A Small Solar Wheel Might Solve the Ocean’s Trash Problem
When you consider all the ills facing our oceans, including rapid acidification, the bleaching of corals, and the accelerated die-off of some species, the one most puzzling is simple trash. Every year, humanity produces about 300 million tons of plastic. A chunk of it filters through the production and consumption life cycle and then, by virtue of storm drains and sewer pipes, ends up in the ocean. A year or two later, Earth’s circling currents bring that trash to one of five main gyres, where it ...
Can You Solve California’s Drought?
You'd have to be hiding deep in a well somewhere to miss news about California's crushing water shortage. More than 80 percent of the state is in severe or exceptional drought, a scientific classification not seen since before California's 1849 gold rush.
Here at National Geographic, my colleague Dennis Dimick, the magazine's environment editor, took a deep dive into the cracked dirt around the part of the country we both come from. Dennis covers enough ground to know that aquifers are being overtaxed and wells are being drilled to new depths. The damage to farms and the crops they grow is immediate. To say nothing of the businesses ...
China Wants to Be Bigger
China has never been a country satisfied simply by symbolic power, the kind you get when you win the World Cup, or by bringing home medals from the Olympics. Like any industrializing country, it wants the real thing: to hold the debts of large countries and to manufacture the world’s most consumed goods. It wants an impressive military and to be respected for its economic muscle.
Within a decade, economists expect China—whose GDP grows around seven percent a year—to become the world’s largest economy, overtaking the United States, which has growth of around three percent annually. As the planet’s most ...
Coffee’s Goldilocks Problem
Coffee is a beverage with deeply complex character and history. Unfortunately, you can't find much about coffee's story in North America. The continent is the recipient of most of the world's coffee but the producer of almost none. Only one U.S. state grows coffee (Hawaii) and that's because of its unique geography. Everywhere else is inhospitable to the fickle bean.
So last month, we traveled south to see coffee's complexities. A drought in Brazil earlier this year led to dramatically lower supply and higher prices on the global coffee exchange worldwide, where coffee is sold as a commodity. In Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais, ...
We’re Nearing Peak Banana
Of all the astounding facts about bananas—that they’re actually a berry, that they contain trace amounts of radiation, that they’re the top-sold single item at Walmart—this one is my favorite: every banana consumed in the United States and Europe and most of Asia is a clone of an older banana, called the Cavendish that went into commercial production in the 1960s. The banana most of the world eats is a result not of the fruit’s magical characteristics but of humanity’s industrial food system. Its ubiquity is thanks to researchers who have optimized it to grow quickly and reliably and ship large distances with minimal damage.
The End of Food?
Not long ago at National Geographic, we took a look in our April edition at Soylent, the edible mixture unappetizingly referred to as a meal replacement. Soylent may be best described as a smoothie of raw nutrients, exactly what your body needs each day and nothing more. It’s story of development—featured this month in the New Yorker—is perfectly logical. A bunch of young, male entrepreneurs trying to launch a tech start up realized a vitamin slurry would help avoid the chore and expense of eating actual food.
Over the past two years, Soylent has grown into a viable business. And that’s in spite of the unusual decision for ...
How Strawberries Get to You
On any given day, up to half a million trucks criss-cross America to bring fresh food to people at the peak of ripeness. Often, that food comes from thousands of miles away, shipped through trucks and warehouses to arrive exactly when customers are most likely to buy them. That's the foundation of the most advanced food distribution system in the world.
To see it at work, Spencer and I committed to follow a truck coast to coast. We watched a shipment of strawberries being loaded in Watsonville, California, and stayed on its tail until Landover, Maryland. In all, 3,200 miles over three days.
The berries are charismatic, but the real ...
Where Will All The Farmers Go?
Of all the things kids are asked whether they’d like to be when they grow up—doctors, presidents, radio DJs—it’s rare to hear someone under 15 proclaim with loud abandon that he wants to be a farmer. Which is curious, considering the rich history of American agriculture and the fact that it's a job that will always be in demand.
Which is not to say that farming is ever a sure thing. Farming is hard. It’s unpredictable and risky putting your livelihood at the behest of rain and fertilizer. As a result, farming has become increasingly top heavy. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, for every farmer under 25, ...
Brewing Better Coffee
Last week, we went to Brazil for caffeine. No country produces more coffee than Brazil, which sits at the rare climatic intersection of cool days, warm nights, and wet soil. It's a good business, considering the world's ballooning appetite for the brown drink. Although producing coffee isn't as easy as it used to be. A drought in January that eliminated about one-fifth of the year's beans is widely thought to forecast more of what's expected: irregular weather, unpredictable harvests, and higher prices for everyone who drinks coffee.
It's not all bad news. Most coffee is grown by small-scale ...
The Next Napa?
Good wine comes from good grapes, which need good soil, which is helped by good weather. Growing wine grapes is so difficult, in fact, only a few regions in the world really nail it: Napa, Bordeaux, Chianti. It’s technically possible to grow grapes anywhere that has damp and cool weather, but the terroir of good wine—the special characteristics of a place it comes from—is what makes it stand apart from the cheaper stuff.
Meet Lodi, California, a place you’ve probably never heard of, but your taste buds have probably visited. The town is most famous for the 1969 Creedence Clearwater Revival lyric about being “Stuck in Lodi Again,” although ...