Climate change is an ongoing threat to human health and environments—including food and water sources around the world—and the world is running out of time to change course. The assessment is in a new report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) featuring the expertise of leading scientists.
Lewis Ziska, associate professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, was a member of a working group of reviewers who contributed to the document. An expert in food stability and availability, Ziska contributed to a chapter that focused on diet-related mortality.
“Climate change is a threat multiplier when it comes to food security, and the most vulnerable in the global population — the young and the old — are especially at risk in regard to supply, nutritional quality, and food safety,” noted Ziska.