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Where’s my food?

Will you lose your favorite things to eat?

Climate change (气候变化) might be “eating up” your favorite food! New studies showed that because of climate change, some food such as chocolate, honey and peanuts are becoming “endangered (濒危的)”. Why? Let’s take a closer look.

Honey

Bees live on pollen (花粉). But rising carbon dioxide (二氧化碳) makes the pollen have less protein (蛋白质) in it. Pollen is becoming junk food for bees! Bees aren’t getting enough nutrition (营养). They may die out. Warmer temperatures also make plants flower earlier. It’s so early that bees may still be little babies. They are not old enough to pollinate (授粉) them. The fewer bees there are to pollinate, the less honey they make.   

Coffee

South America, Africa, Asia and Hawaii are home to coffee. But temperatures are rising in these places. This makes it easier for viruses (病毒) and bugs to grow. They may hurt the coffee plants. The result? Big cuts in coffee beans and less coffee in your cup.

Scientists said that if Earth keeps warming up, half of the coffee production areas (种植区) won’t be there by the year 2050.

Peanuts

Peanut plants grow best when they get five months of warm weather and 50-100 centimeters of rain each year. That’s not good news if there will be more bad weather, such as droughts (干旱) and heat waves (热浪).

In 2011, the drought across the peanut-growing southeastern US led many plants to die. According to CNN, that caused peanut prices to rise by as much as 40 percent!

Seafood

As air temperatures rise, oceans become hotter. Fish eggs find it hard to live in warmer water. So there will be fewer fish there. Warmer temperatures also make bacteria (细菌) grow in water. That will cause illness (引发疾病) in humans if they eat raw (生的) seafood.

And the “crack” (噼啪声) you get when eating crabs (螃蟹)? That could be no more. The carbon dioxide in the water makes the crabs’ shells (壳) less hard.

Fruits

If you love peaches and cherries, you may feel sad about this: the fruits will drop in amount and quality (数量和品质). Fruit trees, including cherry, plum, pear and peaches, need “chilling hours”. It’s a time when they stay in temperatures below 7℃ each winter. If they skip (跳过) the cold days, the fruit trees have a hard time flowering in spring.

By the year 2030, scientists said there will be much fewer days colder than 7℃.

Chocolate

Cacao trees actually like warmer climates ... as long as there is also a lot of rain. But according to the 2014 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the problem is that the world’s biggest chocolate-producing countries (Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Indonesia) are not getting enough rain now. The hot temperature makes the soil (土壤) dry. This could reduce (减少) cocoa production.