Scientific American Blog: Vanishing Nutrients

[Avengium]

Vanishing Nutrients

It’s a hazard of climate change you probably haven’t heard of

By Elena Suglia on December 10, 2018

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/obs...-nutrients

"Is it possible to starve yourself of nutrients while simultaneously gaining weight? It turns out the answer is yes. According to a growing body of research, rising carbon dioxide levels are making our food less nutritious, robbing key crops of vitamins essential to human development."

[...]

"Iron deficiency is the top nutritional disorder in the world, one of every three people are affected by inadequate zinc intake, and millions are deficient in calcium"

[...]

"Another found that plants produced less nectar when exposed to more carbon dioxide, which can affect pollinators like butterflies and hummingbirds."

[...]

"Similar to how the zooplankton starved while stuffing themselves with “junk food” algae that were given too much light, we may all be headed for a bizarre world in which we are surrounded by food that we can’t get enough of while, in reality, we’re starving while simultaneously becoming obese."

[iancampbell]

Vanishing Nutrients

It’s a hazard of climate change you probably haven’t heard of

By Elena Suglia on December 10, 2018

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/obs...-nutrients

"Is it possible to starve yourself of nutrients while simultaneously gaining weight? It turns out the answer is yes. According to a growing body of research, rising carbon dioxide levels are making our food less nutritious, robbing key crops of vitamins essential to human development."

[...]

"Iron deficiency is the top nutritional disorder in the world, one of every three people are affected by inadequate zinc intake, and millions are deficient in calcium"

[...]

"Another found that plants produced less nectar when exposed to more carbon dioxide, which can affect pollinators like butterflies and hummingbirds."

[...]

"Similar to how the zooplankton starved while stuffing themselves with “junk food” algae that were given too much light, we may all be headed for a bizarre world in which we are surrounded by food that we can’t get enough of while, in reality, we’re starving while simultaneously becoming obese."

Yes. Unfortunately, not considered by those who want to ignore CO2 increases.

The matter of nutrition is obliquely relevant to one of the potential ways of making the carbon sink bigger. IIRC, large areas of tropical and sub-tropical ocean are as devoid of life as a typical desert; the limiting nutrient varies, but is often iron. One proposal is to simply dump relatively small amounts (a few tons, believe it or not) of iron salts into such areas. Which would make the photosynthesis rate go up sharply, and as a useful side effect eventually increase fish stocks.

Another way of achieving the same effect is setting up OTEC power plants; this also, of course, makes it easier to reduce the CO2 going into the atmosphere at the same time.