Chapter 1: What economic indicators are impacting the job market?
The metaphor of the day is shoes. As in, when is the other one going to drop? From American Public Media, this is Marketplace. In Denver, I'm Amy Scott, in for Kai Risdahl. It's Monday, May 11th. Good to have you with us. I hate to start the week off on a down note after that surprisingly buoyant jobs report we had just before the weekend.
It showed strong job creation and low unemployment in April. But the other economic shoe, and there's that metaphor, drops tomorrow with the latest inflation numbers for April. the Consumer Price Index, and forecasters are expecting it to show a big increase in prices, led, no surprise, by gas and energy. Marketplace's Mitchell Hartman has the outlook.
I heard the word hot from a bunch of economists about tomorrow's inflation data, and not in a good way.
Tomorrow's CPI report, it's going to be a hot one. I'm expecting the second straight, extremely hot.
It's simply an unmitigated disaster to have rising energy and related energy commodities.
That's Arun Sundaram at CFRA Research, Joe Bursuelas at consulting firm RSM, and Jay Hatfield at Infrastructure Capital Advisors.
Economists expect headline inflation in April to come in at 3.8% year over year. In February, before the Iran war started, it was 2.4%. Jay Hatfield says we've seen this before when inflation spiked during the 1970s OPEC oil embargo.
Difference now is that the Iran war is also affecting other key economic inputs. It's not just an energy price shock.
But the closure of the strait is impacting a number of commodities exported out of the Middle East, so like aluminum, steel, and fertilizer.
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Chapter 2: How is inflation expected to affect consumer prices?
And yes, they are protein-rich and delicious, but it turns out they and a bunch of other food staples might not be as nutritious as they were even a decade ago. And the reason is carbon dioxide. Sarah Kaplan wrote about it at the Washington Post in a story called The Invisible Force Making Food Less Nutritious. Sarah, welcome to the program. Thanks for having me.
So climate change has a lot of consequences for food, but I was surprised to learn that the carbon dioxide itself that's causing global warming is a problem. Can you talk about why? Yeah. So scientists think that it has to do with the way that plants grow. They take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and turn it into carbohydrates.
And when there's more carbon in the atmosphere, that's more, you know, quote unquote food for the plants to grow. But the problem that plants are facing is that there's not a comparable increase in the other kinds of minerals.
Things like zinc and iron, phosphorus, calcium, these really important minerals in the soil that are not so important to the plants, but are really important to the people who consume those plants. And that means that any given bite of a plant is going to have more sugar in it and less of these essential nutrients. Wow. So I talked about chickpeas. That's a big one.
What are some of the other crops that are losing their nutritious value? Yeah. So some researchers in the Netherlands did what's called a meta-analysis last year, and they found that dozens of nutrients across dozens of different crops are all being affected.
So that includes everything from really essential staples like rice and wheat and soybeans to lettuce to potatoes to sweet peppers to canola to And one of the really interesting things is that every plant seems to be affected a little bit differently. So, for example, chickpeas, like you mentioned, you know, between the 1980s and 2040, zinc in chickpeas is expected to decline almost 40%. Wow.
But, you know, really it is across the board. Most nutrients in most plants are seeing some kind of decrease.
Wow.
Across the board, this research, I think, found that nutrients fell by a little over 3% since the late 1980s. But you're right that that's actually, it sounds small, but it's pretty significant in terms of the potential health impacts. Yeah, and that's because nutrient deficiency is a huge public health problem around the world.
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Chapter 3: What role does the Iran war play in the current economic situation?
She and graphics reporter Naima Ahmed share the byline on the story. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. If you want more on how climate change is affecting our food and vice versa, check out the podcast I host, How We Survive. We did a whole season on the topic. And we've got a brand new season coming out later this month. It's all about engineering nature.
Large-scale climate interventions some say could be our last hope. Here's a sneak peek from the trailer. Are you talking about darkening the sky?
So a constellation of sunshades would cast an even dimming of shade across the entire Earth.
We're exploring ideas for cooling the planet that are out there, like really out there. Investing that much in building anything in space creates a whole space economy. And talking with entrepreneurs trying to bring these ideas to life.
The only thing worse than a private company doing this is no one doing this at all.
Do either of you have a science background?
We don't.
If we do this, this is a decision that will affect all life on the planet.
Alls we are are guinea pigs in their laboratory.
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Chapter 4: How does climate change affect the nutritional value of food?
But he says the archipelago also needs to improve energy efficiency. Many public buildings are old, and newer, fancier hotels need more electricity.
There are hotels with one jacuzzi per room.
That's a crazy idea for an island that has the most beautiful ocean in the world, he says. In addition to the transition to solar, abandoned combustion vehicles were supposed to take effect in Noronha last year. That's on hold until 2030. In Fernando de Noronha, Brazil, I'm Gisele Regatao for Marketplace.
This final note on the way out today, coming next year, Wordle, the TV show? The New York Times and NBCUniversal announced today they're teaming up to produce a game show based on the five-letter word-guessing game. To be hosted by Savannah Guthrie with Jimmy Fallon as a producer.
Launched by Welsh software engineer Josh Wardle during COVID, the free game united lockdown-weary players across the world today. before the Times acquired it for an undisclosed low seven-figure sum. Whatever they paid him, today I'm thinking he could have asked for more. Amir Bibawi, Caitlin Esch, John Gordon, Noya Karr, Steve Mullis, and Stephanie Seek are the Marketplace editing staff.
Kelly Silvera is the news director. And I'm Amy Scott. Hope to see you back here tomorrow. This is APN.
Hey, it's Francis Lam, host of the Splendid Table podcast. Every week on our show, we celebrate the intersection of food and life. And this month, we're releasing a new series called Culinary Masters. It highlights some of the most iconic people in the food world. And we're revisiting conversations with people who have fundamentally changed how many of us cook and think about food.
People like Jacques Pepin, Claudia Rodin, and Tony Bourdain, to name a few. You can listen to this special series now. Just search for the Splendid Table in your podcast app.
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