Planetary Crisis Is Food System Crisis

Climate change, per se, might be defined as a combination of temperature variability, sea level rise, extreme weather events such as droughts and floods, and volatile weather patterns. Certainly, we are experiencing those things, although here in the mid-Atlantic, we’re somewhat insulated from the worst of it (which may be unfortunate when you consider how much time the nation’s lawmakers spend here). But we’re in the midst of something bigger than climate change. We’ve destabilized many—or all—of Earth’s formerly fine-tuned systems, and we are now experiencing what Myers calls a global Earth crisis. And this Earth crisis is having dramatic effects on our food systems. 

Some of the downstream effects of destabilization on food systems include freshwater scarcity, shrinking of fisheries, the loss of arable land to desertification, soil erosion, and other forces.  And those are only the obvious food-system effects. Less obvious are phenomena such as species loss as we race toward what many scientists refer to as Earth’s sixth mass extinction event.  

As Myers explained, the so-called insect apocalypse portends a huge food crisis. He has modeled what pollinator collapses would do for human health outcomes, and he notes that already, “We found that there are about half a million deaths every single year today because of reduced pollination services, which lead to reductions in the production of nutritious foods like fruits and vegetables and nuts that help to prevent diseases like heart disease and stroke and diabetes and certain kinds of cancers.” 

The decline in bat populations in the United States has been studied by Dr. Eyal Frank, an environmental economist at the University of Chicago. He’s found that in counties with a decline in bat populations, agricultural pests are increasing in number. More pests means that farmers are using more pesticides, in some counties by about 31 percent. And in those same counties with increased pesticide use, infant mortality has increased by almost 8 percent.  

Myers also notes that as we lose biodiversity the incidence of West Nile disease, Lyme disease, and malaria increases.  

Then there’s the Great Nutrient Depletion, which is a bizarre unintended consequence of burning fossil fuels, which increases carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Myers explains that all the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere stimulates plant growth—but dilutes the nutrients in our crops, making them significantly less nutrient-dense than they were a century ago. (Dr. Lewis Ziska of Columbia University, one of the researchers who discovered the effect, will talk about this phenomenon at length in an upcoming episode.)  

As Myers notes, our food systems have been optimized for a very stable set of biophysical conditions, but now those conditions are changing rapidly. 

In addition to navigating so many changes in our food systems, he says, we are having to navigate an emotional crisis. So many of the systems put into place by generations before us are currently “choking the life out the planet” for generations that will come after us. We’re watching our planet degrade in real time, and many of us are disconnected from the natural world. 

Myers asks, “How do we manage the commons, how do we function as a collective? How do we think about these issues that intersect across both environment and human health at a global scale?” He introduced me to a new field, planetary health law, which integrates health law with environmental law and has a global emphasis. It aims to address the root causes of intersecting crises, with an eye toward the populations that are most affected—usually the marginalized, poor, and Indigenous. Another framework he introduced me to is the planetary health city framework, which prioritizes the protection of human health and Earth’s natural systems in urban settings.  

Ultimately, Myers believes that ecological grief is real and powerful. But he thinks it’s an exciting time to be alive. For what he calls “this great transition,” he suggests that “everyone has skills that are relevant to this kind of societal change that we need.” Here’s hoping he’s tapped into something we can all look forward to.