CHICAGO, Ill. – The development, production and delivery of food accounts for roughly one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions. This presents a major climate-change conundrum, as global food production is on the rise as the world’s population heads toward 9 billion by 2050. Untangling the complexity of the food and greenhouse gas landscape is now a major research priority. On Sunday at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in Chicago, some of the world’s top food researchers and scientists will present state-of-the-art approaches to quantifying, understanding and mitigating the implications of dietary consumption for climate change. Drawing on international expertise in life cycle greenhouse gas accounting, novel spatial tools for optimizing low-carbon food production, domestic and European food policy perspectives, and an emerging private sector low-carbon diet initiative, the experts will present a unified vision for untangling one the world’s more challenging problems. Several of the panelists are core researchers involved in the world’s first global life-cycle assessment of a food super-commodity (in this case, salmon); the peer-reviewed results of that study are due later in 2009.

Reporters are encouraged to contact Dr. Scholz directly on her cell phone or by email for interviews at AAAS on this issue, as well as other areas of her research including marine protected areas, marine science, and climate-related economic policy. Dr. Scholz is an ecological economist by training, and received her Ph.D. in Energy and Resources from the University of California at Berkeley. In addition to her post at Ecotrust, she is an affiliate faculty member of Oregon State University’s College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences program.

What:
Symposium on state-of-the-art approaches to the climate change / food production conundrum.

Who:

• Astrid Scholz, Ecotrust, Portland, OR (moderator)
• Nathan Pelletier, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada (co-organizer)
• Ulf Sonesson, Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology, Goteborg, Sweden
• Peter Tyedmers, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
• David Pimentel, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
• Helene York, Bon Appetit Food Management Company Foundation, Palo Alto, CA
• Christopher Weber, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA

Where:
Hyatt Regency, Columbus GH conference room
Chicago, IL

When:
Sunday, February 15, 2009, 8:30am – 11:30am