Indian female farmers sow paddy in a field during monsoon season near Allahabad on July 19, 2014. The monsoon rains, which usually hit India from June to September, are crucial for farmers whose crops feed hundreds of millions of people.
Credit: Sanjay Kanojia/AFP
Rising carbon dioxide levels could have an unexpected side effect on food crops: a decrease in key nutrients. And this could put more people at risk of malnutrition.
A 2014 study showed that higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are likely to put a dent in the protein, iron and zinc content of rice, wheat, peas and other food crops. Samuel Myers, an environmental health researcher at Harvard’s School of Public Health, was the lead author on that study.
This time, Myers and his colleagues wanted to quantify what those changes might mean for people around the world. To do this, they built a new database detailing the foods people in each country eat and the nutrient content of those foods. The database lists the “per capita consumption of 225 foods for […]
Something smells fishy here to me. Plants take in CO2 and release Oxygen. Not sure I can accept that a small increase in CO2 can directly harm plants too much. Not all studies are to be trusted.
Yes, plants take in CO2, but when levels change radically as they are now doing, the chemistry of the plants changes to accommodate the new environment.
Any solutions for the dead zone ?
Stop pouring fertilizer, chicken waste, pig waste, and toxic Monsanto poisons into the rivers.