Wash Publish claims: ‘Carbon pollution is making food less nutritious’ – ‘Nearly every plant that humans eat is harmed by rising CO2 levels’ – Rising CO2 ranges ‘will cause an epidemic of hidden hunger’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2026/carbon-pollution-diluting-key-nutrients-food/
By Naema Ahmed and Sarah Kaplan
April 30, 2026
Chickpeas and rice are not the only foods steadily growing less nutritious. Many of humanity’s most important crops — including wheat, potatoes, beans — contain fewer vitamins and minerals than they did a generation ago.
The invisible culprit behind this damaging phenomenon? Carbon dioxide pollution.
Surging concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere, caused largely by burning fossil fuels, have produced potent changes in the way plants grow — from increasing their sugar content to depleting essential nutrients like zinc. Experts fear the degradation of Earth’s food supply will cause an epidemic of hidden hunger, in which even people who consume enough calories won’t get the nutrients they need to thrive.
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Plants depend on carbon dioxide to perform photosynthesis — but that doesn’t mean they grow better when there’s more carbon in the air, scientists say. A sweeping survey of changes among 32 compounds in 43 crops found that nearly every plant that humans eat is harmed by rising CO2 levels.
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One of the primary theories is related to the fact that extra carbon dioxide helps plants produce more carbohydrates — like the cellulose in leaves and stems, and the starch that’s found in grains. …
Ultimately, Myers said, the best way to protect human health is for people to stop releasing so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which not only depletes the nutritional value of crops but leads to escalating heat waves, intensifying floods and lengthening droughts that hurt food production around the globe.
Research shows that carbon dioxide’s positive effect on plant growth is far outstripped by the damage from rising temperatures, which could cut yields of some staples by more than 20 percent by 2050 in the worst-case warming scenarios.
“There is no silver lining,” Myers said.
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