Higher temperatures mean higher food prices, new inflation study finds
Food prices and overall inflation will rise as temperatures climb with climate change, a new study by an environmental scientist and the European Central Bank has found.
Looking at monthly price tags of food and other goods, temperatures and other climate factors in 121 nations since 1996, researchers calculate that “weather and climate shocks” will cause the cost of food to rise.
That rise would be 1.5 to 1.8 percentage points annually within a decade or so, and even higher in already hot places like the Middle East, according to a study released on Thursday in the journal Communications, Earth and the Environment.
Perhaps we ought to start now on a campaign to reduce the enormous level of food waste in the country so that it takes effect before we need it. This would also help keep down the cost of living generally.
Step one could be to get people to eat fresh fruit and vegetables that have cosmetic flaws.
There are quite a few other suggestions here.
Over 7.3 million tonnes of food is wasted in Australia every year - which equates to nearly 300kgs of food per person per year.
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Hopefully this would lead to not only cheaper produce, but greater overall consumption. Health benefits to follow.
We grow some of our own.
Surprisingly it nearly always meets our home grown standards for shape, size, colour. IE Variation in size and or shape just don’t seem to matter that much if it’s one of your own. Similar psychology to all babies are beautiful?
If there is any waste or spoilage it has either been stolen by the critters that visit at night or to be found in the compost tumbler. A learning curve if one chooses to minimise using Ag chemicals. Wire mesh netting the pending raised bed improvement.
One newly identified change concurrent with increasing CO2 to be aware of. We might need to eat even greater quantities of fresh vegetables to meet needs!
Some decent research into the effects of climate change on food security and it is especially linked to global impacts such as heatwaves and the effects felt elsewhere.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07147-z?fromPaywallRec=false
Some discussion of carbon offset reforestation in Australia and what looks like an ineffective answer to carbon offsetting using this practice. There was some thought that grazing might severely impact reforestation but it appears from analysis that this is only of low to low moderate effect on growing new woody growth. So our cattle, sheep, and other livestock industries may be spared some wrath from the public (putting livestock methane production aside) in regards to their impact on woody growth.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01313-x?fromPaywallRec=false
Of concern with the current system is this assessed result of the practice
“ Change in forest and sparse woody cover
The analysed projects received 27.4 million credits over the period from 11 December 2013 (when the first HIR project was registered) to 30 June 2022, suggesting a substantial proportion of the credited areas should have transitioned from non-woody cover to either sparse woody or forest cover because of the human-induced forest regeneration31. This has not occurred.
Almost 50% of the credited areas had sparse woody or forest cover when the projects were registered (median woody cover 46.5% (sd 22.5%), median forest cover 12.7% (sd 12.9%)). This is problematic as it indicates that most projects are seeking to regenerate permanent even-aged native forests on land that contained material amounts of pre-existing woody vegetation. Competition from the pre-existing woody vegetation is likely to limit additional forest regeneration.
Consistent with this, there was relatively little change in woody cover in the credited areas over the study period. Almost 80% of projects (n = 143) experienced negative or negligible change in woody cover in the credited areas over the period from project registration to 2022 (Table 1, see methods for definitions of negative, negligible and positive woody cover change). Despite the absence of positive woody cover change, these 143 projects received 22.9 million credits over the period31.“
Giving out these credits impacts costs, while at the moment it may have reduced costs of producing goods (including food), the future need to have harsher carbon cutting may impose a significant one off cost increase as the carbon credits are either removed or reduced to reflect the real offsets achieved.
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