“How We Survive” returns Oct. 15

“How We Survive” returns Oct. 15

From How We Survive by Marketplace

October 8, 2025 · 3 min · Season 8

About this episode

This episode explores the future of food in the context of the climate crisis and its impact on agriculture.

Imagine a future where chocolate and coffee are rare and expensive; where cheap, nutritional staples, like corn and wheat, are threatened. The climate crisis is a food and agriculture crisis. A third of global greenhouse gas emissions come from what’s on our plate. Cow burps, deforestation, water use and food waste all feed into making our planet unlivable. And it’s a double-edged sword, because as the planet heats up, staple crops are withering, soil is losing its nutrients, and droughts and famines will become more common. Our food systems are hurting the planet, and the hotter planet is hurting our food systems. To survive, we need to drastically cut down our use of farmland and we need to find alternative meat sources that don’t give consumers the creeps. How will we keep feeding millions of people? And how will we do that with less land? This season of “How We Survive,” we’ll take you on a food tour of the future. May we interest you in some lab-grown chocolate or some cell cultivated salmon (that is, if you’re not in Florida )? We explore the uncanny valley of meat and visit farmers in our nation’s breadbasket where hotter, drier, less predictable weather has global…

Topics covered

  • climate crisis
  • food systems
  • agriculture
  • sustainable food sources
  • future of food
  • environmental impact

Keywords

  • climate change
  • food crisis
  • greenhouse gas emissions
  • sustainable agriculture
  • factory farms
  • nutritional staples

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: How We Survive, Marketplace

Products: lab-grown chocolate, cell cultivated salmon

Places: Florida

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