Michael Hoffmann Uses Food to Warn of Disastrous Effects of Climate Change
Leigh Award Seminar Speaker Says 'Our Goal Is to Stabilize It'
UC Davis doctoral alumnus and Cornell University emeritus professor Michael Hoffmann, a noted entomologist and climate change educator, warned of the worldwide disastrous effects of climate change when he delivered the Thomas and Nina Leigh Distinguished Award Seminar recently in the Putah Creek Lodge.
“The goal of climate change now is simply, let’s not make it worse,” he said. “Our goal is to stabilize it…we need to confront climate change, meet it head on…. As they say, there's no Planet B.”
“The evidence of climate change is all around us,” said Hoffmann, citing “floods and increasing fires and then there's this giant glacier in the Antarctica called the Doomsday Glacier (Thwaites Glacier). It's about the size of Florida, and it’s going to it's going to break loose sooner or later. Most of us will not be here when it happens…”
When the glacier collapses, the global sea levels could rise up to 10 feet, jeopardizing worldwide coastal communities, scientists say. Because the glacier is losing 50 billion tons of ice annually, researchers estimate it will melt within the next 200 years. The American Geophysical Union predicted in 2021 that a key section of the glacier will collapse within the next five years.
Hoffmann, who titled his seminar, “Our Changing Menu: Using the Power of Food to Confront Climate Change,” said that rising temperatures and increasing greenhouse gas emissions are threatening the "food we depend on" and "changing the flavors, aromas, nutritional quality, and prices of the foods we love and need.”
"Food is the ideal messenger for the climate change story and one that can make climate change relevant to everyone — we all eat,” said Hoffmann, the lead author of the book, Our Changing Menu: Climate Change and the Foods We Love and Need (Cornell Press 2021.
His goal: to confront "the grand challenge of climate change by helping people understand and appreciate what is happening through the foods we all love and need.”
A native of Wisconsin, Hoffmann grew up on "a one-cow dairy farm" and served as a sergeant in the U. S. Marines during the Vietnam War. He received his bachelor's degree in 1975 from the University of Wisconsin, master's degree in 1978 from the University of Arizona, and his doctorate in 1990 from UC Davis, where he studied with Professor Ted Wilson and later Frank Zalom, now UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus.
Zalom, former director of the UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program, introduced Hoffmann. Zalom said he first met him 42 years ago when he (Hoffmann) enrolled as a doctoral student at UC Davis. Research collaborations followed.
“And by the time he departed to California to join the faculty at Cornell, we'd become co-authors on 19 publications,” Zalom recalled.
Zalom described Hoffmann as "one of my closest friends" and “one of the finest people I've ever known… As a faculty member in entomology of Cornell, Mike not only conducted IPM research, but he put it into practice through his personal interactions with diverse communities in New York State. He became director of the New York State IPM program, and it's one of the very best IPM programs in the country. And then he applied his passion for sustainability as director of Cornell's Agricultural Experiment Station, where it's widely acknowledged that he created a culture of sustainability at the institution.”
“Mike is a big picture kind of person,” said Zalom, pointing out that Hoffmann is dedicating "the latter half of his career to addressing climate change impacts by highlighting its effects on food. He's given hundreds of engaging presentations on climate change, including a highly regarded TedX talk… He was executive director of the Cornell Institute for Climate Change Solutions when he retired from Cornell in 2020."
What Does Food Mean to You?
At the beginning of his seminar, Hoffmann asked the crowd: “In one word, what does food means to you?” Responses included “family,” “freedom” and “survival.” Hoffmann mentioned "joy"--the absolute “joy of eating.”
Hoffmann described the deleterious effects of greenhouse gas, the gas in the atmosphere that traps heat and raises the surface temperature of the Earth. He displayed a chart from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that listed transportation as responsible for 27 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. “We have one billion motor vehicles worldwide,” he said, “and 102,000 (airline) flights per day worldwide.”
Electric power accounts for 25 percent; industry, 24 percent; commercial and residential, 13 percent, and agriculture, 11 percent. Human activities are responsible for almost all of the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the last 150 years. “The largest source of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities in the United States is from burning fossil fuels for electricity, heat, and transportation," according to the EPA.
Said Hoffmann: “You want to really appreciate that thin (atmospheric) layer. Next time you're flying across country, and the pilot says, 'Ladies and gentlemen, we're at cruising altitude,' look down, you're looking through it (the thin layer)."
The "thin" layer is the troposphere, the lowest layer of the Earth's atmosphere where most weather phenomena occur, and where increasing greenhouse gases from human activities trap heat, causing warming and adversely impacting the overall climate system.
“So why tap the power of food to tell this story?” Hoffmann asked, answering:
- It’s relevant—we all eat
- It speaks to culture, family traditions and emotions
- Enjoyable, it's a social lubricant
- Easy to talk about, unlimited stories
- A rich world audience.
As George Bernard Shaw said “There is no love sincerer than the love of food,” Hoffmann said, adding "And love is the greatest motivator.”
Hoffmann said he asks his students on the first day of class: “What’s the first word that comes to mind when you're thinking about the effect of climate change on food?"
They usually respond with "famine, hunger, scarcity, starvation and shortages," he told the UC Davis audience. Worldwide conflicts and mass migration are bound to increase.
What’s being done?
Hoffmann listed three points:
- Climate-smart farming (promotes soil health, effective water management, diversification and adaptation)
- Food and beverage businesses (evaluating supply chains, developing alternative ingredients, and reducing impact)
- Science (researching resilient varieties, including genetically engineered (GE), soil health, climate modeling, water management and more)
GE is safe and gene editing is precise, Hoffmann shared. “It’s like removing a single gene from the 32,000 in a corn plant or one key from a piano with 32,000 keys.” He quoted the National Academy of Science: “There is no substantial evidence that foods from GE crops were less safe than foods from non-GE crops.”
In closing, Hoffmann asked: "What can we all do?" and cited
- Talk about it—use food to do so
- Become climate change literate
- Focus on what matters
- Get involved—what you’re best at
- Be the first—peer pressure works.
He quoted Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, known for challenging world leaders to take immediate action to mitigate the effects of human-caused climate change: “No one is too small to make a difference.”
The Leigh seminar memorializes cotton entomologist Thomas Frances Leigh (1923-1993), an international authority on the biology, ecology and management of arthropod pests affecting cotton production. During his 37-year UC Davis career, Leigh was based at the Shafter Research and Extension Center, also known as the U.S. Cotton Research Station. When his wife, Nina, passed in 2002, the name of the alumni seminar changed to the Thomas and Nina Distinguished Alumni Award Seminar.
Hoffmann was selected the 2020 recipient of the Leigh Seminar Award, but the COVID pandemic intervened and other dates conflicted. (Watch recording here.)