Arsenic and Old Rice: Climate Change Will Make Staple Food More Dangerous

More than half the world’s population relies on rice as their primary staple food. A new study has some bad news for those four-plus billion people: warming temperatures and rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels will likely increase the levels of arsenic found in paddy rice by mid-century, carrying wide-ranging health implications.

“As rice is a dietary staple in many parts of the world, these changes could lead to a substantial rise in the global burden of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and other arsenic-related health issues,” said Lewis Ziska, an environmental health sciences professor at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, in a press release. The new study was published on Wednesday in The Lancet Planetary Health.