In this episode, we're looking at a warming world through a lens you may not expect: your dinner plate. Our guest is Mike Hoffmann, who has spent his career helping people understand the impacts of carbon pollution through the foods we all love and need. Mike has written on the subject for outlets including The Hill, Fortune, Medium, and USA Today, and is the lead author of Our Changing Menu: Climate Change and the Foods We Love and Need, published by Cornell Press in 2021. He's also delivered a TEDx Talk, "Climate Change: It's Time to Raise Our Voices," and has given more than 150 related talks over the course of his career. Mike grew up on a one-cow dairy farm, served in the Marines during the Vietnam War, and went on to hold multiple leadership roles at Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, where he now holds the title of Professor Emeritus. As he puts it, he intends to keep telling this story for as long as he can.
The conversation opens with a snapshot of where things stand this fall with extreme weather, from wildfires and rising heat to the incoming El Niño, setting the stage for the deeper conversation about food. From there, Mike explains why he chose food as his entry point into this story rather than energy, sea level rise, or extreme weather, and what makes it such a powerful and relatable way to reach people. He and host Shannon Maganiezin dig into how food itself is changing due to excess greenhouse gases (GHGs), including troubling shifts in nutritional quality, the vitamins, proteins, and essential minerals that our diets depend on.
Mike also shares a story about pizza, one he's found to be a surprisingly effective way to illustrate the far-reaching effects of a warming climate on the foods we love, drawn from the many presentations he's given on the topic. The discussion turns to his teaching at Cornell, where he leads a course called Using the Power of Food to Confront Climate Change, and what he's learned from working with the next generation on these issues. The episode closes on a call to action: Mike's belief that food is the ultimate messenger for telling this story, and the potential for real change if more people start talking about and sharing it, including producers, food media, consumer groups, and chefs.
