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Mike Gilliam: Hi. I'm Mike Gilliam and welcome to the first
of four CUNY TV specials on Climate Change: Food Production
in a Changing World.
Now we're at the East New York Farms in Brooklyn,
where we're focusing on how climate related issues are
hitting us in our wallets, our pantries, and wreaking
havoc on our planet.
Bad weather, food production, climate change, and human
consumption are all morphing together around the globe
these days, creating a more and more deadly environment.
Hurricanes, floods, severe winters, extreme heat and
droughts, and countless wildfires all seem to be
occurring more and more frequently around the globe.
And that could play a major role in food production.
To see the changes Jack Algier of Stone Barn Center for food
and agriculture and Tarrytown says, just look to the Midwest
over the last 20 years.
Jack Algiere: What was such a consistent grain model
that came out of a perennial grassland, is now falling
apart year after year.
Massive droughts, huge floods, that wasn't happening before.
Mike Gilliam: And that's affecting the growing of crops
around the world and right here in our own backyard.
Jack Algiere: A lot of what we are used to, the kind of
regularity and consistency of a lot of areas like California
or the Midwest are becoming very invariable and that's
going to be a big problem for us because we have to
find a way to balance that.
Mike Gilliam: The experts say this will impact
each and every one of us.
Nevin Cohen: Food prices are going to go up and
that means that people in cities who aren't directly
affected by those storms are going to be affected in the
supermarket when prices are higher and higher, making
it more difficult for them to feed their families.
Mike Gilliam: At Stone Barns, they control about
300 acres of grazing.
It's a fully functioning farm, where they grow crops
inside and out and have numerous animals while
looking at farming in a kind of holistic way, not
growing animals on feedlots.
One thing they are trying to do is lower global warming
by focusing on something called carbon sequestration.
Keeping carbon in the soil instead of releasing
it into the atmosphere.
Jack Algiere: This past year alone, we sequestered about
50 tons of carbon, extra, just by the application of
cattle on the land itself. That's real data.
This is animals eating grass, massaging the soil
with their hooves, changing the plant biodiversity,
changing the capacity for that ground to absorb water,
to improve the ecosystem for insects, to break down
the manures and to turn that manure back into soil carbon.
Nevin Cohen: We need to invest in agroecology,
in growing systems that nurture the soil and make the
soil able to store carbon.
Those are techniques like no till agriculture.
Moving away from the use of synthetic pesticides and
fertilizers that require lots of carbon to produce and then
ultimately degrade the soil.
Mike Gilliam: There are varying environmental
attitudes about the role cattle play in
carbon distribution.
You'll hear later in this program about gas emissions,
but these scientists think there's hope in
what cows do to our Earth.
When many people think about the effects of climate change
on our food supply, they think of destroyed crops, but it
can go a lot further than that because climate change also
affects our food distribution.
When Sandy hit, we were actually lucky it didn't
wipe out the Hunts Point market, which is at sea level.
Still, the storm took a toll.
Nevin Cohen: Food distribution system throughout New
York, the trucks that bring food to supermarkets, the
supermarkets themselves were, in many cases, inundated
with floodwater and that disrupted food access
throughout New York City.
Mike Gilliam: Making it harder for people to get food.
In the meantime, the experts say now is
the time for action.
Jack Algiere: The message is we're all
part of the food system.
We can't just rely on a farmer or a chef to solve
this problem anymore because we are, as a consumer
group, myself included, we're steering the ship.
Mike Gilliam: In our region, food producers are facing
unique challenges brought on by climate change.
Our Lisa Beth Kovetz has more on how local farmers
are dealing with these changing weather patterns.
Lisa Beth Kovetz: Every Monday, Wednesday, and
Friday farmers from around the tri-state region gather
here to sell the food that feeds New York City.
But these days climate change has made farming,
well, unpredictable.
Kevin Smith: This year is wet. There's plenty of rain.
I have no idea what next summer is going to be like.
There's no looking through an Almanac and seeing an
average and applying that average to the coming year.
Temperature wise, water wise, ferocity wise.
A frost used to come around September 15th.
That's a date my father would plan to stop
expecting crops at.
By contrast, I expect stuff till October 15th.
There's really no trustworthiness to it.
And the idea of seasons is kind of a joke.
All bets are off.
Lisa Beth Kovetz: And in the middle of all this
unpredictability, the storms in our region are
becoming more dangerous.
Kevin Smith: We used to have rainstorms where the rain
would come down and you could listen to it and enjoy it.
And now everything is a potentially catastrophic
world ending event.
With the rainstorm that we had a few weeks ago,
we got several inches of rain followed by severe wind,
which took corn, which was this high and
completely flattened it down.
Luckily, I have amazing people who work on my
farm and they went in and harvested it off the ground.
And that's not a typical event for a farmer
to have to deal with.
Raccoons, they rip ears of corn off plants and you can
deal with a raccoon at a time.
But you know, 55 mile an hour winds in late August and
when you're 50 to 65 miles inland, it's pretty crazy.
Lisa Beth Kovetz: On Sycamore Farms, Smith does his best to
innovate, but the problems of climate change loom large and
like a lot of farmers, Smith has questions and concerns.
Kevin Smith: I would be curious to know what
the trends are that are bringing more water to our
area, because they're not all storm based events.
We can read them coming across the map and they keep hitting
us over and over again.
I would like to know what is affecting that track of
moisture that's diverting it from the desert, from the
Southwest, and putting it generally in the Northeast.
I don't understand those weather patterns enough
and I'd like to know what will exacerbate that or
what will maintain it.
Lisa Beth Kovetz: Turns out, CUNY can help with that.
Professor Jimmy Booth of City College had this to say.
Professor James Booth: It's a terrific and
interesting question.
When you're looking at satellite images of clouds
or animations of the radar for the continuous United
States, one can get the impression that there are
storms that are passing from the Southwest United
States all over towards us.
And while it's true that the winds like the jet stream can
make that sort of passage, the moisture, a lot of the
water vapor that would be falling in the Southwest,
would never be able to make it over to the Northeast because
of the Rocky Mountains.
The storms that affect us a lot in the Northeast
are usually storms that develop over the Midwest
and then merge with another storm that's
coming up the coastline.
It's not often, but in these rare cases where you
get mergers between two existing storms, that's the
recipe for real problems in terms of giant rain events.
Lisa Beth Kovetz: Understanding the storms and
predicting their occurrences can help a farmer prepare.
But even so--
Kevin Smith: My fears with climate change is that
we can't really invent ourselves out of this.
One of the great things about growing up in the 80s
was the idea that like, you know, we're all brilliant.
We'll figure this out. Like it's not that big.
But you really can't invent yourself out
of this at this point.
And maybe if we could, we're 20 or 30 years too late.
Lisa Beth Kovetz: This has been Lisa Beth Kovetz
for CUNY TV.
Mike Gilliam: The effects of climate change aren't
just being felt on land and are affecting
more than just people.
Our Andrew Falzon explores how climate change is altering
fisheries here on the East Coast and around the world.
Dr. John Manderson: In the case of commercial stocks, there
is indication that climate is causing the change at
very rapid shifts in either distribution of productivity.
Andrew Falzon: Dr. John Manderson is a PhD Field
Ecologist on the front lines of not just ocean research,
but fishery management, the science of making sure
that there are enough fish to harvest from the world's
oceans, a pretty important task considering that the
World Wildlife Fund reports that worldwide 3 billion
people rely on seafood as their primary protein source.
Dr. John Manderson: And the way to continue to feed
people based on fish is to shift away from the losers to
the winners, winner stocks.
Andrew Falzon: But winner or loser, the ocean is
still in flux because of climate change and winners
could become losers.
Dr. John Manderson: So there are a lot of difficulties
in assessing this, but we've known and been able
to measure the impacts of changes in climate and to
attribute it to climate.
We've been able to do that well since the late 1990s.
Andrew Falzon: Tony DiLernia is the founder
of Rocket Charters, a recreational fishing
charter on the East Side.
Before that he was the Director of the Maritime
Program at CUNY's Kingsborough Community College.
He recalled a conversation with a NOAA
researcher in the 2000s.
Tony DiLernia: I said, you know, it looks like the stock
has shifted significantly.
And he said, well, that's a good research concept.
And they did some research and next thing I know they
published a paper that states that the summer
flounder stock, the center of the summer flounder
stocks, has shifted Northeast about 250 miles.
Dr. John Manderson: In general, we're seeing shifts of animals
towards the North and East.
And in general, we're seeing animals move to
deeper depths where there are cooler temperatures.
Andrew Flazon: That's because fish are very particular
about the water conditions they need to survive,
including temperature and pH.
Dr. John Manderson: The changes that we've been seeing in the
ocean have been happening at rates about 10 times faster
in the ocean than on land.
Tony DiLernia: I've been told by physicians that if
the pH of our bloodstream has changed, the pH of
the ocean has changed already, we would be dead.
Dr. John Manderson: Ultimately, if you need cold water
and productivity you're going to run out of planet.
Andrew Flazon: The changes have affected fisheries on
the East Coast so much that DeLernia helped get the New
York State Attorney General to Sue NOAA, the federal
agency that manages federal fishing quotas over New York's
flounder quota, which is based on data from the 1980s, when
founder lived further South.
The species has migrated North because of climate
change, but some Southern states still have very large
quotas for the flounder that no longer live there.
Tony DiLernia: They catch the fish off of Long
Island, and then they steam all the way to North
Carolina to offload them. Talk about a carbon footprint.
Andrew Falzon: And according to Dr. Manderson, it's not
uncommon for regulation to lag behind reality.
Dr. John Manderson: If you can speed up the science,
then if you can speed up the governance process,
you will still be able to have sustainable fish on
the table as a food source.
Andrew Falzon: The New York AG's lawsuit is still
pending in federal court.
Meanwhile, scientists and fishermen are holding out
hope that regulation can catch up to reality in the oceans.
I'm Andrew Falzon for CUNY TV.
Mike Gilliam: Climate change has a major impact on our
ability to produce food.
But in turn our food production has a major
impact on climate change.
And as our Ari Goldberg shows us, meat production is at
the forefront of the issue.
Sonali McDermid: Animal agriculture is probably
the biggest component of agriculture's contribution
to climate change.
The way that we raise our animals, how we feed them,
the animals themselves, and then of course, subsequent
processing of the animals, transport, all of these things
contribute to agriculture's greenhouse gas footprint.
Ari Goldberg: Sonali McDermid is a climate scientist at NYU.
She contributed to the recent IPCC report on climate change.
The IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
is the authority when it comes to climate research,
a collaboration of scientists from all across the globe who
advise the United Nations.
António Guterres: Last month, the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Changed released the deeply alarming report.
The report is indeed a code red for humanity.
Sonali McDermid: One of the big findings coming from the report
is the importance of moving towards more sustainable
farming systems, limiting greenhouse gases from
agriculture. These things are critical to achieving our
climate goals. And also that dietary change.
The movement towards more sustainable diets, which
heavily leans on plant-based diets is going to be a
critical component of reducing the climate footprint of
agriculture and land use.
Ari Goldberg: But how does farming create
greenhouse gases.
While fish, poultry, and pork all carry some carbon
footprint, the biggest culprit by far is cows.
Sonali McDermid: So the two main ways that animal
agriculture contributes to climate change is
both in the gases that the animals produce.
So people often like to say cow farts, but
it's really a cow burps.
And then the other biggest contribution outside
of the animals alone is the feed consumption.
So the crops that we grow to feed them and all the inputs
that are required for those crops, the land they take up.
And also grazing and land conversion, conversion from
forests or other landscapes to grazing, to pasture.
Ari Goldberg: Simply put, raising cows, both dairy and
beef, is kind of a perfect storm for climate impact.
They take a uniquely massive amount of land and
resources, and they also have a uniquely problematic
digestion, producing methane, a more potent greenhouse
gas than carbon dioxide.
And with a global demand for meat on the rise, the
call for new alternatives is stronger than ever.
Sonali McDermid: There are so many meat alternatives.
There are new sources coming online that are a little
bit more technology driven.
So we think about things like Impossible Burger
or Beyond Meat, for example, Impossible foods.
These are taking plant-based products and making them
recognizable to meat eaters, people who are
interested in having those hamburgers and those
processed meat components.
Ari Goldberg: While there are other routes, from
insect protein to lab grown meats, it is these
plant-based meat alternatives that have become the most
visible and accessible meat substitute on the market.
But just having an alternative isn't going to change
things if it's not the norm.
But McDermid is hopeful for the future, that with
the right push plant-based meats can become a major
driver in the fight against climate change.
Sonali McDermid: So I think it's actually, from
an economic standpoint, if allowed, right, with the help,
not just of the government, but with industry and private
public partnerships, I think it could be a wonderful area
for entrepreneurs, for that kind of industrial American
spirit to help get into the upscaling of alternative meats
and so I think it has a very hopeful future economically.
Ari Goldberg: I'm Ari Goldberg for CUNY TV.
Mike Gilliam: While innovators work to find more
sustainable ways to produce food, another major problem
contributes to climate change.
Susan Jhun has more on the enormous issue of food waste
in the US and its negative impact on the environment.
Susan Jhun: Whether it's overstocked shelves, imperfect
produce, expired labels, or trashed leftovers, food
waste happens on a massive scale across the US.
Alexina Cather: About 40% of food produced is never eaten.
Susan Jhun: The equivalent of feeding 164 million
Americans every day.
Hard numbers to swallow when 42 million Americans
grapple with food insecurity.
While the humanitarian impact of food waste is
apparent, the environmental impact is just as dire.
Madeline Keating: Many people don't know that agriculture
is one of the biggest users of energy, lands,
fresh water, all of that.
Susan Jhun: And while that waste depletes valuable
resources, it also directly contributes to
greenhouse gas emissions.
Alexina Cather: So in a landfill that is void of any
sort of oxygen, food waste sits there and releases these
gases into the atmosphere and doesn't turn into anything
that's nutrient dense.
Susan Jhun: In fact, according to a UN report,
the total carbon pollution from food waste worldwide
is about the same as global emissions from vehicles.
And along with the environmental impacts,
the cost implications are astronomical, having a direct
impact on everyone's wallet.
Madeline Keating: The average consumer at home wastes
something like 238 pounds of food annually, which is like
you are throwing away $1,200.
Susan John: Efforts to reduce all that waste are
fought at every level in stage of the supply chain,
starting from the farm where 20% of produce gets
thrown away because it isn't visually perfect, although
perfectly fine in quality.
Activists work to transform food perceptions while
innovative businesses sell the ugly produce that would
otherwise go to waste.
Another promising approach to combat surplus waste
is upcycling, which takes unused food and turns it
into valuable ingredients for other products.
Alexina Cather: Of the 40% of food that's wasted, quite a
lot of that, actually about another 40% of that, comes
from people in their homes.
Susan Jhun: In response, the Natural Resources Defense
Council, NRDC, set up the Save the Food Program, which
helps consumers understand and tackle food waste at home.
Alexina Cather: Date labels are a big contributor
of consumer food waste, because they're actually
not federally mandated.
Susan Jhun: Which means food that's labeled expired
often has a longer life.
Using your sense of smell and taste is the best way to judge
whether food is still edible.
Even sour scraps can be salvaged by using
creative recipes.
And once it's truly trash, don't trash it.
Instead, compost.
Alexina Cather: That can we actually break down into
nutrients and then revitalize the soil and actually
in some cases hold down carbon from our atmosphere.
Susan Jhun: At the public level, the NRDC is working
with cities to partner with restaurants to create dishes
with food that would otherwise go to waste, manage inventory
to avoid overstocking, connect with composting partners,
and donate to food rescue charities so excess food
goes to feed those in need.
Madeline Keating: It really takes more cohesive effort.
Susan Jhun: Education is also key.
The Hunter College Food Policy Center just launched
a food policy course that addresses the wide ranging
impacts of food waste.
For more on how you can save food and the environment
visit SaveTheFood.com and NYCFoodPolicy.org
For CUNY TV, I'm Susan Jhun.
Mike Gilliam: And people are battling climate
change from the ground up.
Our Carol Anne Riddell shows us how local neighborhoods
are making a difference from community gardens
to hydroponic farms.
Carol Anne Riddell: Nestled in the South Bronx an
oasis of green bursting with fresh produce.
Raymond Figueroa, Jr: We have kale, we have
collards, we have tomatoes, we have peppers,
we have some squash going.
We have chickens and they lay lots of eggs.
Carol Anne Riddell: Brook Park is one of the city's
many community gardens.
Once a concrete heap now an environmental treasure
that feeds local families.
Even rodents are handled naturally.
Raymond Figueroa heads the New York City Community
Garden Coalition.
Raymond Figueroa, Jr: We also at this community garden have
localized energy production.
We also have localized water catchment systems.
We harvest rainwater and water our plants.
Community gardens are really ecological centers,
ecological hubs of resilience.
Carol Anne Riddell: Alexis Andiman, a senior
attorney with EarthJustice says community
gardens are a vital part of battling climate change.
Alexis Andiman: Because of a phenomenon known as the urban
heat island effect, densely urban areas tend to be much
hotter than surrounding areas.
Community gardens help to counteract that effect,
because they provide shade and through a process known
as Evapotranspiration water travels from a plant's
roots to its leaves and evaporates and gives
off a cooling effect.
Carol Anne Riddell: Because community gardens
and development projects can end up as competing
priorities, EarthJustice is petitioning the city to
secure additional protections.
The Parks Department told us they're reviewing
the recommendations.
In the meantime, community gardens say climate change
and extreme weather has made these spaces more
critical than ever.
Alexis Andiman: Because gardens tend to have pervious
paving they have soil, water can travel into the
soil and gardens instead of flooding on city streets.
Carol Anne Riddell: Beyond the environmental benefits,
the ability to grow fresh food can have a huge impact
on communities, especially those struggling with
poverty, hunger, and a lack of high quality nutrition.
Raymond Figueroa, Jr: What we're really focused on
as community farmers is really getting very, very
freshly, harvested nutritious food into the families.
Carol Anne Riddell: On the West Side of
Manhattan, a similar goal, a different approach.
Michael Sterenberg: So we grow a lot of leafy greens.
Carol Anne Riddell: This is not your typical
high school cafeteria.
At the Martin Luther King Junior educational campus,
students can see their food as it grows.
A hydroponic farm sits right inside.
Built as part of a program through Teens
for Food Justice.
Katherine Soll is the CEO and Co-Founder.
Katherine Soll: So this farm can generate just
shy of 10,000 pounds of produce per year, which is
a huge amount of produce to be growing in a school.
Hydroponic farming is very efficient in terms
of its savings of water.
We use about 10% of the amount of water that you would
need to grow a single plant.
Carol Anne Riddell: Teens for Food Justice will have
hydroponic farms at five New York City campuses
serving 18 schools this fall.
The mission to nourish minds, bodies, and communities.
Teaching teens to build and run hydroponic systems that
grow fresh local produce for neighborhoods that need it.
Kevin Thorpe: Historically communities of color have
been deprived the opportunity to receive quality produce.
What sustainable agriculture like this allows for are for
those communities to actually grow that through themselves.
Carol Anne Riddell: So how does a hydroponic system work?
Michael Sterenberg: At the bottom of every
hydroponic system there will be a reservoir that's
filled with water that's constantly recirculating
and getting pumped to the top of the system and then
filtering down throughout.
So that's what we're getting at when we say that
there's 90% water savings.
Carol Anne Riddell: What we eat and how we grow it.
All food for thought, when it comes to
protecting our planet.
I'm Carol Anne Riddell for CUNY TV.
Mike Gilliam: So there's plenty for all of us to
do in our everyday lives to combat climate change.
I was reading that if everyone just went meatless one day
a week, we could save a huge amount of water and also
lower the global temperature.
Please join us in January when we look at
the effects of climate change in New York City.
We'll look at the impact of more frequent, heavy rain
and rising sea levels on our coastal communities.
And the implications for our health.
For CUNY TV, I'm Mike Gilliam.
Thanks for joining us.
And we'll see you next time.
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