Olann is the 2 year old son of Jane, a good friend of mine. Jane, by
her own admission, is an “eco-dummy.” While I
would like to define what an eco-dummy is, I’ll do that another time. Right
now, I want to tell my friend about the world her son is likely to live in when
he is 38 in 2050, especially the food he'll be familiar with.
The Earth speaks to most contemporary western
humans through the availability and cost of everyday products. So, any person walking into a Price
Chopper, Kruger, Aldi, Food Lion, Wegmans, or any other common supermarket
anywhere in the United States has the probability of finding well-stacked tables
of fruits and vegetables from all over the world any time of year, and market
aisles with routinely well-stocked shelves of packaged rice, pet food, candy,
cereal, soda, coffee, pasta, etc.
Earth, however, is in the throes of a catastrophe
it has never known before. Olann is growing up in the Anthropocene Age (The Age
of Man). For the first time in Earth’s history, one of its own species is the
cause of catastrophic transformations having a profound and irreversible impact
on life all over the globe.
Change of this scale is best comprehended by
scientists and other educated citizens who study and know the big picture. The average Jose and Julie American,
working responsibly to manage a life in the increasingly shrunken middle class,
comprehend the impact of global warming/climate change only in the mundane
realities of their every day lives—like when they go shopping.
Let me introduce Olann in 2050: He’s 38 years old, married to Amita (of
Hindu heritage), also 38; they have two children: Ena, 8, and Caspar,
7. Both Olann and Amita graduated
from a technical college in South Carolina, but now they live outside Houston,
Texas where Olann works in middle management at the People H2O desalination
plant, and Amita works as an engineering assistant at a biotech company near
where Galveston, Texas used to be. (Galveston will be long buried by the rising sea level.) Amita commutes via aquatrain.
Olann and Amita live in a seapod community
unit. These are common along the
Gulf Coast and the Atlantic side of Florida. Olann’s and Amita’s decision to
move into one suit what others of their education and income level will do.
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| Gulf Coast Sea Pod Community |
Fundamental aspects of Olann’s and his family’s
life together with regards to food, clothing, water, animals, outdoor and
cultural activities, social realities will be significantly different from what
their parents knew as normal in 2014. But perhaps food is the most fundamental.
How about a cup of coffee? There is a good chance by the time Olann is old enough to
want to try coffee in about 2030 when he is 18, he will do so only with his
friends on a very special occasion, such as a senior class trip to Washington,
D.C. where coffee will be found at specialty cafes. A regular-sized cup of nothing particularly fancy will cost
the better part of four hours work at minimum wage pay or about $60.
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| Cup o' Joe: $60 |
By 2050, coffee won’t exactly be extinct, but its traditional
growing areas in South and Central America and West Africa will have shrunk
considerably due to temperature extremes, inundating rains, insect infestation,
and ‘coffee rust,’ a fungus currently destroying Arabica coffee crops all over
the world. The coffee plantations that survive will have moved north to eastern
Texas and southern France where the climate will be more suitable for
production, but not on the scale Olann’s parents know in 2014. In other words, no Starbuck’s on every
corner or even in every city.
So, Olann, Amita and others of their generation are
not likely to be coffee drinkers; and although the South Asia tea industry is suffering impacts
similar to the coffee industry—extreme droughts, followed by inundating rains
and insect infestations, caused by increased global temperatures and released
in some measure by the melting of the tundra—tea plantations are likely to
survive as producers adapt harvesting (with the help of new agricultural
technology and storage facilities) to transformed seasonal rhythms.
So, if Olann and his wife wish to share a few
moments of peace together over a cup of tea they should be able to afford to do
it. However, if Olann and his
friends have grown up with a can or bottle of soda almost a constant prop in
their hands, there is no question the cola industry will be around in 2050. That
sugar-caffeine infusion will still be ubiquitous.
Chocolate,
however, is a very different story. 70% of the cocoa we currently use for
chocolate comes from West Africa, which, even at a projected moderate global
temperature increase of 2 to 2.5 degrees Celsius, is already becoming too hot
for cocoa production. Chocolate
manufacturers, such as Hershey’s, saw this coming some years ago when they
began to replace cocoa butter with vegetable oil in some of their products and
re-label them as “chocolate candy,” indicating a chemical concoction of
flavoring only.
By 2050 chocolate, real chocolate will be a
luxury item, affordable only by the rich-beyond-comprehension elites. So, real chocolate may be a story Olann can tell his children, one of those “when I was your age” stories: “When I was
your age, we had baskets of chocolate at Easter time . . . the Easter Bunny delivered
all the chocolate eggs any kid could want. . . and they were made of reeeeeal
chocolate, not colored vegetable oil.
They were so rich with cocoa butter, we were happy when they melted on
our hands, so we could lick our fingers dry.”
Peanut
Butter, Bananas, Cereal, and other common staples Olann grew up
with will have continued to grow increasingly expensive, so much so that, when
he and Amita do grocery shopping, those purchases will be rare and precious due
to limited availability and cost.
The world’s peanut
crops require 20”-40” of rain within a narrow time frame. If there is too little rain, the crop
is dry; too much at the wrong time, peanuts develop a toxic mold (1). Climate change is compromising peanut
production everywhere, so what can be produced in 2050 will be considerably less,
and consequently, more costly.
Bananas
may not even be around, but if they are, they will be rare and precious due to
the soil fungi and insects that are currently ravaging banana plantations
throughout South and Central America, as well as the change in climate
temperatures, causing unfavorable growing conditions over the long run.
Cereals
made from rice, wheat, and corn will be more expensive even in 2030 when Olann is headed to college, and even more expensive by 2050 due to on-going climate
changes in precipitation and temperature, which some projections indicate will
raise the cost of a box of Rice Krispies from $3.98 (in 2014) to as much as
$12.00 (in 2050).
Apples
and other common fruits like peaches, plums, pears, and apricots (“stone fruits”)
will be smaller and taste different from what they like taste today. Olann will have grown up through the
transition period, and so, will have witnessed the plethora times with pyramids
of stacked apples in supermarkets and roadside stands around Halloween, and
otherwise with availability throughout the year.
However, as a result of warming climate and shorter
winters, which alter fruit trees’ blooming window, Olann and Amita will have
seen apple and fruit stocks diminish, while Ena and Caspar will know apples, peaches and other stone fruits as expensive treats with a taste much different from
what their parents grew up with.
Fortunately, Olann may have the opportunity to learn how to grow food in college if he and his suite mates plant and tend their designated garden plot at the campus community garden site. To save some dining hall costs, they can eat the fruits of their collective effort and sell any excess to splurge on pizza. (No question pizza will still be around though a crust made with traditional wheat flour is likely to have become a costly special order.)
When they are married, Olann and Amita may very well keep a garden at home--either inside their living unit or as part of a community plot. And Amita can grow hydroponic vegetables as this methodology will be common.
If Olann and Amita are wise, as soon as they move into what will be their home for some time to come, in addition to growing some of their own food, they are likely to join one of the local food collectives. Scattered thinly in the early years of Olann's life, food collectives, including underground black markets, will have burgeoned as virtual economic necessities due to changes in global food transportation and availability, in addition to the increased cost of imported products.
Assuming the world is still “lovin’ it”—McDonald’s is likely to have the
McMealworm sandwich (with a marketable name, of course) on its dollar
menu. If not mealworm, then
chapuline (Mexican grasshopper) or perhaps the McCricket sandwich will appeal
to the hungering masses and still provide a fast food treat for Amita and the
kids on a Saturday afternoon while Olann is away, visiting his elderly parents.
Some kinds of bugs and insects, processed for human
consumption, will be common worldwide.
Scanning the shelves of their local Whole Foods store, Olann and his
wife will be able to choose from protein-rich flour made from a variety of
insects—much more affordable than the wheat flour they grew up with.
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| Mexican Grasshoppers |
Or perhaps they will fancy a package of boiled and
sun-dried Mopane caterpillars, which they will know is a fantastic source of
iron and other vital nutrients.
But Ena and Caspar will really love fried or steamed termites and won’t
even know they are an excellent source of protein and omega-9. Perhaps Olann will favor some African
palm-weevils for a barbeque because they are like a rib-eye, but with a crunch.
Roasted stink bugs (as a side dish) might easily be a standard favorite.
If humankind is still eating chickens and growing them up in massively packed factory farms, the
chickens will need to be bald because having feathers exacerbates the effect of
a globally warmer climate. Not being able to survive long enough to grow big
enough for market slaughter, the chickens will die too young and small.
Geneticists are working now on altering chicken DNA so they stop having
feathers and can continue to grow for the sake of McNuggets and Buffalo Wings.
Olann will be aware of this because he will have
grown up through the transition period, and BigAg chicken producers will have
spun perfectly rational stories about the featherless chicken-change so as not
to threaten KFC and other chicken company profits.
Americans, for the most part, don’t think of jellyfish as a food source, but it is
likely raw and processed jellyfish will be commonly available for consumption
as a result of three factors: increased human populations, decreased food
availability globally, and exploding jellyfish populations.
The world’s oceans are already indicating a
progression towards catastrophic acidification, which will increasingly alter
the behavior of fish, causing many populations to go extinct, some to simply
diminish as they migrate to different ocean ecosystems, other populations to
explode. Jellyfish populations are
already exploding.
In the Gulf of Mexico, where Olann and his family will
live, sea nettle jellyfish, moon jellyfish, Australian jellyfish, and many
other types are already moving into the warm acid waters and will have
conquered the Gulf’s marine eco-system when Olann was still in college
(2032).
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| Moon Jellyfish |
No more shrimp, no more oysters, no more crustaceans
of any kind for two primary reasons: acid water dissolves shells, and jellyfish
eat shellfish. Jellyfish also consume phytoplankton in such quantities other
fish are starved out. The seas off shores around the world will be a throbbing
blob of jellyfish much of the year, but at least some species of jellyfish will
be harvested for food and other products.
When Henry David Thoreau published Walden in 1854, the world’s human population reached 1 billion. The world population is projected to be at 9.6 billion by 2050. Olann, Amita, Ena, Caspar and other young
American families with modest incomes are not likely to starve. Billions of other people will be starving though, so a plethora of
insects and jellyfish is a gift for the hungering masses.
Food for Olann in 2050 will not be his grandfather's food.
