Rising sea levels and increased frequency of flooding are now common occurrences under the climate crisis. In the United States, Bangladesh and Hong Kong, there are a growing number of projects that have been incorporating natural strategies of flood defence in the wake of destruction brought on by the climate crisis. One of these strategies involves oysters.

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Mostly regarded as a culinary delicacy, the oyster offers a multitude of functions that make it a beneficial asset in ecosystem services, reducing risks for areas that are or will be affected by shoreline erosion, flooding, and storms. To mitigate floods, oysters create friction between waves and the sea floor, serving as a natural breakwater. Breakwaters are built to protect a coast from the force of waves and are traditionally constructed with large rocks. Rebuilding oyster reefs provides benefits such as ecosystem enhancement and an increase in marine biodiversity because oyster reefs offer shelter for marine creatures. 

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New York: Flood Defence and a Return to the Past

New York was ravaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. It was after this storm that New York began applying disaster mitigation processes to redevelop the affected areas. Through a design competition launched by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Staten Island Living Breakwaters Project won funding to develop their project on the South Shore of Staten Island, creating a ‘living’ breakwater system, which helps protect coasts while also providing habitats through constructed reefs for finfish, shellfish and lobsters. 

The living breakwaters are constructed as 3 200 linear feet of nearshore breakwaters using construction materials that also provide habitat enhancements. In addition to the breakwater construction, the plan includes an active oyster restoration by New York’s Billion Oyster Project, installing oysters on the breakwaters themselves as well as cultivating oysters in hatcheries and other remote settings.  

While oysters have the ecological capability to filter nitrogen, provide habitat for smaller creatures, and act as a natural storm barrier, they are also aiding the return of New York’s historical ecology; the city was once a site brimming with oysters in the brackish waters, but due to pollution and overharvesting, the populations declined. The re-implementation of oysters in this environment bridges a connection between the past and the future- mitigating the effects of the climate crisis as well as restoring a historical marine ecosystem.  

Bangladesh: Strengthening Livelihoods  

One-third of Bangladesh’s population resides on the coastline. The coastal shoreline provides residents with resources such as fish, shrimp, crab and sea salt for extraction. However, like New York, the coastline is under threat from increased natural disasters and coastal erosion. These disasters are not only a threat to the ecology of the coastline, but also to the livelihoods of the people who rely on these coastliness. 

Oysters offer a solution to these threats in Bangladesh, acting as ecosystem engineers and working as a natural solution for coastal defence by protecting erosion-prone areas. Conventional barrier techniques in Bangladesh have proven to be too expensive to sustain, and seemingly only provide short-term solutions. With future projections of increased sea-level rise, monsoons and cyclone frequency, people are in need of long-term and cost-effective solutions. While not yet implemented, researchers argue for the exploration of oysters as a solution. By creating artificial oyster reefs as living shorelines, the coastlines of Bangladesh can be protected in a self-sustaining manner, continuing to provide for the population. 

In a study conducted by the University of Chittagong, IMARES Wageningen University, the Agricultural Economics Research Institute, and Royal Haskoning, an engineering consultancy firm, the concept of living shorelines with oyster reefs were examined. Anticipated benefits included climate-proof coastal and flood defence and an improvement of livelihood through practices such as oyster aquaculture and enhanced tourism and recreation. 

Hong Kong: Protecting Coastlines and Preserving Tradition

Oyster habitats have been depleted in Hong Kong due to increased dredging, land reclamation and overharvesting. The Nature Conservancy in Hong Kong is focusing on how oysters can be restored as a means of both global warming mitigation and preservation of a tradition.

Hong Kong has a history of oyster farming that has lasted over 700 years. This tradition is at risk due to impending natural disasters. While oyster farmers are continuing to operate, their livelihoods are at risk, as is the aquaculture-based heritage of Hong Kong. With the reintroduction of millions of oysters by the Nature Conservancy, reef development has been accelerated alongside the improvement of biodiversity and the construction of a natural storm surge barrier.

Oyster Restoration: A Solution

Oysters are a return to the past and a return to the natural. What can be seen here is not only an ecological and climate-crisis related movement, but also a movement of social resilience. Oysters serve as a means of flood defence and biodiversity restoration, but they also allow societies to reflect on their ecological histories as well as foster communities with a focus on the natural landscape through economic development, natural design research and traditional practice. 

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Wildfires have been ravaging California in fall 2019, as thousands have been forced to flee their homes. Strong winds are causing the fire to spread quickly throughout the state, and firefighters are working to quell the burning flames in locations such as Los Angeles, Riverside County, and Sonoma County. These wildfires in California are increasing pro-climate political participation.

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The state of California is engulfed in both fire and terror, and experts say that these fires are only set to get worse as climate change makes the environment hotter and drier. Anthropogenic causes of climate change are making wildfires more common in California, a trend that is primed to persist. 

In a study published in September 2019 by researchers at the University of California Los Angeles and the University of California Santa Barbara, suggest that the widespread havoc generated by out of control wildfires are forcing citizens to embrace costly, pro-climate political measures proposed by the state government. 

It found people living within 5, 10, or 15km radius of a recent wildfire to be 4-6 % more likely to vote for pro-climate policy reforms. 

The findings come at a time of heightened political tension in Washington and, contextually, a hostile climate for green policy reforms. The study claims a “temporal mismatch between short-term climate policy costs and long-term climate policy benefits.” Citizens are reluctant to invest in costly climate policy initiatives despite the fact that climate change has already disrupted economic, social, and environmental conditions globally. 

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Billions of dollars of funding have been spent to fight wildfires as well as rebuilding the homes and livelihoods that went up in smoke. Yet, it has been a difficult and slow process for costly climate mitigation bills, such as Congress’ Disaster Relief Bill, to be approved and passed. 

Despite the causal link the study exposed, between disaster and a hardening demand for muscular policy interventions, the shortcoming of this poll relies mainly in that it was conducted in dominant Democratic constituencies, with liberal voters being generally more prone to prioritise climate initiatives. Republican-leaning constituencies, which polls show to be less concerned by the climate crisis, were not as willing to champion these policy initiatives despite having similar experiences with wildfires. 

As the report states, “some parts of the public will respond by increasing their personal and political commitment to climate risk mitigation. However, this shift may remain much smaller in areas where pre-existing climate beliefs are weak, making costly policy change less likely.”

Ultimately, voting behaviour will determine the true extent of the public’s commitment to radical policy shifts. Meanwhile, the ongoing fire-crisis in California and its inevitable economic consequences, are expected to keep pushing people towards rethinking how their money gets spent on mitigation and prevention measures. 

Featured image by Daria Devyatkina

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Plant-based protein could be a powerful means to solve a global food crisis. A new UBS report states that sweeping technological innovations are transforming the global food industry by changing the way the world produces food. 

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The United Nations estimates that the world’s farmers will have to produce at least 50% more food by 2050 as global population is expected to rise to almost 10 billion. Climate change and water scarcity are already having major impacts on global food production, while the world would face substantial declines in agricultural output by 2030 due to extreme weather conditions and water scarcity. 

Plant-based protein and lab-grown meat could be the answers to an impending food crisis and the climate crisis, according to research from Swiss investment bank UBS. 

A report by UBS titled Food Revolution states that the market for plant-based protein is expected to surge to $85bn over the next decade as people seek out alternative options that are more environment-friendly. With the technological revolution in agriculture, the segment will expand at a compound annual growth rate of 28% by 2030, from around $4.6bn last year. 

“Mock meat was an almost comical fad 20 years ago,” Wayne Gordon, a senior Asia-Pacific strategist at UBS Global Wealth Management, says in the 67-page report. “It’s no laughing matter today, given the industry’s meteoric rise in recent years.” 

Plant-based Protein and Climate Change

Unlike past trends, it is people who are driving the call for change and not corporations and governments. UBS predicts the developments in lab-grown meat would be accelerating over the next five years because of the growing calls to produce sustainable foods that have a lesser impact on water resources and climate. Global food production currently accounts for 40% of land use, 30% of greenhouse gas emissions, and 70% of freshwater consumption. Citing a study from Environmental Science and Technology, the report says that lab-grown meat could cut greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture by 78–96% while using 99% less land. 

“The ability to create food that replicates meat, fish, eggs and dairy products — with a lower carbon footprint and without the need to slaughter animals — is likely to become a commercially viable option in the next decade,” the report notes. “While science can’t yet create the texture of a fine steak, processed meat such as burgers, chicken nuggets, and meatballs are getting good reviews and are expected to be available on supermarket shelves within five years.” 

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Vertical farming is one of the solutions that could reduce boost yields and improve crop resilience.

Technological innovations such as gene-editing and 3D food printing could make food much healthier and more sustainable. “We first need to bust the lingering myth that technology is the enemy of natural, abundant, nutritional and affordable food,” the report says. “After all, technology is the only way to secure the nutrition needed without destroying the planet. The good news is that we are on the cusp of a global food revolution. Transformational change, in our view, is about to occur across every aspect of how the sector works and what it produces.”

Other technological solutions

The report also lists a number of other solutions that would mitigate climate crisis and solve the food crisis: 

Satellite-enabled systems

Precision farming technologies, including the use of data from high-resolution satellite images, meteorological records, and soil nutrient sensors, can help farmers both to reduce costs and enhance production yields. 

Smart farming

Vertical farming and algae aquaculture could reduce resource use, boost yields, and improve crop resilience. 

Supply chain innovation

Blockchain, food delivery apps, Internet of Things (IoT), and bioplastics could reduce food waste, improve provenance, limit fraud risks, and increase traceability. 

Water-saving technology

Digital and analytics technologies, like smart sensors in crop fields and satellite images to glean information about soil conditions, could enable producers to understand their water availability and utilise it with precision, hence reducing water waste. 

Big data and connectivity

Connected devices like IoT and sensors make it possible to gather vast amounts of data, such as humidity, local rainfall rates, and temperature variations, which can be used to optimise many processes.

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A new study predicts that three quarters of the world’s major cities will experience dramatic climate shifts in their weather by 2050.

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Environmental Predictions 2050

New York, San Francisco, and Washington will face unprecedented weather, while London will suffer from extreme drought by 2050, a recent study that analysed the impacts of climate change on the world’s major cities predicts. The effects of global heating will be so severe that the cities in temperate or cold zones in the northern hemisphere will be as hot as cities that are 1 000 km closer to the equator.

The research paper published in the peer-reviewed science journal PLOS ONE states that summers and winters in Europe will get considerably warmer by 2050, with average increases of 3.5C and 4.7C, respectively, compared with 2000. Water shortages will affect scores of cities in Europe as a result of the heating. The climate in London will look more like the climate in Barcelona, which suffered a major drought in 2018 resulting in millions of euros being spent on importing drinking water. Madrid will feel like Moroccan city Marrakech, Stockholm like Budapest, and Moscow like Bulgarian capital city Sofia.

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“New York City winters will be as warm as winters in Virginia Beach and wet Seattle will be as dry as San Francisco,” says the paper. “Washington D.C. will be more like today’s Nashville but with even greater variation in temperatures and precipitation.”

The residents of about a fifth of cities globally–including Jakarta, Singapore, Yangon, and Kuala Lumpur–will experience conditions currently not seen in any major cities in the world.  Rainfall will be a particular problem for such cities, with extreme flooding becoming more common alongside more frequent and severe droughts.

The researchers used state-of-the-art climate model projections of existing data. Analysing city pairs for 520 major cities in the world, they produced insights that are more meaningful to the common public. For instance, their interactive map shows different cities and their 2050 counterparts regarding weather patterns.

Cities’ Contribution to Climate Change

Cities are key contributors to climate change with urban activities causing the majority of greenhouse gas emissions. Estimates suggest that cities are responsible for 75% of global CO2 emissions, with transport and buildings being among the largest contributors.

Meanwhile, climate change is already impacting urban life across the world. With exceptional heatwaves striking across Europe last month, new temperature records were set in many cities in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany as the mercury went above 40C. A new UK heat record was set with 38.7C in Cambridge.

In the US, millions of people were affected as the temperature soared in New York, Boston, Atlanta, and many cities in the Midwest. Millions in India also suffered as heatwaves and water shortages became severe in cities like Mumbai and Chennai. In Japan, more than 5,000 people from various urban centers sought treatment due to a heatwave in July.

Climate change will have costly impacts on cities’ basic services, infrastructure, housing, and health. It is essential, therefore, to make cities an integral part of the solution in fighting climate change by building more renewable energy infrastructures and introducing cleaner production techniques, and regulations or incentives to limit industrial emissions.

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The most terrifying image of climate change is not the ocean rising above our homes. It is of desiccated fields of wheat and rice, desolated and abandoned, their parched soil drained of life; the effects of climate change are already affecting global food production, with the current scenes of devastation setting the tone for the not-so-distant future. 

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We expected major crop failures to happen due to climate change in a distant future. But, new research shows it has already begun. Climate change has affected production cycle of the worlds’ top ten crops — barley, cassava, maize, palm oil, rapeseed, rice, sorghum, soybean, sugarcane, and wheat– across the globe. Some countries are faring far worse than others.

Published in PLOS ONE, the study, conducted by researchers from the Universities of Minnesota, Oxford, and Copenhagen, interpolated data on atmospheric variables, including temperature and precipitation, with crop yield.

The amount of yield change varies across different countries and regions, implying an inequality in the effects of climate change on crop variability.

“There are winners and losers, and some countries that are already food insecure fare worse,” says lead author Deepak Ray of the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment, whose high-resolution global crop statistics databases have also been used to help to identify how global crop production changes over time.

About half of all food-insecure countries are experiencing decreases in crop production—and so are some affluent industrialised countries in Western Europe. Yields have generally decreased across Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Australia, all while displaying mixed responses in North and Central America and in Asia.

Europe saw a staggering decrease of 21.2% in dominant crop yields due to an increase in annual temperature across various regions. The decline strongly correlates with a reduction in consumable food calorie production. Countries like  Hungary experienced a 35% decrease in food calories production.

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Sub-Saharan Africa faced a significant decline in food production with steadily negative yields. Maize–the most prominent crop in the region–has suffered a 22% decline directly linked to climate change.

Another study, published in Environmental Research Letters, points to similar trends in India. Yields from rice, the country’s main crop, experienced larger declines during extreme weather conditions in this decade.

How does climate change affect food production?

Around 80% of the world’s crops are rainfed. Farmers depend on the regular seasonality of harvests that for millennia has regulated crop growth and given rhythm to countryside life. However, climate change is altering rainfall patterns around the world. When temperatures rise, the warmer air holds more moisture and can make precipitation more intense. Extreme precipitation events, which are becoming more common, can directly damage crops, decreasing yields.

Global warming enables weeds, pests, and fungi to expand their range and numbers. In addition, earlier springs and milder winters allow more of these pests and weeds to survive for a longer time. Plant diseases and pests that are new to an area could destroy crops that haven’t had time to evolve defenses against them.

Hotter weather will lead to faster evaporation, resulting in more droughts and water shortages—so there will be less water for irrigation just when it is needed most. The ultimate effect of rising heat depends on each crop’s optimal range of temperatures for growth and reproduction. If temperatures exceed this range, yields will drop because heat stress can disrupt a plant’s pollination, flowering, root development, and growth stages.

There needs to be a global coordinated effort to ensure that the world’s most vulnerable will not run out of food; food insecurity is becoming a more pressing concern as climate change affects global food production, and these vulnerable people will be the first to suffer.

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