myth 2
Climate Change
Makes Hunger Inevitable
[MYTH:] There may well be plenty of food today, but climate change is a game changer. More frequent extreme weather and rising temperatures threaten agriculture. Climate change not only makes ongoing hunger virtually impossible to overcome but also means more and more episodes of outright famine.
[OUR RESPONSE:] The hard reality of climate change is certainly no myth. It's already destroying lives and unraveling ecosystems. In no way, however, does this challenge make hunger and famine inevitable. It turns out that within our inefficient, inequitable, and climate--harming food system is vast scope for both increasing the food supply and addressing the roots of hunger. And here's some really encouraging news: Changes in food and farming that best address global climate change are precisely those that most benefit the world's hungry people, the environment, and everyone's health.
Let's start with what we know about climate change: "Nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by the impacts of climate change," warned Rajendra Pachauri, former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), upon the release of its 2014 report.[1] As climate change brings us more chaotic weather and rising temperatures, farming and fishing face new challenges.
The IPCC expects that crop productivity could decline by as much as about 13 percent after 2030 to the end of the century.[2] Heat and water stress, the panel reports, are already threatening crops.[3]
"[S]evere drought conditions by the late half of this century" are expected "over many densely populated areas," write scientists in [Nature Climate Change], including "Europe, the eastern USA, Southeast Asia and Brazil."[4]
South Asia and southern Africa are likely to experience the greatest impact, predicts the IPCC, with much of Africa's cropped area expected to be outside normal temperatures by 2050.[5]
In response to warmer temperatures, crop pests are expected to expand into new regions.[6]
Scientists warn that elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide can reduce nutrients such as zinc and iron in some widely eaten crops.[7]
Climate change is making oceans more acidic, and this effect could reduce the supply of seafood on which a billion people in the Global South depend.[8]
Seeing these food-related trends, the World Food Program (WFP) expects "the number of malnourished children to increase by 24 million by 2050, or about one-fifth more than without climate change."[9]
As humanity continues to increase greenhouse gas emissions while undermining the Earth's capacity to absorb carbon, these expert observations form a powerful call to immediate action. [But they are a far cry from a verdict that hunger and famine are inevitable.] We alive today will largely determine whether such adversity can be turned into -opportunity-not just limiting misery and dislocation but creating more life-supporting societies.
If we let ourselves be ruled by fear and respond unreflectively to dire predictions, we could miss positive possibilities lying within the huge climate puzzle that we explore in this chapter. Here are three:
[Within our food system is vast room for improvement.] Precisely because today's food system is so inefficient, destructive, and inequitable, there is vast room to improve food availability before we test Earth's actual capacity to feed us. Achieving greater efficiency and equity would mean not only enough food for all, but also healthier food, even as we respond to warmer, more erratic weather.
[The food system has a unique capacity to help rebalance the carbon cycle.] Notice that we cast our challenge as one of "rebalancing," not just reducing, to remind us that our task is twofold: cutting emissions [and] storing more carbon in the soil in order to reach a balance of atmospheric carbon supportive of life. Today, we're pushing this cycle out of balance.
Our entire food and agricultural system-from land to landfill-is itself, climatically, a big troublemaker, estimated to account for up to 29 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions.[10] Most startlingly, emissions from food and agriculture are growing so fast that, if they continue at this rate, in thirty-five years they alone could nearly reach the safe target set for [all] greenhouse gas emissions.[11] That projection should get us moving!
At the same time, remade to better serve us, our food system would not only reduce emissions but also store more carbon, becoming not a climatic curse but a cure.
[Strategies addressing climate change can directly help reduce hunger.] Many changes necessary for the food and farming system to contribute to climate solutions also hold special power to reduce hunger. Why? These farming practices are low-cost and especially benefit small-scale farmers and farmworkers, who are the majority of hungry people.[12] Here, and especially in Myths 4 and 10, we highlight how farmers are transforming their practices to yield more and better food while at the same time reducing greenhouse gas emissions, becoming less vulnerable to extreme weather, protecting diverse species, and storing more carbon.
These points suggest a bundle of positive synergies. Before we explore them, let us lay out the main elements of the chapter before you.
First, in "Famine Isn't Fate" we argue that the tragedy of famine, typically blamed on weather extremes, actually lies in human-made vulnerability. Second, in "The Hidden Food Supply" we examine the untapped and unappreciated potential mentioned above. Third, in "From Curse to Cure" we lay out the impressive changes in farming and eating that humanity can make-and has begun making-to contribute to meeting the climate-change challenge.
From there, we show-primarily through stories-how people the world over are "Reducing Vulnerability to Both Climate Change and Hunger," and then close the chapter with "Reflections on Vulnerability and Human Agency."
In these explorations, we share what we find surprising as well as motivating. Now let's begin by examining the most frightening element of this myth-that climate change makes famine inevitable.
FAMINE ISN'T FATE
Throughout history, famines have been blamed on nature. Take the infamous Irish Potato Famine, which between 1845 and 1852 killed about a million people and forced perhaps as many as two million more to emigrate. It was caused by a virulent potato blight-or was it? That same blight devastated potato crops across Europe, while mass starvation occurred only in Ireland.[13]
So why only Ireland?
A letter to the British prime minister from an observer of events in Ireland in 1846 sheds some light: "For 46 years the people of Ireland have been feeding those of England." They "exported their wheat and their beef in profusion, [while] their own food became gradually deteriorated… until the mass of the peasantry was exclusively thrown on the potato."[14] Impoverishment under British rule had made the people of Ireland more vulnerable to the blight.
Vulnerability is largely under human control. A much more recent tragedy brings this point home. In 2011, a severe drought hit the Horn of Africa, including Djibouti, Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia. More than thirteen million in the region were heavily affected.[15] In Somalia roughly 260,000 people perished, half of them under the age of six.[16] Another 300,000 Somalis were forced to flee their homes in search of food and security-many swelling refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia.[17]
A tragic mix of events-from civil conflict to extreme weather and fast-rising food prices-triggered the crisis, says the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).[18]
The worst drought in sixty years in some areas followed a decade of periodically poor rainfall throughout the region. Then, in the two years immediately before 2011, rains in the eastern areas utterly failed.[19] Most scientists blame in part the recurring meteorological phenomenon known as La Ni?a.[20] There's no consensus on whether climate change is worsening La Ni?a's impact, but climate scientists do agree that a warming planet makes extreme weather more likely.[21]
Once hunger became severe, civil conflict made the government's weak response even less effective. Islamist militants in south Somalia limited aid; and despite an "early warning" system, international help was slow to respond.[22]
These woes led the price of food in the region to rise-it went up by almost half between 2009 and 2011, a leap about twice the world average.[23] In Somalia, it was a lot worse: Local grain prices in several areas rose more than fourfold.[24]
Seeing starvation, many people naturally assumed that food production in the region had fallen precipitously. It had not.
Certainly it's true that for some time the famine-stricken countries had been producing fewer calories per person, compared with other regions in Africa; yet, with the exception of Somalia, food supplies in 2011 met minimum energy requirements in each of the affected countries, reports the FAO.[25] In fact, the famine hit after a decade in which calories per person in the Horn of Africa had increased modestly.[26] Even more counterintuitive is the fact that during the famine, when Kenya was importing basic foods, its export of green beans destined for Western super-markets increased threefold.[27]
Additionally, record-breaking harvests elsewhere in Africa could have been tapped to address the famine. At the time, Zambia had such a surfeit of corn that much of it ended up rotting for lack of storage.[28]
Thus, even in this life-shattering famine, drought-reduced supply was an exacerbating factor, not the cause.
Famine also reflects lack of preparedness. In years of adequate food supply, governments accountable to citizens' well-being could have established at least minimum stores of food to release in such tough times.
Consider the difference that preparation made for people in Ethiopia compared with Somalia during the famine. In Ethiopia, what aid agencies call "prepositioned food supplies" made rapid response possible; and Ethiopia's safety net programs-such as one compensating low-income workers for their labor in public projects-also helped reduce drought-related suffering.[29]
Globally, commonsense preparedness is equally critical, and more so as climate change intensifies. Arguing for increased reserves, veteran food and environment analyst Lester Brown points out that "more extreme weather events" arriving with climate change mean that "[i]f stocks equal to 70 days of grain consumption were sufficient 40 years ago, then today we should plan on stocks equal to at least 110 days of consumption."[30] But in 2015 world grain stocks are well below this level.[31]
Lack of food can't be the reason that world stocks are low, given the magnitude of the global food supply documented in the previous chapter. Throughout this book, we explore the real reasons.
Reflecting on Famine
The 2011 tragedy in the Horn of Africa echoes earlier famines blamed on nature.
In 1974, a famine in Bangladesh took tens of thousands of lives even though there had been an increase per person in food grain availability, reported Nobel Prize economist Amartya Sen.[32] Rumors of shortfall spread anyway, prompting well-to-do farmers and merchants to hoard food.
As two longtime observers of rural Bangladesh commented on the famine, "While to most people scarcity means suffering, to others it means profit."[33] One peasant described what happened in her village: "A lot of people died of starvation here. The rich farmers were hoarding rice and not letting any of the poor peasants see it. There may not have been a lot of food, but if it had been shared, no one would have died."[34]
For those living in countries like the United States, it's easy to assume that famine deaths "over there" result from natural catastrophes, so it's worth pausing to take in this news item from the [Chicago Tribune], January 22, 1994: "Man Dies: Found in Unheated Home." The article called it "the fourth fatality of [the] week's cold wave." Surely, the writer did not believe that weather was the cause of the four deaths.[35] In the United States, roughly seven hundred people, most of them homeless, die from cold exposure every year.[36] Here it's clear that weather is the trigger, not the cause.
In no way, of course, do we downplay climate-change impacts already showing up in more frequent and severe droughts and floods, nor the additional changes predicted in the beginning of this chapter. Nevertheless, whether in Ireland, Kenya, Bangladesh, or Chicago, let's keep our sights clear: Those who die of famine have been made vulnerable to weather extremes by human-made structures of power denying them access to adequate food, shelter, and protection.
This perspective can help us gain clarity as we now turn from famine to the relationship between climate change and day-in-and-day-out nutritional deprivation. But first note the imbalance between famine and chronic hunger. In 2004, "humanitarian emergencies," notes Christopher Barrett in [Science], amounted to "8 percent of hunger-related deaths worldwide." Meanwhile, "92 percent were associated with chronic or recurring hunger and malnutrition."[37]
THE HIDDEN FOOD SUPPLY
So what do we know so far about what we can do in the coming decades to ensure sufficient, healthy food for all people?
From IPPC and the FAO, we learn that we'll probably need to increase food production almost 60 percent by mid-century.[38] This projection feels downright alarming-especially if getting there would entail destroying yet more forests, along with putting even greater pressure on diminishing available water, and more.
So here's an obvious question: If over this period world population is expected to grow by a third, why, according to the climate change panel's midline projection, do we need so much more food[?]
Part of the answer is an unquestioned assumption behind these projections: that "demand" for animal foods fueled by "prosperity" is an inexorable process. Yet this demand actually reflects the increasing market power of the minority at the top of the economic ladder to subsidize with public funds and personally afford grain-fed animal foods-especially beef-thereby outbidding the majority in the global marketplace and at the same time, as we'll explain, shrinking the total food supply.
Whether we accept this scenario as a given is key to our well-being in a climate-challenged world. Livestock is a critical piece of the climate puzzle, and we'll return to its role later in this chapter, after we explore another aspect of the hidden food supply potentially available to us.
Trash or Treasure?
The assertion that our only choice is to greatly increase production also skirts this big, immediate, largely ignored bird in the hand: food waste. As climate change handicaps food growing in many areas, waste should grab our attention, for what is it but a margin we can use to compensate for any losses without further disrupting the Earth?
In Myth 1 we noted that one-third of all food produced worldwide never reaches our mouths. In the United States, it's a jaw-dropping 40 percent.[39]
And why such vast, but largely hidden, waste?
In the Global South, much waste stems directly from the poverty of small farmers. Of course, impoverished farmers must conserve all they can. The problem is that they often can't afford proper storage, and this problem results in losses of at least 12 percent and up to 50 percent for fruits and vegetables.[40] Another source of waste is a dearth of rural markets, and roads to reach them, sometimes making it futile--especially given inadequate storage-for poor farmers to harvest additional crops once family needs are met.[41]
And in the Global North, food waste is everywhere. One image says a lot: In a U.K. carrot-processing factory featured in a UN report about common sources of food waste, a machine equipped with special sensors tosses into a livestock feed container any carrot that's not arrow-straight![42]
Try this thought experiment. Posit that by mid-century we cut food waste worldwide by half: Instead of the current estimated 33 percent wasted, we get food waste down to, say, about 15 percent. The food made available by this success alone equals roughly enough to feed a billion people.[43] So even with no other gains, our progress against waste would have more than compensated for the 13 percent decline in agricultural productivity the IPCC suggests is possible.
So how do we do it?
Solutions to food waste abound, and some directly address hunger: Affordable loans to help poor farmers secure low-cost crop storage containers and public investment in market roads are obvious paths. Important, too, are community granaries where farmers can store grain safely for the lean season. In northern Cameroon, on the edge of the arid Sahel region, the WFP has helped establish 410 village granaries.[44] Processing helps prevent waste, too. Solar energy dryers for mangoes, for example, are helping reduce losses in western Africa, where more than a hundred thousand tons of the fruit go bad each year.[45]
Another step is to eliminate waste created when good food-those crooked carrots?-is discarded for minor irregularities. In France, what's playfully called the "Ugly Fruit" movement encourages markets not to toss out their blemished produce but to sell it at a lower price. The first stores to try it offered discounts of 30 percent, and shoppers ate it up![46]
On the theme of "matchmakers pair lonely leftovers," the [New York Times] reported in 2014 that in Germany anyone can leave or pick up free food at about a hundred food-sharing sites. And at Foodsharing.de, members can connect online to share food instead of tossing it.[47]
In this war on waste, though, the U.K. may have taken the lead. Its "Love Food Hate Waste" campaign, now active in ten cities, includes "Save More" educational packets offering tools and tips about both wasting less food and saving money. Since 2007, the "Love Food Hate Waste" campaign boasts that its efforts have cut U.K. food and beverage waste by 21 percent.[48]
And then there's the United States, where the average family of four throws out $1,600 of food each year. So the EPA-with partners ranging from schools and restaurants to grocery stores-launched the Food Recovery Challenge initiative. In 2013, participants saved 370,000 tons of food from landfills and incineration-that's more than two pounds for every American. Even Disneyland joined in.[49]
Overall, cutting food waste by half seems like an eminently achievable goal.
Of course, compensating for climate-caused crop shortfalls isn't enough to meet the challenges ahead. Our population is still growing, with the UN's median projection leading to more than three billion additional people by the end of the century. Let's not forget, however, that if humanity really steps up to spread proven solutions to elevated fertility, covered in Myth 1, we could radically alter that outcome. In fact, the UN suggests it would be possible to arrive at the turn of the century with a world population lower than today's.[50]
Fortunately, there is much more we can do beyond cutting literal waste to make sure that good food is available for all as we work to slow population growth and come into equilibrium with the Earth. We'll suggest several approaches that not only protect against further environmental harm but can lead to a healthy planet.
Certainly, we can cut the enormous but much less visible [built-in] waste.
Livestock, a Food-Factory-in-Reverse
In ensuring our food supply, now take in the great room for improvement captured in these striking numbers: Worldwide, three-fourths of all agricultural land, including pasture, is used to produce animal products.[51] And from all this, what do we get? Just 17 percent of our calories.[52]
To understand why humans get so little, consider livestock's "take":
About half the world's calories from crops don't go to people. Instead they go primarily to feed livestock-which consume a third of the world's grain and 85 percent of soy-and into agrofuel production and other industrial purposes.[53] All this leaves only about half of all crop calories-and a shrinking share-for people to eat directly.
Let this sink in. Then note also that not all livestock are created -efficiency-equal. Beef comes in last: Of the calories that cattle eat in feed, humans get a measly 3 percent in the beef we eat. The accompanying table reveals the big differences in the capacity of livestock to convert what they eat into calories we eat. Dairy is about thirteen times more efficient than beef, chicken about four times.[54]
Given this extreme inefficiency, it shouldn't surprise us that livestock-centric U.S. agriculture-viewed by many as the pinnacle of efficiency-actually feeds fewer people per hectacre, 5.4, than either Chinese, 8.4, or Indian, 5.9, agriculture, both of which are less meat-focused.[55]
What a jarring contrast to the assumptions of so many Americans about the superiority of U.S. agriculture!
But, of course, livestock were not always shrinking our food supply, or humans could never have made it to seven billion. Throughout human evolution animals have converted grass and other things we don't eat into high-grade protein we do eat-a big boon for humans. But over time we have remade livestock into nutrition disposals.
This we can change.
We can tap the huge potential gain to be realized by shifting even modestly away from heavily grain-fed-meat-centered diets. (We revisit this theme and its nutritional implications in "Eating with the Earth" below.)
The food-supply implications of such a shift are striking. Worldwide, converting just half of crops fed to livestock into crops for humans could yield enough food for two billion people.[56]
And here at home, if Americans on average were to eat one--quarter less meat and stop diverting cropland into agrofuel production (-ethanol)-which offers no reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared with oil-more than one in five U.S. cropped acres would be released.[57] That's enough to supply food for more than 231 million people.[58]
Looking at the impact of what we eat from another angle, what would be the result of shifting modestly from beef to other animal foods?
Replacing even a fifth of the beef eaten globally with the more efficient pork or poultry would reduce the [total] agricultural area needed for all to eat in 2030 by about the same amount-a fifth-according to scientists at Sweden's Chalmers University of Technology.[59]
That freed-up land could be used to grow food for people, or it could be used to regrow forests and other carbon-sequestering vegetation, as we discuss below. (Carbon sequestration refers to the capture and storing of carbon by plants and soil.) Scientists estimate that enabling cropland to transition to secondary forest can increase soil carbon stocks per unit of land by more than half.[60]
Let us be clear that these examples are "thought experiments" to indicate the reality of plenty and the possibilities open to us. We know such changes can happen not by individual choice alone, but only if we step up together to change policies governing our food systems.
Narrowing the Yield Gap
There's yet another overlooked angle on how humanity can step up to ensure supply, especially for the most vulnerable, even as climate change challenges agriculture.
Worldwide, many farmers' yields are far below their crops' proven potential-bad for them and a big waste for all of us. Climate change isn't the main reason. It's that so many farmers are resource-poor and lack economic and political power. They're often working degraded soils without access to the training, affordable credit, and tools needed to build soil fertility while conserving water, using the low-cost practices described in Myth 4.
Breakthroughs among such farmers are happening, but today huge "yield gaps" remain between what is and what's already proved possible.[61]
The gaps are so enormous that if they were to shrink for sixteen major crops, achieving an average yield of even 75 percent of known potential, the global food supply would expand enough for roughly two billion people, on the basis of data reported by University of Minnesota scientists in [Nature].[62] Other scientists at the same university report in [Science] that yields of seventeen major crops are so low in many regions that getting them up to even [half] of what's attainable would add food sufficient for about 850 million people.[63]
And the great news? We have every reason to believe that such yield improvements are achievable using the ecologically sound farming practices we describe in Myth 4.
Thus, as we face the challenges of climate change, at least three wide avenues offer possibilities for tapping the "hidden food supply" available to us: reducing food waste, shifting a portion of today's meat-centered meals to plant-centered meals, and narrowing the gap between current crop yields and what we know is possible. Taking advantage of these three avenues, we can work to ensure a food supply for all in the face of climate change-[without] expanding cropped land. We can also, we hope, restore some land to natural vegetation, all while offering health benefits.
As we'll now explain, these changes bring climate benefits, too.
FROM CURSE TO CURE
So far we've explored ways that humanity can unleash the potential food supply now hidden from view, in order to ensure enough food for all in the face of climate change. But there is much more to the connection between food and climate.
Few yet realize that just over a third of human-caused global greenhouse gas emissions-taking into account the different potencies of gases-is not from carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels.[64] Of this third, the largest piece is from agriculture, estimated at nearly 20 percent of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, and thus a much greater climate-changer than transportation.[65] (And this estimate may be too conservative, as the UN Environmental Program [UNEP] estimates the world's agriculture emissions to be one-third higher.)[66] Of the nearly one-fifth contributed by agriculture, the most significant emissions are:
[Carbon dioxide] released in deforestation and subsequent burning, mostly in order to grow feed, and from decaying plants.
[Methane] released by ruminant livestock, mainly via their belching (ruminants, such as cows, goats, and sheep, have a specialized stomach, the "rumen," where feed is fermented); and, in addition, the methane released by manure and in rice paddy cultivation.
Plus [nitrous oxide], largely released by manure and manufactured fertilizers.
Note that these last two-methane and nitrous oxide-pack a particularly dangerous punch: Over a hundred-year period, methane per unit emitted is thirty-four times worse as a climate-heater than carbon dioxide. For nitrous oxide, make that about 300 times worse.[67]
Here we emphasize the often-overlooked climate impact of producing food; yet eating increasingly also involves transportation, processing, packaging, refrigeration, storage, wholesale and retail operations, and waste-all of which emit greenhouses gases. So, from land to landfill, what is the food system's climate impact?
Unfortunately, a dearth of "comparable data" makes it impossible to answer this vital question with confidence, an FAO officer tells us.[68] Nonetheless, a trio of international environmental scientists used what data are available to arrive at an estimate: The total food system's contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions could be as high as 29 percent. CGIAR, a global partnership of fifteen food-security research centers, also relies on this estimate.[69]
However, as we explore below and throughout this book, producing food doesn't have to contribute to climate chaos. Indeed, the way we grow food can actually help [solve] the climate crisis.
A Harvest of Greenhouse Gases
Worldwide, we've moved toward an industrial model of agriculture that destroys forests and uses manufactured fertilizer and other inputs, resulting in two to three times more carbon dioxide released per unit of land than an organic farming model.[70] We explore these contrasting models in the next two chapters.
And keep in mind that food-system emissions include those arising from what never even makes it into our mouths. In fact, we waste so much food that, if it were a country, food waste would be the world's third-largest greenhouse gas emitter after China and the United States.[71]
Additionally, as noted above, agriculture contributes to climate change when its expansion destroys forests. Burning forests emits carbon dioxide, and clearing forests can release soil carbon if that land is cultivated or becomes degraded. Since the beginning of the industrial era, human action has removed a third of the earth's carbon-trapping forest cover. Imagine a forested area roughly the size of South America destroyed largely to grow crops.[72]
And it continues.
At the current rate, by century's end we will lose additional forests covering an area nearly one and a half times the size of India, and with it, significant capacity for taking up carbon.
Turning native forest to cropland can reduce soil carbon by more than 40 percent.[73]
In all, we're creating a mode of industrial farming that is storing less and less carbon. Soils managed with synthetic pesticides and fertilizers hold about 30 percent less organic carbon than do organically managed soils.[74] (A note to clarify the different uses of "organic" here. "Organic carbon" simply means carbon associated with living matter, while "organically managed" refers to a set of farming practices we describe in Myth 4.)
Livestock's Climate Liability
So far, we've highlighted the wasted potential built into the extreme inefficiency of grain-fed livestock. Now, let's explore livestock's role in the climate crisis.
Overall, livestock are responsible for at least 14.5 percent of all human-generated greenhouse gas emissions, reports the FAO-not only in their raising, but also via transport, processing, refrigeration, and more. Livestock-related emissions are considered "human--generated" because livestock are bred and raised by people. One peer-reviewed study arrived at a larger estimate: that livestock production contributes about one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions.[75] Much more research is needed on these knotty questions.
In any case, what's clear is that every bite of hamburger connects us to a vastly bigger greenhouse gas impact than does, say, a mouthful of bean chili or a veggie burger.
Of course, not all livestock are equally guilty. The contribution to climate change depends on the animal's size and number, as well as whether it is a ruminant and therefore emits methane.
Taking all this into account and looking at the planet's livestock populations, the greenhouse gas contribution of dairy is 17 percent, sheep 9 percent, pigs 5 percent, and goats 4 percent-whereas beef accounts for 54 percent of livestock's total greenhouse gas emissions.[76]
Measured differently-by GHG emissions [per unit of food]-the climate change "hoofprint" also varies dramatically by type of livestock, as shown in the "Eaters' Guide" table (page 56). Producing a pound of lamb or beef averages from about twenty to almost fifty times greater climate impact than does producing high-protein plant foods.[77] These estimates take into account "both direct and indirect environmental effects from 'farm to fork' for ruminants, including gas released in their digestion, manure, feed, fertilizer, processing, transportation and land-use," write ecologist William Ripple and colleagues in the journal [Nature Climate Change].[78]
And then there is the water impact of livestock on our warming planet.
In many areas climate change is making water more precious, and irrigation claims nearly 70 percent of freshwater used by humans. Much of it is for producing livestock, which are big water guzzlers.[79]
In drought-plagued California, for example, meat and dairy account for almost half of the state's entire water footprint.[80] Nearly a fifth of its irrigation water goes to one feed crop, alfalfa.[81] So even as water scarcity worsens, every year 100 billion gallons of California water in the form of alfalfa go to China for meat production there.[82] More than half of water used in the Colorado River basin, reaching six states including California, "is dedicated to feeding cattle and horses," reports the Pacific Institute.[83]
In all, raising a pound of beef uses almost fifty times more water than growing a pound of vegetables, about forty times more than potatoes and other root crops, and about nine times more than grain.[84] Or consider this: One could bathe daily for more than a month with the water used to produce a pound of beef!
But livestock's often unappreciated impact is greater still.
Largely through the destruction of natural habitats, human expansion of livestock production is the "single greatest threat to overall biodiversity," concludes a study in [Science], and is causing the extinction of plant and animal species worldwide.[85] For example, below we note deforestation in Brazil, in part to expand beef production. In the next chapter we take up the threat to a sustainable food supply posed by this shrinking biodiversity.
Putting these pieces together, we see that both the extent to which humanity depends on livestock and the type of livestock we choose to eat really matter as we work toward a world in which we can avoid climate catastrophe and everyone can eat well.
Solutions at Hand, Restoring the Balance
Now to the positive, as we work to restore the carbon balance both by cutting emissions and by increasing sequestration.
First of all, shifting to ecological farming practices itself reduces greenhouse gas emissions, as we explain in Myth 4. Take rice, which provides one-fifth of the world's calories.[86] As noted, rice paddies are big contributors of the powerful climate-changing gas methane and are responsible for 10 percent of total agricultural emissions-a problem expected to worsen as climate warms.[87] But breakthroughs in rice production, including the "System of Rice Intensification," significantly cut the release of methane-mainly because they do not flood the paddies. At the same time, they are increasing rice yields.[88] Also reducing methane emissions are cattle manure "digesters"-a simple technology that captures methane for renewable fuel.[89]
A second step is enhancing carbon absorption.
A surprise to a lot of people is that soil, which sequesters carbon and keeps it out of the atmosphere, holds three times as much carbon as the atmosphere does.[90] To appreciate the value of soil, keep in mind that our atmosphere is already overloaded with carbon dioxide; and its absorption by oceans is slowing. Already, climate change has made oceans more acidic, and thus increasingly inhospitable to sea life.[91]
Only soil can sequester carbon in ways that actually promote climate and human health.
Ecological farming practices contribute to soil's capacity for storing even more carbon. One such practice is composting, in which farmers apply to their fields decaying organic material made from plant and animal wastes such as leaves, stalks, kitchen scraps, and manure. Just one ton of organic material can result in storing almost 600 pounds of carbon dioxide, reports a study using Environmental Protection Agency data.[92]
Other effective practices include keeping the soil covered at all times, applying manure, planting multiple crops in the same field, and, especially, integrating trees on farms, a practice known as "agroforestry."[93]
Agroforestry might seem a rarity for anyone who imagines that a "farm" means vast stretches of a single crop as far as the eye can see. But mixing trees with crops is hardly rare. A quarter of the world's agricultural land has more than 20 percent tree cover, reports the World Agroforestry Center.[94] (And note that in agroforestry systems, trees aren't stealing resources from crops; rather, they can increase crop productivity.)[95]
And agroforestry's sequestration potential is impressive: If within the European Union, for example, agroforestry and several other ecological farming practices spread to their full potential, the shift has the "technical" potential to annually sequester carbon equal to 37 percent of all EU's carbon-dioxide-equivalent emissions in 2007, according to a study in [Land Use Policy].[96] That's huge, and agroforestry would contribute most of the gain. Globally, among a number of ecological farming practices, "agroforestry by far has the highest sequestration potentials for all world regions," concludes a World Bank study.[97]
For each unit of land, though, one practice called "biochar" tops all others in sequestering carbon, according to the same study. Biochar is a form of charcoal generated by the careful, controlled smoldering of organic material. An ancient technology, recently rediscovered, it's especially great for poor farmers because biochar can be made from farm waste-in Africa, for example, from cassava stems, oil palm branches, and common weeds. The potential of biochar varies widely by soil type and other variables, so scientists acknowledge great uncertainties.[98]
Nonetheless, biochar has been shown to increase the soil's capacity to store carbon as well as enhance crop yields significantly.[99] Its special carbon-holding power seems to lie in its porous structure, whose surfaces protect carbon from degradation. Some scientists estimate that biochar's long-term carbon-sequestering capacity is huge.[100]
The Big Picture of Possibilities for Earth's Carbon Storing
Considering all of these possibilities, and others, what's the Earth's likely big-picture potential to store carbon and keep it out of the atmosphere? We can:
Spread agroecology and agroforestry, described in Myth 4.
Restore wetlands and protect carbon-holding peat lands--waterlogged organic soils layered with decaying plant material, such as bogs.
Reestablish forests that we have destroyed.
And, in grassland ecosystems, improve grazing practices, sow leguminous grasses and other forage (that act as natural fertilizer), and manage fires.
These and other biomass-related steps to sequester carbon could be further enhanced by changing how we treat the soil. We can:
Halt the spread of deserts, thus enhancing soil organic and inorganic carbon.
Restore salt-affected soils and those degraded by nutrient depletion, soil-structure degradation, waterlogging, acidification, and more.
And, in farming, forgo plowing while extending the use of biochar and cover crops, as well as recycling nutrients using mulch and manure; and integrate livestock with cropland and forestry.
Together, these advances could potentially sequester carbon equal to a fifth of global carbon-dioxide-equivalent emissions annually, reports a leading world authority, Professor Rattan Lal of Ohio State University.[101] Whereas the EU study above captures technical-or theoretical--potential, Lal describes this big-picture potential as "attainable."
Note, however, that there's a limit to how much more carbon the Earth can sequester. The estimates for reaching that limit range from just a few decades to well over a hundred years.[102] The hopeful news is that this time frame is precisely when we will most need help from carbon sequestration as we end reliance on fossil fuel.
While grateful for the guidance of Lal and others on these complex questions, we are also dismayed by how much is still unknown and how little productive debate is under way to resolve serious divides among experts. Given the urgent need for common direction, we strongly encourage scientists to pursue this research with transparent communication among those with differing assessments. And, as citizens, we urge more public funding for their work.
So here we are. Even without all the data points, this we know: We've thrown natural cycles out of whack, but in the ways noted above and others we're discovering powerful means by which to rebalance the Earth.
Lightening Livestock's Load on the Planet
From this big picture of possibilities, let's now look specifically at how we can reduce the heavy burden of livestock. Above, we came down hard on livestock for its role in shrinking our food supply, depleting our groundwater, and fueling climate change.
Is there any hope?
In a 2013 "TED Talk," viewed by millions, biologist Allan Savory claimed that his "holistic" grazing method alone-largely by enabling more soil-carbon sequestration-could bring atmospheric carbon concentration down to preindustrial levels.[103]
Actually reverse climate change? Wow! Who would not want to believe such great news?
But others see the potential quite differently. One is Rattan Lal, cited above. According to his estimates, the [total] technical potential of soil -sequestration-of which improved grazing practices are just one -contributor-would take us, not all the way, but in fact less than 20 percent of the way to preindustrial carbon dioxide levels-or to about half of what's needed to return to even the highest level of atmospheric carbon considered safe.[104] (Note that in this case Lal is referring to "technical" potential, which is more generous than what scientists term "attainable.") Other scientists in peer-reviewed journals strongly challenge Savory's assumptions as well.[105]
Our big concern is that debate over Savory's extreme claim might distract us from many things that are clear. One is that improving livestock management is urgent, and would bring about multiple benefits.
Pastoralists, who rely on livestock for their livelihood and are also many of the world's hungry people, are learning to improve their management practices and thereby livestock's productivity. Simultaneously, they are reducing soil degradation, hunger, and greenhouse gases.
In Namibia, for example, pastoralists using Savory's holistic management methods broke with long-standing tradition and began working together-planning and coordinating their herding. Each night they corral animals, preventing them from returning to recently grazed plants, reports a joint account by the FAO and the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements. "The herders only come back to a grazed area when the perennial grasses are fully recovered," and, as a result, they've been able to make progress on four fronts: reducing soil degradation, improving soil-surface cover, conserving water, and enhancing biodiversity.[106] All are critically important to sustaining local people and to fighting climate change.
Namibia's story is encouraging evidence that the "tragedy of the -commons"-the notion that shared property is always abused-is not inevitable. Throughout history we humans have shown ourselves capable of making rules and enforcing them together so that our commons can flourish.[107]
Namibia's experience underscores the benefits of improved livestock management. But removing livestock can also lead to ecological restoration. Below, the story of China's Loess Plateau is one example.
Evidence also comes from observation of Oregon's Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge after grazing livestock were removed. There, regeneration of vegetation-bringing about enhanced biodiversity and carbon sequestration-occurred rapidly. Scientists sampling sixty-four sites in the refuge discovered that the area of bare soil had decreased by 90 percent, soil erosion had dropped measurably, and trees and other vegetation had spread. All this regreening, and in just over two decades.[108]
For us the takeaway here is the wisdom of remaining skeptical of claims of single, sweeping solutions, doggedly pursuing the evidence, and demanding that more resources be devoted to independent research on the best ways of righting the carbon balance.
To Graze or Not to Graze
But we'd be remiss if we moved on from a discussion of livestock without entering another hot debate.
In producing meat, some report our highly polluting and inhumane "concentrated animal feeding operations" (CAFOs) produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions per unit of protein.[109] It may be that CAFOs are so speedy in pumping out a meat product that each bite is linked to fewer greenhouse gases. One study suggests that a reason each CAFO cow may cause less climate harm is that it uses less land, even after we add in the vast acres used to grow feed.[110]
Or not.
Some make the opposite case: that the grazing of livestock means fewer greenhouse gases emitted compared with livestock produced largely by grain feeding in CAFOs.[111] Much depends, no doubt, on whether grazing is managed well so that soil remains covered.
For us, however, a concern is that this greenhouse gas debate-CAFOs versus grazing-could divert attention from what is clear about CAFOs: Even if they were proved to be less damaging in terms of greenhouse gas emissions relative to grazed livestock, CAFOs' pollution, grossly inefficient conversion of feed to food, disease threat, and -cruelty-reviewed in the next chapter-make them a dreadful choice.[112]
Moreover, on top of concerns about climate harm and the waste of resources built into livestock's inefficiency, the vast increase in meat production worldwide-that's been growing at two and a half times the rate population has since 1961-is drawing down precious water supplies and destroying biodiversity.[113]
Putting all these pieces together, here's how it looks to us: Humanity's turn toward grain-fed, meat-centered diets is a dangerous aberration indeed.
A course correction is in order, and, fortunately, it is imminently doable.
Eating with the Earth
We can all contribute to food-supply and climate-change solutions by reducing production and consumption of meat, especially beef. Shifting toward plant foods and less-carbon-intense animal foods is a great choice on many counts. Pork, chicken, and eggs carry one-fourth to one-twentieth the climate cost of beef. And the GHG impact of vegetable protein food is even less, at just one-twentieth to one-fiftieth of beef.[114]
As we move toward more plant foods and away from animal foods, each of us can contribute to continuing food-supply adequacy for all and cut greenhouse gas emissions--potentially enabling more carbon storage-while benefiting our own health.[115]
In fact, fruits and vegetables are so beneficial to our health that if Americans ate what the nation's dietary guidelines recommend, we could save $17 billion each year in medical costs, estimates the Union of Concerned Scientists.[116] And in 2015, we were pleased to see that experts advising the next official USDA dietary guidelines describe healthy "dietary patterns" as emphasizing plant foods and eating less meat, particularly beef, and tie this shift to "positive environmental" outcomes.[117]
And, in making this turn, we can let go of any worry about replacing all the protein we now eat: On average, Americans eat almost 70 percent more protein than recommended.[118] (For perspective, the protein in one eight-ounce steak exceeds the total recommended daily for both men and women.)[119] And, since our bodies cannot store protein, the extra ends up being used for fuel and, if we eat too much, turned to fat.[120] Plus, a big bonus: Medical experts stress the health benefits of a shift toward more beans, lentils, grains, nuts, fruits, and veggies.[121]
To succeed, though, in moving toward a planet-friendly diet, citizens need to demand an end to public policies that subsidize the meat industry.[122] In so doing, billions of dollars would be freed up to use to encourage production of affordable, diverse, healthy plant foods and to invest in smart public outreach about the multiple benefits of embracing more plant-centered diets. (Imagine the possibilities: Right now we devote 51 million acres to hay for feed but only four million to vegetables.)[123]
Such foundational change, we realize, requires democratically accountable policymakers-a theme we take up in Myths 9 and 10.
Americans are often dubious about our society's capacity to change. But should we be? After all, we cut the percent of Americans who smoke by half in forty years after warning labels were enforced and TV and radio ads banned.[124] To tackle tobacco, a combination of public policy encouragement and personal choices worked, and presumably meat isn't as addictive as cigarettes! Plus, Americans have already shown a willingness to reduce their beef intake, cutting it by nearly 40 percent since the mid-1970s.[125] (This is great, but keep in mind that during the same period, chicken consumption doubled, and U.S. consumers are still among the top beef eaters in the world.)[126]
In all, there's a place for each of us in this big, positive step toward healthier, climate-friendly farming and eating.
Re-covering the Earth, Ending Hunger
Now, let's turn to solutions in which solutions to hunger and climate change are intersecting.
Courageous citizens and officials are working to halt forest destruction, about three-fourths of it caused by expanding crops and grazing.[127] And some countries are restoring and reforesting their land.
Costa Rica has moved from high rates of deforestation in the 1970s to almost zero today, and a quarter of its land is now officially protected.[128] Brazil-long a notorious forest destroyer-became a leader in slowing the destruction, and by 2012 had cut its rate of deforestation by two-thirds compared with its 1996–2005 average. Brazil's progress has since reversed.[129] It will take citizen pressure to reverse this reverse.
In China, where many see only unmitigated ecological disaster, farmers on its north-central Loess Plateau have reclaimed an area two-thirds the size of Massachusetts. For decades "experts" had tried restoration schemes for the area, sometimes described as a "moonscape" and known for dire poverty and hunger. Its massive erosion had been silting up the Yellow River for millennia. All attempts at restoration had failed.
Then, over fifteen years beginning in the 1990s, farmers created thriving, food-secure, more ecologically sustainable communities, benefiting three million people. They did it, not alone, but in a lesson-filled partnership.
For two years, the World Bank's Agriculture Global Practice director Juergen Voegele and his Chinese counterpart traveled to the poorest and most eroded villages of the Loess Plateau, everywhere asking one question: "What worked in the past?" Basically, Voegele told us, the answer was, "Nothing." Then one day in Shageduo village the two men happened to glance down a slope and spotted one lush, green, wooded area.[130] Oh, Voegele thought, there must be some special, unseen water source there.
But no.
Fifteen years earlier the village leader had tried creating a walnut orchard, but grazing sheep and goats soon destroyed the trees. What to do? Faced with a choice between walnut trees and sheep, villagers chose trees. And everything changed. Animals were kept in pens, and plant cover was reestablished naturally.[131] From this village's experience, the idea for the Loess Plateau Rehabilitation Project-a World Bank and Chinese government partnership-took off.
Penning livestock to prevent destructive grazing was one key to the stunning restoration of vegetation. Constructing wider terraces on the mountainsides also enabled the planting of orchards and improved crop yields.
But, Voegele stressed, success was possible only because of changes in the relationships among people. Farmers gained trust in government because, for the first time, government entered into written compacts with them. It guaranteed farmers' rights to their plots of land if they contributed their labor, mainly in widening the terraces. And farmers whose cash income improved agreed to repay the government a percentage of their gain. For the first time, assured that they would be on the same plot for years to come, farmers were willing to take up long-term, sustainable agricultural practices-penning livestock, maintaining terraces, planting, and protecting trees.[132]
It worked. Ultimately, observing the transformation in the project area, villagers banned grazing throughout much of the Loess Plateau, and planted forest trees, orchards, and drought-resistant shrubs on almost 600,000 acres.[133] Critics point out that in some areas many of the newly planted trees have not survived because they were unsuited to the local terrain.[134] On another 140,000 acres, however, villagers agreed not to farm in order to enable natural regrowth, which avoids the risk involved in planting new trees.[135]
Their efforts have begun to reduce erosion that had been washing into the Yellow River as much as a billion tons of silt every year. The project's new vegetation also enables carbon sequestration estimated to be the equivalent of taking three hundred thousand cars off the road annually.[136]
In sum, says a World Bank report, "the ecological balance was restored in a vast area considered by many to be beyond help." All this while crop yields increased 60 percent, fruit orchards were established, and farmers' incomes more than doubled. New schools, roads, and local enterprises are now improving village life.[137]
As one country inspires another, similar approaches to food security as part of "re-covering" the Earth are taking hold in some surprising places.
Since its independence in 1962, Rwanda has lost almost two-thirds of its forests. The country's 1994 genocide destroyed not only lives but landscapes and livelihoods as well. Then, Rwandan forestry officials visited the Loess Project, and, Voegele told us, "It gave them the vision that they, too, can change their landscape."[138]
Rwanda has recently expanded its forest cover, and the government has committed to increasing its current forested area 50 percent by 2020. Rwanda connects its fight to conquer hunger and poverty with its goal of reversing completely the degradation of the country's soil, water, land, and forest resources by 2035.[139]
In 2011, India set a ten-year goal of restoring forests on about 11 million acres and generating new forest on more than 12 million other acres. Among the country's tree-planting goals is to employ jobless youth to plant 2 billion trees along roadways.[140]
In East Africa, through Kenya's Green Belt Movement, village women have in three decades planted more than fifty million trees.
Earth-wide, the citizens' campaign Plant for the Planet, launched by the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) in 2007, encourages and tracks tree planting. By 2015, it had counted more than thirteen billion trees planted. That's nearly two for every person on earth![141]
Most of us don't think "trees" when we think of food and hunger. But whether it's on the Loess Plateau in China or in Green Belt villages in Kenya, trees help conquer hunger as they reduce soil loss and often provide fruit, nuts, and fodder. Even more directly, agroforestry-combining food crops with trees in the same fields-is increasing food supplies in many parts of the world, as we highlight in our story from Niger below.
Such examples, and many more, are restoring not only the Earth but human dignity, as people gain power over their lives. It turns out that enhanced food security, ecological health, and climate mitigation are inseparable. We see that in addressing all dimensions of the climate challenge-whether by regreening land for increased carbon storage or by cutting greenhouse gases-the remaking of our food system offers immense contributions toward solutions.
REDUCING VULNERABILITY TO BOTH CLIMATE CHANGE AND HUNGER
As we argued in Myth 1, natural events are not the cause of hunger and famine but instead the final blow for those already vulnerable. So the key questions are[, What creates vulnerability? And what reduces it?]
Consider the world's 1.5 billion small-scale food producers. Among them are most of the world's hungry people, pushed onto less fertile, drought-prone lands or deprived of land altogether and forced to work as day laborers or sharecroppers. Many are also in debt to moneylenders or landowners who claim much of their harvests. Other vulnerable people are the more than 200 million unemployed, and those so poorly paid that nothing is left to fall back on in hard times.[142]
With this understanding, it shouldn't surprise us that "people in low-income countries are four times more likely to die in natural disasters than those in high-income countries," according to the World Bank.[143]
So what reduces vulnerability?
In part the answer is how we farm.
Agroecology-which we just noted helps to sequester carbon and which we explore in Myth 4-means farming that relies on, and strengthens, synergies among all the domains of life, from bacteria to bees. Agroecology frees farmers from having to buy chemical farm inputs, and thus from risky indebtedness. So farmers become less economically vulnerable.
Agroecology practices increase farms' resilience in many other ways as well. In our water-stretched world of climate change, mulch used in agroecological systems "lowers soil temperatures," as well as "reduces the amount of water lost through evaporation," and "protects the soil from erosion," notes the U.S. Department of Agriculture.[144] Soils on farms not using synthetic fertilizers and pesticides typically have significantly more organic matter in the topsoil, which increases water-holding capacity.[145] All this means that agrological practices heighten farmers' resilience as they face increased rainfall variation expected as our climate warms.
So it is not surprising that scientists find that, compared with farms relying on manufactured fertilizer and other inputs, organic farming systems have higher yields during periods of heavy rains and droughts.[146] Agroforestry trials with corn and native, nitrogen-fixing trees in Malawi and Zambia found an almost fivefold increase in "rain use efficiency," along with significantly lower carbon dioxide emissions, compared with maize grown alone.[147]
Practices such as composting and crop rotation also increase soil organic matter, improving soil structure and lessening risk of erosion. Such practices offer protection in the face of another type of extreme weather: hurricanes.
Here are two telling stories of increased resiliency.
[Central America.] During the 1970s, hundreds of rural communities in Central America began adopting agroecological farming practices, improving their soil structure to better resist wind and water erosion.[148] Then in 1998 Hurricane Mitch hit hard, in certain regions wiping out virtually the entire banana export crop and causing massive loss of topsoil from cropped hillsides.[149] A collaborative study in Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala by forty civil society organizations in 360 small-farm communities then documented the striking power of agroecological farming to reduce loss: Ecological farms retained 20 to 40 percent more topsoil than farms that had not been using ecological practices.[150]
Also promising? After the hurricane more than 90 percent of farmers still using chemical methods said they wanted to switch to ecological practices.[151]
[Niger, West Africa.] Across the world, on a much larger scale, agroforestry is reducing the vulnerability of small farmers.
Over the past three decades, poor farmers in southern Niger-among the world's lowest-income countries-have "regreened" an area almost the size of Costa Rica. It's a momentous achievement, reviving a -centuries-old practice, not of planting trees but of abetting their natural regeneration. Farmers leave selected tree stumps among the crops in their fields and protect the tree's strongest limbs as they grow.
Their results so far? Two hundred million more trees in southern Niger. Part of a global shift toward agroforestry, the trees help protect the soil and bring increased crop yields, as well as many other benefits.[152]
In the regreened area, "the poorest households often derive significant income from their on-farm trees in the form of fodder, firewood, fruit, and leaves, some of which is sold on the market," Dutch development specialist Chris Reij reported in early 2012. Selling leaves-used in favorite local sauces and more-from a single mature baobab tree in Niger can bring as much as $75, a lot where most people live on less than $2 a day.[153] As noted, some tree species are also natural fertilizers, because they fix airborne nitrogen in their root systems. Trees also help break wind speed, and their shade lowers ground temperature, reducing water evaporation from the soil. In all, mixing trees and crops helps farmers to get by in drought years.
These farmers' efforts have made them less vulnerable to both hunger and climate change. (Also, recall the impressive global estimates of agroforestry's potential contribution to actually addressing climate change.) Such farmer "regreening" has already brought enhanced food security for 2.5 million people, roughly 16 percent of Niger's population.[154]
During the drought and food shortages of 2005, for example, the infant mortality rate was close to zero in villages that protected and managed their trees, but was significant in villages that did not.[155] And, in 2011, a year of poor rainfall and much hunger, Niger researchers found that "a district with high on-farm tree densities" produced a grain surplus.[156] In one such area, chief Moussa Sambo described his village near the capital city, Niamey, as in fact experiencing the greatest prosperity ever, with young men returning to farm. "We stopped the desert," he said, "and everything changed."[157]
Now, as we conclude our reflections on vulnerability, let's return to the famine in East Africa with which we began. How were some people able to reduce their vulnerability there during the dire 2011 crisis?
At the time of the famine, Samuel Loewenberg, a public health investigator at Harvard, traveled through the arid landscape of Wajir in eastern Kenya, seeing only hunger and desperation. In certain regions, health officials were reporting some of the highest rates of childhood malnutrition they'd ever witnessed.[158] Then, entering Kutulo Farm, he wrote of his surprise at encountering "an amazing sight: a green oasis-a farm, a greenhouse, a well, a water pump, a windmill." Running around the farm, he added, "were the first happy, healthy-looking children I had seen."
Loewenberg also approached a women's cooperative founded in the town of Wagberi. The cooperative of thirty women grows kale, cabbage, and peppers. He noticed a well, which he learned had been funded by the European Union. With windmill-powered pumps, the villagers get water to the crops, and have markedly increased the farm's productivity.[159]
Through community action and modest assistance, the people of Wagberi reduced their vulnerability to famine. Their resiliency is another sign that, despite the drought, there was nothing inevitable about the horrific 2011 famine.
REFLECTIONS ON VULNERABILITY
AND HUMAN AGENCY
We've argued that both acute famine and chronic hunger result not from nature's vagaries but from human action and human inaction. While climate change increases the urgency of quickly and widely spreading the positive steps described here and throughout our book, in a world of vast food waste and inequity it does not alter this fundamental truth-it is [human] institutions that determine:
[Who will have a claim to food.] As long as people's only claim to food is through a market dominated by powerful corporations backed by unaccountable governments-and as long as incomes and prices remain volatile-famines will occur, people will go chronically hungry, and many will die [no matter how much food is produced]. For evidence we need look no further than the United States, where people go hungry and even die of hunger-related causes in the midst of an abundance of food. In Myth 6 we highlight one city remaking the rules so that all have a right-based claim to nutritious food.
[Who will be chronically vulnerable.] Here we've shown a range of actions that are radically reducing the climate-change vulnerability of even very poor people. Throughout the book we chronicle additional ground-level progress that is decreasing vulnerability.
[The vulnerability of the agricultural system itself to drought, floods, and other adversities now made more extreme by climate change.] As long as our economic system drives resource-depleting, climate-disrupting agricultural practices, our food system, and all of us dependent on it, will become ever more vulnerable. Throughout this book we weave together pieces of another path, one transforming farming systems toward greater inclusion, fairness, and resiliency.
Thus, as with the challenge of human-made climate change now upon us, there is nothing "natural" about either famine or hunger. They are social, not natural, disasters, the result of human choices, not fate.
And every year we delay in taking positive steps ensures more dire impacts.
Fortunately, we now know what to do. One essential step is to replace climate-disrupting energy with green energy. Another is to shift our diets and land use-a step we can make happen relatively quickly and inexpensively, if we act to bring about public policy support. Moreover, every one of us can shift market demand toward climate sanity by taking more of our nourishment from ecological farms and the diverse world of plants, as well as by reducing our own family's food waste.
And why isn't humanity moving quickly on this compelling evidence?
Callousness, we believe, does not explain the weak response to the ongoing tragedy of hunger and to the global climate threat. The bigger problem is that too many of us see private power determining public policies-power exerted by, for example, fossil fuel and agribusiness industries within our political systems-and we feel defeated before we even begin. We see what appears to be immovable power blocking the kind of sensible changes outlined here.
But we can overcome paralyzing defeatism. Here's how.
We recognize that around the world regular citizens [are] assuming their power-from the tree-nurturing farmers in Niger to the lifesaving Wagberi women's cooperative in Kenya to the many more people you will meet in Myth 10. We join them by seizing our own power to influence those around us. With urgency and clarity, we work to assume the power of our choices in the marketplace and our voices as citizens to remake the rules of public life-including those now rewarding the most climate-damaging food and farming practices-so that public decisions indeed serve the common interest. As we contribute to building local-to-global democracies, we create a world in which no human being's claim to food may be denied.
Throughout our book we return to these themes, sharing examples of new power that motivate us.