef), based on associated greenhouse gas emissions per gram of protein. Encouragingly, some of the lowest-impact foods are also the cheapest to buy." The full report is here. Healthy Ground, Healthy Atmosphere: Recarbonizing the Earth's Soils Nancy Averett, Environmental Health Perspectives, February 2016 This interesting and readable story overviews ways to increase the health and carbon content of soil through various farming techniques, including no-till, cover crops, and biochar. While these methods are slowly gaining traction among farmers, there is lots of room for more action on this front. African Nations Aim to Restore 100 Million Hectares of Land by 2030 Megan Rowling, Thompson Reuters Foundation, December 2015 Ten countries in Africa "have committed to restore 31 million hectares of degraded and deforested land" as part of an effort to make even more land productive again. Funds to extend and expand current efforts will come from the World Bank, Germany, and private investors. As Droughts Worsen, Joined-up Adaptations Build Resilience in Arid Kenya Sophie Mbugua, Thompson Reuters Foundation, September 2015 Where one tactic might not do much to alleviate the problems coming with drought, sometimes several tactics joined can do much better. This story is about one pilot program of this kind, tackling issues of grazing lands, water access for both animals and people, animal diseases, and potential conflict in northern Kenya. Why Beef Is the New SUV John D. Sutter, CNN, September 2015 Part of Sutter's lively two degree reporting project, this informative piece might give you some new things to consider on the question of what you eat. Interesting to read, not the usual take on the topic, and with good links to data. Giving Up Beef Will Reduce Carbon Footprint More than Cars, Says Expert Damian Carrington, The Guardian, July 2015 This short report covers a couple of new studies comparing the carbon footprint of different kinds of foods and diets. One concluded that "meat lovers' diets cause double the climate-warming emissions of vegetarian diets"; another (published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) that beef "requires 28 times more land to produce than pork or chicken, 11 times more water and results in five times more climate-warming emissions. When compared to staples like potatoes, wheat, and rice, the impact of beef per calorie is even more extreme, requiring 160 times more land and producing 11 times more greenhouse gases." Heat in the Heartland: Climate Change and Economic Risk in the Midwest Risky Business, January 2015 This new report from the top-notch Risky Business research group is important reading, not least for people interested in American food production, as well as cities in the Midwest (defined here as the block from Missouri through Ohio and up to the Canadian border). The "stark conclusion" they come to: "The Midwest economy faces multiple and significant risks from climate change." A good overview from E&E ClimateWire is here. In Flooded Western Zambia, Communities Lead Climate Fightback Jeffrey Barbee, Thomson Reuters Foundation, June 2014 An interesting instance of a locally-directed adaptation plan, in this case to climate-change alterations to the seasonal flooding of the Zambezi River. Funded by the Climate Investment Fund's Pilot Program for Climate Resilience. How Weeds Could Help Feed Billions in a Warming World Lisa Palmer, Environment 360, June 2014 "A weed is a plant whose virtues have yet to be discovered": so says one of the scientists whose work is profiled in this story. Sometimes wild plants have genetic characteristics that could help their domesticated cousins survive under the tougher conditions likely to increase with global warming, including resilience to heat, drought, flooding, and pests. Climate Change: How a Warming World is a Threat to our Food Supplies John Vidal, The Observer, April 2013 A succinct but thorough overview of expected impacts of climate change on the world's food crops over coming decades. Good graphics, which are also collected here. Plant Hardiness Zones No doubt climate shifts affect what we can grow where. What should these changes look like on those familiar plant hardiness zone maps‒the ones we use to decide which plants to try? The series of maps from the last few decades tells the story. See here and here for examples; for a good 2012 blog on these changes, see here. Rangelands and Global Change Society for Range Management This very clear and readable overview of current and anticipated changes to rangelands emphasizes the need for smart land management to reduce and cope with unwanted changes in land use and productivity, invasive species, atmospheric chemistry, climate, and water resources. For links to journal articles outlining the effects of climate change on seven global rangeland regions, see the June 2008 Issue of Rangelands, "Climate Change and Rangelands." websites Meat Eater's Guide Environmental Working Group, 2011 Carefully researched "lifecycle assessments of 20 types of popular meat, fish, dairy and vegetable proteins to determine their full "cradle-to-grave" carbon footprints." The "At-a-Glance" document is the place to start, but there is lots more here as well, including a very detailed full report and many other resources for those who want to eat with the planet's health in mind. TEACH resources Climate Change Publications, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations As one might expect, the FAO is deeply concerned about the effects of climate change on world food supplies and on farmers, and they have many useful publications on a wide range of topics. Two examples: Livestock's Role in Climate Change and Air Pollution and Adapting Agriculture to Climate Change. Agriculture Resources, Cornell Climate Change Cornell University This site offers an excellent set of resources, including factsheets, decision-support tools for farmers, videos, scientific studies, and more. Examples are centered on New York but should be useful to many other agricultural producers, researchers, and students. High and Dry: Climate Change, Water, and the Economy World Bank, 2016 Here is the opening of the summary of this rich, sobering, and practical report: "The impacts of climate change will be channeled primarily through the water cycle, with consequences that could be large and uneven across the globe." Agricultural Adaptation to a Changing Climate US Department of Agriculture, July 2012, 76 pages (total) This thorough and readable report pays attention to regional differences and focuses on adaptation. Worth reading for anyone with a serious interest in U.S. agriculture.