Thomson Reuters Foundation via Medscape:
Rising carbon emissions could make vital food crops from wheat to rice less nutritious and endanger the health of hundreds of millions of the world's poorest, scientists said on Monday.
Certain staple crops grown in open fields with elevated carbon dioxide levels had up to 17 percent lower levels of protein, iron and zinc compared to those grown amid less of the gas, according to a study in the journal Nature Climate Change…
...The research found that by 2050, nearly 300 million people could lack enough zinc or protein and 1.4 billion women and children will be vulnerable to iron deficiency - all linked to carbon emissions - fuelling the risk of disease and early death.
While carbon emissions and global warming disrupt food production through extreme weather such as drought and floods, these findings warn of a direct yet mostly invisible impact on people's diets, said Matthew Smith [research associate at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.], an author of the study. "It's more hidden ... most people wouldn't necessarily notice if they lost 5 percent of iron or zinc from their wheat, but it could have broad ranging health effects"...
Study authors Smith and Myers theorize that excess carbon dioxide —largely from fossil-fuel emissions— make plants grow faster than they can create micro-nutrients. Grains most vulnerable to this effect, such as wheat and rice, are linchpins in the diet of some of the world's poorest regions - India, Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
According to the authors, just three of resultant dietary deficiencies exert serious impacts — potentially drastic to individuals, and their communities in turn:
- Zinc deficiency tends to impair immune systems, especially in children, increasing susceptibility to contract and die from contagions — malaria and respiratory infections, among many others.
- Iron deficiency raises rates of maternal and newborn deaths, and lowers cognitive abilities.
- Protein deficiency is linked to stunting, wasting and low birth weight, with all the effects that proceed from those damages.
According to the International Energy Agency, higher energy demand and slow-downs of efficiency innovation raised global energy-related carbon emissions to a record high of 32.5 gigatons last year, all fueling climate degradation further.
The damage to personal nutrition and health, and resultant burdens upon individual and community, constitute further handicap to the competence of individuals and communities to sustain daily life.
And to be EFFECTIVE in their own governments’ conduct, locally and beyond.
Malnutrition and food insecurity are not only personal and moral issues. They’re political.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0253-3 Impact of anthropogenic CO2 emissions on global human nutrtion. Matthew R. Smith & Samuel S. Myers, Nature Climate Change, Vol.8, pp.834-839; August 27, 2018