There has been a fair amount of national discussion in recent days about the strains on our country's food supply chain. While these pressures will be alleviated when we are able to move past the pandemic, it's important for our medical community to remember that there continues to be a second, constant threat to food production and nutrition: climate change.
In a series of AAMCNews articles last year on the health effects of global warming, we examined how climate-related changes in temperature and catastrophic weather events can threaten crop yields, water quality, and livestock/marine animal health. High carbon dioxide levels can even affect the nutritional value of food. We can't leave this issue to the environmental science community or the agricultural community to solve-climate change and food supply is a health care issue too.
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Gabi Redford
Director and Managing Editor, AAMCNews
Association of American Medical Colleges
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