About Timothy D. Searchinger
Timothy D. Searchinger is a Research Scholar at Princeton University. He is the lead author of a series of reports, including a new synthesis, by the World Resources Institute, the World Bank and UN agencies on how to meet global food needs in 2050 while reducing greenhouse gas emissions titled Creating a Sustainable Food Future. Although trained as a lawyer, his work today combines ecology, agronomy and economics to analyze the challenge of how to feed a growing world population while reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. Searchinger was the lead author of two papers in Science in 2008 and 2009 offering the first calculations of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with land use change due to biofuels and describing a broader error for bioenergy generally in the accounting rules for the Kyoto Protocol and many national laws. A recent paper in Nature proposes a new method for evaluating the climate consequences of land use change. Searchinger has also worked at the Environmental Defense Fund, been a consultant to the World Bank, a Senior Fellow of the Law and Environmental Policy Institute at Georgetown University Law Center, a fellow at the Smith School at Oxford University, a Deputy General Counsel to Governor Robert P. Casey of Pennsylvania and a law clerk to Judge Edward Becker of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He is a graduate, summa cum laude, of Amherst College and holds a J.D. from Yale Law School where he was Senior Editor of the Yale Law Journal.
How can we feed the world without destroying it? Agriculture already occupies almost half of the world’s vegetated land, generates one quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, and is the dominant driver of biodiversity loss. By 2050, the population will likely grow to 10 billion people, and billions will demand more resource-intensive foods, particularly meat and milk. To solve climate change while meeting food demands, global agriculture must produce roughly 50% more food while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by two thirds. This talk will present a five-course menu for achieving this challenge based on the Synopsis Report, Creating a Sustainable Food Future issued by the World Resources Institute, the World Bank, UN Environment and the UN Development Program.
Searchinger makes it clear that at the rate in which human population is growing and the amount of food produced today will not be sufficient enough to feed everyone in the next couple years. By 2050, we need to produce more than 50% more food and reduce carbon dioxide emissions dramatically. Greenhouse gases produced during agricultural process will amount to approximately 15 gigatons by 2030; meaning that to save and stabilize the planet’s climate and control population, human emissions have to emit below 21 gigatons. Searchinger argues that we cannot save the planet with our current lifestyle.
How can we save the planet? Searchinger introduces the method of “five course solution menu” to illustrate the different sustainable methods needed by 2050. This “five course solution menu” includes reducing growth in demand, increasing food production on existing agricultural land, protecting and restoring tundra ecosystems, increasing fish supply, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural production processes. If we need to produce 50% more food and restore more carbon from the atmosphere,the only way to ensure this is to make more efficient use of the land, reduce food and waste loss, control population growth, and reduce animal products altogether. In order to do this, however, innovation, research funding, and flexible regulation is necessary to guarantee positive results and provide equitable food distribution to ever single person on the planet while reducing animal products and adapting plant based diets.
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