Nutrition in 2050—Increased CO2 Changing Plant Nutrients
Low levels of dietary iron and zinc can facilitate a multitude of assaults to the human condition. When humans are lacking in these nutrients, they can suffer a weakened immune system, anemia, low IQ, and reduced energy levels. Approximately 2 billion people suffer from iron and zinc deficiencies worldwide.
Recent experiments based on wheat, peas, soybeans, and rice have shown that high levels of CO2 decrease the plant material’s iron, zinc, and even protein levels between 5 and 10%. Unfortunately, these are the crops that supply 70% of these nutrients to a hungry and malnourished planet.
Just this April, carbon dioxide levels were recorded for the first time (since records have been kept) at or above 400 parts per million across the entire northern hemisphere. This is 150% of the levels in pre-industrial times – in about a 100 year span. A nanosecond in geological time.
The experiments elevated the carbon dioxide levels to between 546 and 586 ppm. This is the level that scientists expect to see in some parts of the world by around 2050. Projected population in 2050 is about 9.6 billion (up 38% from 2010).
With all these mouths to feed – and nourish – humans will be hard pressed to fulfill their dietary needs in the future. Perhaps we could ban together and make some changes.
Excerpt from PURSUIT: Ya Kuwinda. This is Book #1 in Brandon’s Pursuit Series. The newly-revised 2nd Edition was released in 2018.
Her father stooped over the beautifully clustered cineraria stellata and offered a rare smile.
My old friend Dr. Wiseman at the University of Hertfordshire did a study on why some people are lucky. He told me that among those people he tested, the ones who rated themselves as lucky scored markedly higher in the area of extroversion. Their extroversion significantly increased the likelihood of having a lucky chance encounter.
So-called lucky people are more likely to notice chance opportunities, even when they are not expecting them. They are open to new experiences and like the notion of unpredictability.
She giggled like any twelve-year-old girl at the thought of her stern father an extrovert. She was even surprised he had an old friend as he only occasionally socialized, and then only with his botanical colleagues.
“Father, why do you think of that when you are with the cineraria?”
Harper, you are a perceptive little one. Our lovely stellata is the horticultural embodiment of the conceptual state of luck. She lives in clusters with her sisters, languishing sublimely in the under-story of large, shady protectors. She harbors collections of bright, small star shaped flowers, thus her name stellata, and has a free and easy growing habit.
When stellata finishes her mirthful display, her seed pods float away in a feathery shower with the others, in a sleepy respite, secretly promising an amazing spring. The many clusters of flowers and resulting seed pods increase her chances of successful replication in her environment with many serendipitous opportunities to thrive in suitable locations.
Stellata has every advantage to enhance her luck and is tenacious in her pursuit to thrive. It would be wise to apply her credo to our daily lives in the knowledge that luck is what we make it.
The unpredictability of gusts is the fertilizer of structural stability.
Strelizia nicolai, also known as the “White Bird of Paradise,” is unique in a number of ways. Strelizia is one of the most widely used ornamental species in the world. Unlike most other cultivars, the “White Bird” is used in both interior and exterior applications. Check out any casino in Vegas or senior facility landscape in Tampa and one can find the strelizia genus, especially the “Red Bird,” in lobbies as well as parking lot dividers.
The Bird is able to not only survive but to flourish in a multitude of habitats. She exhibits incredible flexibility in both genetic structure and fortitude. There are very few species that can, and perhaps in an abstract way will, achieve success through sheer botanical determination under such circumstances.
The “Bird of Paradise” has a willowy stem structure. In the interior placement, the “branches” (technically petioles) tend to droop. In the exterior landscape model, Streliziareginia remains upright and vigilant, needing only an occasional nitrogen fertilizer supplement for the ideal “V” shape.
Wind, coming from multiple directions with a variety of speeds, strengthens stem structure from all angles. The fibers and cellulose in the tissues of the long stems react to breezes with a growth habit constructed to keep its foliage during storms. Without gusts, Strelizia leaves are flaccid.
The stem structure of Strelizia needs controversy to be strong and resilient.
Unexpected gusts are beneficial once in a while. Humans also have the capability to bend with the wind and rebound from adversity. Winds strengthen our structural stability as well. Without the occasional tossing about, the human psyche could be weak during more serious torrents.
Unpredictability is perhaps the greatest psychological threat to humans. It seems that the modern-day Homo sapiens have lost genetic touch with the inevitability of change. One can surmise that Homo habilus and “Lucy” (H. australopithicus) were deeply entrenched in the absolute certainty of change on a daily (most likely hourly) basis. They had a much shorter life span than twenty-first century humans, yet grasped the concept.
Climate change will bring about the obsolescence of “normal.” This is certain. Unless Homo sapiens can join the strength from a lifetime of wind gusts with a conscious, intelligent, bipartisan action to affect political policy, Homo s. will face the consequences of a flaccid global action and a non-effectual result.
If the unpredictability of adversity, i.e. the change of the wind, is not embraced as the fertilizer of stability, there can be no strong structure to weather the change that is coming.
