| | | Biodiversity in farms once offered a hedge against hardship. (iStock) | | Welcome. This week, ripping up playgrounds and saving Atala butterflies. But first, why the secret ingredient for bread in a hotter world may be "chaos." |  | | Farms were once a riot of biodiversity. A single field might have contained five different varieties of corn, a mix of oats and barley or whatever jumble of grains suited farmers from France to Ethiopia. These offered a hedge against hardship: plant mixes in the field shifted with the weather. More rye one year, less wheat another. The French even had names for such flours with shifting ratios of grains, from "grande meteil" to "ble ramé," each one rising into a delicious bread all its own. But when industrial roller mills arrived in the late 1800s, the supply chain coalesced around white bread virtually overnight, writes Stephen Jones, founder of the Breadlab at Washington State University. The new mills meant white flour could be produced at enormous scale for low cost. Professional wheat breeders developed strains for refined white flour, stripped of its nutrient-rich germ, which could be stored longer. In 1890, 90 percent of U.S. households baked their bread at home. Forty years later, 90 percent were buying mass-produced white bread instead. This transition to monoculture helped drive a fourfold increase in U.S. wheat yields. It also created a food system vulnerable to climate shocks and reliant on enormous inputs of agrochemicals. Today, global grain production emits more greenhouse gases than Russia, Brazil and Germany combined, while researchers in the journal Nature estimate that wheat yields in North America could fall 1 to 10 percent for every degree of warming without adaptation. So I was intrigued when I saw King Arthur's "climate blend" flour in the baking section of my supermarket. Could it be the vanguard of a new breed of crops making their way into everyday products? I bought the flour for my kitchen. And I also obtained my own wheat seed climate blend from the Breadlab — a mix of Salish blue, a perennial released in 2021, as well as hardier varieties developed over the last few decades. I wanted to see what it's like to grow a wheat crop in my own backyard — and share it with readers around the world to hear about their experiences. Here's what I learned trying to grow what the Breadlab calls "chaos wheat," and why we still have a long row to hoe before the food system is on a sustainable path. Read my column by clicking on the blue button below. Send me your whole-grain baking (or farming) tips to climatecoach@washpost.com. I read all your emails. |  | Field Sample The sihek, or Guam kingfisher, is extinct in the wild. Of the 130 left in captivity, many are finally headed back to the tropical forests — but not in Guam. They'll be flown to a different Pacific island — a process called assisted migration — in hopes of rescuing them from oblivion. "Translocating a plant or animal to a brand-new spot is a dramatic step meant to save them from disappearing from the face of the Earth for good," write Dino Grandoni and Matt McClain. "With hundreds of thousands of species threatened with extinction, many may need to be moved to be saved." | | How far will humans go to save the world's biodiversity — even if it means moving species to entirely new habitats? The future of the Western swamp turtle, Hawaiian crow, key deer and thousands of other species may depend on it. Read more here. | Learning Curve It's a nightmare scenario: a storm hits a major American city, the power fails and residents struggle to survive as the temperatures rise to unbearable levels for the vulnerable. This happened in Houston when Tropical Storm Beryl barreled ashore in July. Despite generators, bathtubs of ice and air-conditioned hotels and emergency rooms, many died. But researchers say it could have been worse. The Washington Post's Niko Kommenda, Shannon Osaka and Simon Ducroquet used a peer-reviewed statistical model to test what would happen during a prolonged, citywide blackout coinciding with a more severe heat wave. Here's the disaster no major U.S. city is prepared for. |  |  | The Second Degree After last week's column about the mental impacts of a natural disaster, Terry, who lives in the fire-prone Southwest, shared how their home was threatened by fire and flood at least five times. After several evacuations, as well as losing pets, they finally moved somewhere safer. "We were getting too old to physically or financially recover from another similar disaster (we were 69 and 70 then)," they wrote. "And we knew there would be more." Another reader described moving far inland after Hurricane Katrina: "Still, every time there is a hurricane in the Gulf, I can feel the vestiges of panic I used to experience long before." Someone else remarked on the importance of feeling safe after evacuating to a Red Cross shelter when a fire engulfed their Manhattan hotel. "That sanctuary was meager, but so important to our sense of 'everything is going to be ok.' That early feeling … is key to dealing with trauma." If you find yourself struggling after a natural disaster, there are resources from the Red Cross to local relief organizations (one reader volunteers for Vancouver's Emergency Support Services in Canada) and a national disaster distress helpline (1—800—985—5990) open to all U.S. residents who have experienced a natural or human-caused disaster, a service run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. |  |  | | Once abundant, the Atala butterfly was presumed extinct in Florida after overharvesting of its preferred host plant, a native cycad called the coontie. But on a small island between Miami and Key Biscayne, a few specimens were found in 1979. Today, they've begun to spread across southeastern Florida, thanks in part to intrepid naturalists, gardeners and landscapers. Patty Grande has been maintaining a butterfly garden for the last five years in West Palm Beach. She snapped photos of these Atala caterpillars and a butterfly. "We found atala caterpillars on a coontie last week and rejoice at their tiny red presence," she writes. Are you gardening for rare species in your neighborhood? Send your photos and stories to climatecoach@washpost.com | | Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here to get The Climate Coach in your inbox every Tuesday. See you next Tuesday, Michael Coren, Climate Coach | | |
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